I just noticed today that Rhapsody has added Better Than Ezra’s Greatest Hits. Greatest hits? Should that really be plural? I remember “Good” being a decent song at a time when most things on the radio were decent. I vaguely remember that they had another single (from the next album?) that charted, but didn’t get that much play. Maybe I’m being too harsh then. Maybe their Greatest Hits is a short EP. Nope. I went back to check and there’s 16 tracks on it. I guess their standard for “great” is just pretty low. And their standard for “hit” must be as well. Maybe they think “hit” actually means “released” or maybe only “recorded.” I’d suggest that it’s a marketing ploy, but who would buy it? Please tell me no one would buy it.
This reminds of reading that Frankie Goes to Hollywood released a greatest hits album back in 1994 (Bang!…The Greatest Hits of Frankie Goes to Hollywood). I remember thinking to myself at the time that it must be a single with “Relax” on one side and “Two Tribes” on the other. Nope, it was 13 tracks (including a Gerry and the Pacemakers cover, no less). I know they didn’t have 13 hits! They had two albums, Welcome to the Pleasuredome (16 tracks) and Liverpool (8 tracks), with a grand total of 24 tracks. If 13 were hits, why did they stop after only two albums? The odds aren’t that good for U2. They weren’t even that good for the Beatles!
Those are just two examples, 11 years apart, but this happens all the time. A band has a big hit and maybe a few minor hits in the years that follow and then all of the sudden there’s a Greatest Hits album full of songs that are neither great nor hits. Who buys this? Is it an attempt to sell to people who remember the song and can’t remember what album it was on? A quick browse at allmusic.com and a trip to the used bin of the local record store would save them some money. And it would keep a little money out of the pockets of labels and bands who want to repackage and resell stuff that wasn’t all that good the first time around.