The Modern Common Sense of Things: Greatest hits are not so great

by Karen! Garcia | March 11, 2010 | Montana Kaimin

Seeing as I am a staunch supporter of the crunk rap movement, it should come as no surprise that the November 2009 release of “Legendary Status: Ying Yang Twins Greatest Hits” brought tears of true joy to my eyes.

Instead of having to sift through several albums to access the lyrical gems that are “Hanh!” and “1st Booty on Duty,” I could purchase a single record and reflect at great length on what Kaine and D-Roc really meant when they declared, “Ho, drop that shit to tha flo’ like (Hanh) / Pop it till ya can’t no mo’ like (Hanh).”

Ying Yang Twins’ poetry aside, the greatest hits album has always been a mysterious and doubt-inducing feature of the music industry. Cynics allege the release of such an album is only an under-handed attempt at lazy moneymaking on the part of the artists; more reasonable individuals think it is just the natural product of a prolific, successful musician (or group of musicians).

But I am not concerned with the fiscal facets of the greatest hits record. Rather, I guess, I would like to explore its legitimacy at creating and sustaining a fan base in and of itself. Or in other words, are you really a David Bowie enthusiast if you own “Best of Bowie” and “David Bowie: The Collection,” but not “Space Oddity” and “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”?

I use the androgynous British glam rock god as an example only because I know someone who made this very argument. Bowie, he claims, is one of his favorite artists, but he only owns compilation albums. To me, this method of consuming music is akin to heresy; taking a song out of the context of its album is short-changing the work and artist.

This is especially true of concept albums (like “Ziggy Stardust”) that are explicitly meant to be consumed completely intact; “Moonage Daydream” is not the same song when it isn’t sandwiched between “Soul Love” and “Starman.”

Since this is Missoula, I will use the Decemberists as an example that most of you can relate to. The band’s most recent album, “The Hazards of Love,” consists of 17 individual tracks, but each of these songs contributes to a unified narrative. The album is essentially a sum of its parts, and the part loses much of its meaning when experienced outside the context of the whole.

Let’s say you claim that John Steinbeck is one of your favorite authors. If someone asks, “So, what’s your favorite book of his?” you can’t realistically say, “I haven’t actually read a whole novel, but I like random, jumbled chapters from ‘Of Mice and Men’ and ‘The Grapes of Wrath.’” You would sound idiotic and irrational.

Authors don’t intend for their chapters to be removed from the framework of their novels; the overarching meaning of the work (and the individual chapter) would be lost due to a lack of context.

This same principle applies to music, and not only concept albums. Haphazardly throwing together a collection of popular songs from various albums (which sometimes span several decades) just destroys the larger significance behind those songs. It’s unfair to do that, both to the producer and the consumer.

So I guess I shouldn’t be so giddy about the release of the Ying Yang Twins’ greatest hits record. God knows I wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate the profundity of “Girl is a Hoe” (yes, they spell “hoe” like the garden tool) if it wasn’t directly preceded by “I’m Still Hustlin’.”

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