A greatest hits album or best-of album is a type of compilation album that collects popular and commercially successful songs by a particular artist or band. While greatest hits albums are typically supported by the artist, they can also be created by record companies without express approval from the original artist as a means to generate sales. They are typically regarded as a good starting point for new fans of an artist, but are sometimes criticized by longtime fans as not inclusive enough or necessary at all.
32-504: Northbound is the first greatest hits collection by Australian pub rock band Cold Chisel , released in Germany in 1983. It included tracks from their first three studio albums, Cold Chisel , Breakfast at Sweethearts and East . The included mix of "Dresden" features a slightly different vocal to the familiar Breakfast at Sweethearts mix. All songs written by Don Walker , except where noted. Greatest hits It
64-460: A female artist in major music markets such as Australia , United Kingdom and United States . In the UK, Queen 's Greatest Hits is the biggest selling album of all time. In second place is ABBA Gold , another greatest hits compilation which has gone on to become the longest-charting album in the UK. Queen's Greatest Hits II is also one of the UK's top ten biggest sellers. One example of
96-446: A greatest hits album, such as rock groups AC/DC , Tool , and Metallica . Garth Brooks had initially refused releasing one, but he eventually agreed to it in 1994 for a limited release (the resulting record, The Hits , sold over ten million copies). In 2000, Sony Music Entertainment launched their The Essential series, which collects singles and other career-defining tracks of artists licensed to Sony. The Essential Bob Dylan
128-573: A greatest hits compilation released against the artists' intentions is British rock group the Rolling Stones ' 1971 compilation Hot Rocks 1964–1971 . The music magazine Rolling Stone remarked that the album served as a "beautifully packaged... purely mercenary item put together by former record executives of the Stones' to cash in on the Christmas season and wring some more bucks out in
160-485: A major label is completed, they've been dropped or died, with next releases following on new labels. The first greatest hits album was Johnny Mathis 's Johnny's Greatest Hits , released in 1958. The album collected eight of Mathis's charting singles, as well as three non-charting B-sides and an altogether new track. The album spent three weeks at the number one spot on Billboard 's Best Selling Pop LP's chart. The greatest hits album format then gained popularity in
192-441: A reissue and, therefore, there's no reason for a label to mine the vaults, searching for old music to make new again. Users can assemble their own personalized greatest hits playlists or just scan through an act's most accessed songs", which has led to greatest hits collections becoming redundant. Despite the popularity of streaming in the 2010s and early 2020s, some artists continued to issue physical greatest hits albums, including
224-632: A response to expanding technology and needs of customers who wanted and/or needed easy, quick access to music. Their business models respond to the "download revolution" by making legal services attractive for users. Even legal music downloads have faced a number of challenges from artists, record labels and the Recording Industry Association of America . In July 2007, the Universal Music Group decided not to renew their long-term contracts with iTunes. This decision
256-415: A similar line, Gold , which collects artists' greatest hits onto two discs. In the late 2000s and 2010s, digital downloads and music streaming services increased in popularity, which allow users to listen to their favorite tracks without the need of a greatest hits package. In 2016, Pitchfork said that "in the digital era, once a catalog enters a streaming service or an MP3 store, there's no need for
288-492: Is also common for greatest hits albums to include new recordings, remixes or unreleased alternate takes of the hit songs, plus other new material as bonus tracks to increase appeal for longtime fans (who might otherwise already own the recordings included). At times, a greatest hits compilation marks the first album appearance of a successful single that was never attached to a previous studio album. Greatest hits albums usually are released after an artist or band's contract with
320-492: Is the digital transfer of music via the Internet into a device capable of decoding and playing it, such as a personal computer , portable media player , MP3 player or smartphone . This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyrighted material without permission or legal payment. Music downloads are typically encoded with modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) audio data compression , particularly
352-649: The Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format used by iTunes as well as the MP3 audio coding format . According to a Nielsen report, downloadable music accounted for 55.9 percent of all music sales in the US in 2012. By the beginning of 2011, Apple's iTunes Store alone made US$ 1.1 billion of revenue in the first quarter of its fiscal year. According to the RIAA , music downloads peaked at 43% of industry revenue in
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#1732779585357384-671: The Hot Rocks sales, but not the ownership royalties. The concept of greatest hits compilations has been adapted to other media as well. In television, some shows have released compilations of their critically successful and highest-rated episodes to drive new viewers to watch a program, such as Family Guy ' s Freakin' Sweet Collection and South Park : The Hits . Several video game companies have re-released popular games for continued sales, sometimes with discounted prices: Sony 's PlayStation has released games under their Greatest Hits series; Nintendo has re-released games under
416-540: The Nintendo Selects label (formerly called "Player's Choice"); and Microsoft has re-released games under the Platinum Hits label. Some video game franchises have released greatest hits collections of their own content, such as Super Mario All-Stars , Sonic Mega Collection , and Guitar Hero Smash Hits . Music download A music download (commonly referred to as a digital download )
448-471: The best-selling albums worldwide with sales of over 20 million copies. For example, Eagles ' Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) is the best-selling album in the United States, according to Billboard, selling over 38 million copies. Worldwide, The Immaculate Collection by Madonna is the best-selling compilation by a solo artist, with 30 million copies, and is the best-selling compilation by
480-629: The 1960s and 1970s among American and British rock and pop artists. One notable example was the Beach Boys 1974 album Endless Summer , which upon release was certified 3× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America . It propelled them from an opening act for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young to headlining their own tour in just a matter of weeks. Some artists were even popular enough to release multiple greatest hits albums during and after their career. Greatest hits compilations were sometimes also released as 4-track 7" vinyl EPs . In
512-775: The RIAJ. The first was Songs for Japan (2011), a charity compilation album raising profits for the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami , which was certified gold for 100,000 downloads in June 2011. The second album was the Japanese language cast recording of the Frozen soundtrack, which sold 100,000 copies between its release in March 2014 and January 2015. In South Korea, Circle Digital Chart has been tracking digital sales since 2009. The most successful song according to their published data
544-422: The US in 2012, and has since fallen to 3% in 2022. Paid downloads are sometimes encoded with digital rights management that restricts copying the music or playing purchased songs on certain digital audio players. They are almost always compressed using a lossy codec (usually MPEG-1 Layer 3, Windows Media, or AAC), which reduces file size and bandwidth requirements. These music resources have been created as
576-438: The United States was held by Gwen Stefani 's " Hollaback Girl ", which sold over one million downloads, making it the first song to achieve platinum download status. As of July 2012 , the record for the best-selling downloaded single in the United States on the iTunes Store is held by The Black Eyed Peas 's " I Gotta Feeling ", which has sold over 8 million downloads. Soon after his death in 2009, Michael Jackson became
608-778: The United States. Their stated goal is to support artists' creativity and help them not be cheated out of money by illegal downloading. The Recording Industry Association of America launched its first lawsuits on the 8th of September 2003, against individuals who illegally downloaded music files from the Kazaa FastTrack network. Two years after it began, the campaign survived at least one major legal challenge. The RIAA said it filed 750 suits in February 2006 against individuals downloading music files without paying for them in hopes of putting an end to Internet music piracy . The RIAA hopes their campaign will force people to respect
640-661: The White Stripes , Spoon , and the Weeknd . Spoon lead singer Britt Daniel said he chose to compile 2019's Everything Hits at Once: The Best of Spoon out of an affinity for compilations such as Standing on a Beach by the Cure and Substance 1987 by New Order , which had introduced him to those artists in his youth, and to provide an official introduction to Spoon's catalog for new listeners. Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand echoed those sentiments when describing
672-591: The album sold 430,000 digital copies. Adele's third studio album 25 became the fastest-selling album in a week in iTunes history after it was released on 20 November 2015. It sold 1.64 million digital copies in its first week (included preorders on the iTunes store since the release of the album's lead single "Hello" in October 2015). In 2006, the Recording Industry Association of Japan began issuing certifications for digitally released music in Japan, compiling data from
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#1732779585357704-474: The beginning of the 2000s Napster was sued due to mass infringement of music ownership copyrights by the record industry- a sue which issued a preliminary injunction for the service and was concluded by the closure of the Napster free music sharing between its users. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) oversees about 85 percent of published music production, distribution and manufacturing in
736-483: The copyrights of music labels and eventually minimize the number of illegal downloads. The Official Charts Company began to incorporate downloads in the UK Singles Chart on 17 April 2005, at which time Radio 1 stopped broadcasting the separate download chart, although the chart is still compiled. Initially this was on condition that the song must have a physical media release at the same time; this rule
768-499: The decision to release the band's 2022 Hits to the Head compilation, stating that "I have friends who believe you're somehow not a 'real' fan if you own a best of rather than a discography. I disagree. I think of my parents' record collection as a kid. I loved their compilation LPs. I am so grateful that they had Changes or Rolled Gold . Those LPs were my entrance point. My introduction." Various compilation albums became amongst
800-420: The early 2000s onwards. The best-selling song is Fukushima -based vocal group Greeeen 's song " Kiseki " (2008), which was certified for being legally downloaded four million times between 2008 and 2015, followed by R&B singer Thelma Aoyama 's " Soba ni Iru ne " (2008) featuring rapper SoulJa , which was certified for three million downloads between 2008 and 2014. Greeeen's song " Ai Uta " (2007) ranks as
832-692: The first artist to sell over one million songs downloaded via the Internet in one week. However, Adele marks the most downloads sold by a single song in a week, with " Hello " selling 1.12 million copies in November 2015. Eminem 's seventh studio album, Recovery (2010), became the first album to sell one million digital copies. Beyoncé 's self-titled fifth studio album became the fastest-selling album within 24 hours in iTunes history after its release in December 2013. Within 24 hours of availability,
864-460: The late 1960s, EMI Sweden released a series of greatest hits-EPs featuring artists such as The Supremes , Ray Charles and Louis Armstrong . By the 1990s, greatest hits albums were common for popular artists, with some artists even releasing the greatest hits album as a music video collection concurrently with the album. It also became a commercially viable option to boost popularity for artists with dwindling careers. Some bands refuse to release
896-576: The name of the Mod Princes they once owned." After their management tricked the band into signing over the copyrights to their 1963–1970 song catalog, the band did succeed in changing management and major labels. However, they could neither prevent the release of Hot Rocks nor its successor, More Hot Rocks (Big Hits & Fazed Cookies) . Hot Rocks remains the best-selling album of the Rolling Stones' career. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards continue to collect significant songwriting royalties from
928-500: The third highest certified song, with 2.5 million downloads tracked between 2007 and 2009. Two more songs have sold more than two million paid downloads: Ayaka 's " Mikazuki " (2006) and Kobukuro 's " Tsubomi " (2007). The most successful ringtone in Japan is Moldovan-Romanian band O-Zone 's " Dragostea din tei " (2003), known locally as "Koi no Maiahi" ( 恋のマイアヒ ) , which was certified as having four million units sold. In Japan, only two albums have received digital certifications by
960-509: Was fully lifted on 1 January 2007, meaning all download sales are now eligible in the chart. Music downloads have been measured by the Official Charts Company since 2004 and included in the main UK Singles Chart from 2005. Up to November 2022, the most-streamed song in the UK is " Someone You Loved " by Lewis Capaldi , with over 562 million streams. In November 2005, the record for the best-selling downloaded single in
992-625: Was primarily based on the issue of pricing of songs, as Universal wanted to be able to charge more or less depending on the artist, a shift away from iTunes' standard—at the time—99 cents per song pricing. Many industry leaders feel that this is only the first of many show-downs between Apple Inc. and the various record labels. According to research by the website TorrentFreak , 38 percent of Swedish artists support file share downloading and claim that it helps artists in early career stages. Artists, including Swedish rock group Lamont, have profited from file sharing. The recording industry vs Napster: In
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1024-445: Was the first in the series, and the company has since released dozens of albums in the series with other artists under their label. In addition to artist-specific collections, the series has also released genre-specific and themed albums, such as The Essential Christmas (collecting pop and rock covers of Christmas songs ) or The Essential Australian Rock (collecting a specific regional output). In 2005, Universal Music Group launched
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