Nothing But The Hits

Yesterday, while driving over to Rochdale, the radio threw up a catchy ditty that sound familiar. Turned out it was Let's Go by the Cars, which I remembered I owned as I'd picked up the Greatest Hits albums for next to nothing a few years ago.

This got me to thinking about the compilation albums I have in my collection by bands where I have no real intention of picking up anything else by them. Here's the five that sprang to mind.

The Cars - Greatest Hits (1985)
A band that never really meant too much over here, except for two moments: My Best Friend's Girl being a big hit apparently on the basis on it being released on picture disc and Drive being used to soundtrack famine footage during Live Aid, songwriter Ric Ocasek generously donating royalties from the song to the charity.

The Cars were basically journeymen musicians (bassist Ben Orr had his first mainstream pop exposure in the 1960s) who found their niche when 'New Wave' became the fashionable sound. Ocasek did have a knack for writing a canny hook, though, and their first compilation album is a concise 13 song affair which doesn't outstay it's welcome. There's a song or two were the synths grate a little, but in the main it's fun stuff.

At their high points, as with Just What I Needed or Since You're Gone, it's extremely good power pop, but there's still not just enough to make me want to investigate further. I somehow have the feeling it'd just be more of the same, except not as good as the singles.

All this said, I just remembered that the Cars' Moving in Stereo (which is a track from their first album, and not anywhere else) was used to soundtrack the famous Phoebe Cates bikini scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which kind of makes me want the album now. And also makes me want to be excused for a few minutes. (ahem)

Pixies - Wave of Mutilation: Best Of... (2004)
Possibly a kind of heresy to some of my friends, but I've never really bought into the Pixies that much. I can't explain why, but I suspect Frank Black's (or Black Francis, or whatever the hell he calls himself these days) bark had a lot to do with it.

On the other hand, Kim Deal is obviously a bass goddess. Luckily, she also grew a bit stroppy about not getting enough of her songs on the albums and decided to form her own band, the Breeders, whose albums I do enjoy. Not that the Pixies didn't have some fantastic moments, it's just that they're all collected on the one compilation I have. People can, and have, played me their actual albums and I just feel "well... it's OK, but I'd rather listen to Last Splash".

I did catch the band at a festival in 2004, and they were pretty good despite all being a lot older, fatter and balder than they were first time round (Kim excepted on the last two, natch). But then again, aren't we all these days?

The Rolling Stones - Rolled Gold (1975)
I'm one of those who subscribe to the idea that if the Stones had jacked it in at some point in the 70s, maybe when Mick Taylor handed his cards in, then they'd be remembered in much better terms then they are now. Which is a bunch of geriatrics performing for the masses who are willing to pay stupid money in the mindset that "surely Keith is going to die soon - this could be the last tour!"

My dad told me you tended to fall into either the Beatles or the Stones if you were young in the 60s. He was into the scouse quartet, and I've concurred in my own tastes. After all, Lennon and McCartney wrote one of the Stones' first hits and you never saw the Beatles hanging around with the southern lot to try and pick up cool points.

Some may go on to me about Exile On Main Street or Let It Bleed, but this is all the Stones I need. To give them dues, there's plenty of classics on here to ensure Mick Jagger always has at least one "Get Out of Jail" card if I finds himself in Judge D.C. Harrison's court.

The Stranglers - Greatest Hits 1977-1990 (1990)
Like the Cars, the Stranglers were essentially a bunch of older guys who jumped on a passing fashion: punk, in this instance. But perhaps more so than the Americans - Hugh Cornwall was a schoolfriend of Richard Thompson and drummer Jet Black was born in the 1930s. Credit to the guy, he's still drumming away.

What the Stranglers did have going for them was Jean-Jacques Burnel's bass sound and Cornwell managing to sound suitably sleazy enough to appeal to the younger crowd. Plus, they obviously had a stronger melodic sense than many of the others doing the rounds at the time, mainly through Dave Greenfield's Door-copying keyboard runs that are best seen on their pretty great version of Bacharach/David's Walk On By.

As time went on, the Stranglers were able to show that, actually, they were pretty good musicians, which led to them taking Golden Brown, a song in waltz time and also about smack, to #2 in the charts. The later stuff holds up as well as the rawer songs, with Always The Sun and Nice in Nice being particular highlights though their version of the Kinks' All Day And All Of The Night doesn't embarrass anyone, and it ends when Cornwell sacks off the band in 1990, when they move into the nostalgia circuit from which they've stayed for the last 20 years. Kind of admirable, really.

Ramones - Hey! Ho! Let's Go: The Anthology (1999)
Probably the most obvious band to put in this article. A double compilation album covering their whole career - does anybody really need more Ramones in their life?

This one covers their whole career, though misses out Baby I Love You, as produced by Phil Spector and their biggest hit over here in the UK. But nevermind, everything else is here: Blitzkrieg Bop, Sheena Is a Punk Rocker and I Wanna Be Sedated etc etc.

What's tragic about thinking about the band is that, if you've seen the documentary film End of the Century, you'd know what a tragically bunch of dysfunctional types they were (Tommy excepted, it seems). While The KKK Took My Baby Away is amusing enough by title alone, it takes on a darker tone when you hear that the liberal Joey Ramone penned it after his girlfriend dumped him for the famously conservative Johnny Ramone.

Yet as a testament to their genius-of-kinds, it's worth that saying that a friend of mine who generally listens to nothing but hip-hop absolutely loves Somebody Put Something In My Drink, and has ever performed a version in his favoured style. I'm sure Dee Dee would have been proud.