My Rating: No Rating disqualified
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: X
Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums: X
The Mojo Collection: X
Chart Peak (UK/US): --/1
Favourite Tracks: Warmth of the Sun, All Summer Long, Let Him Run Wild
Least-Favourite Tracks: Be True To Your School, Shut Down
There's that great bit in Alan Partridge when he's asked what his favourite Beatles album is & he answers, 'Hmm. Tough one... I think I'd have to say The Best Of The Beatles.' I was dismayed to find that like that comedy character, the All-Time Top 1000 book seems to think that certain compilations & 'Greatest Hit' albums are comparable to original releases. Colin Larkin in the book's introduction states 'We do not allow them [compilations] to be counted because the idea is for the album to really be a showcase of songs put together by an artist at a particular time.' Very true, except he then goes on to totally contradict himself & attempts to justify the inclusion of some 'Best Of' albums by saying, '(but) there were so many votes for these "carefully created compilations" that I would have distorted the final picture if I had not included them.' Sorry but that's just utter bollocks (and at least Larkin later concedes that this is a 'lame answer'). In my view, compilations are simply not valid for inclusion in any classic albums list. So what if people voted for them? If thousands of morons accidentally voted for their favourite film or hot meal would he have included them in the list too?
So this is the first of several 'Greatest Hit' collections in the Top 1000 & I'm going to do what the book should have done in the first place & totally ignore it. By that I mean I'm not going to give any of the compilations a rating or score. Of course I'm still going to listen to the complete album, but that's just to satisy my pathetic, obsessive-compulsive disorder that insists that I hear every single track of every single record in the list. I just noticed that the book also published a 'bubbling under' list of 50 albums ranked from 1001-1050, so it might make sense to move one of these valid recordings back up the order to replace each compilation I find.
Oh & regarding the album itself, it's just a standard surf-era Beach Boys comp. In amongst the fluff, there's some real gems but that's for another discussion...
So this is the first of several 'Greatest Hit' collections in the Top 1000 & I'm going to do what the book should have done in the first place & totally ignore it. By that I mean I'm not going to give any of the compilations a rating or score. Of course I'm still going to listen to the complete album, but that's just to satisy my pathetic, obsessive-compulsive disorder that insists that I hear every single track of every single record in the list. I just noticed that the book also published a 'bubbling under' list of 50 albums ranked from 1001-1050, so it might make sense to move one of these valid recordings back up the order to replace each compilation I find.
Oh & regarding the album itself, it's just a standard surf-era Beach Boys comp. In amongst the fluff, there's some real gems but that's for another discussion...
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