The Great Ipod Shuffle Redux

I may have touched on this before, but Greatest Hits or Best of collections serve several functions for the consumer.  They can provide a nice gateway into an artist’s work and serve as a springboard for further discovery.  They can also sum up (sometimes well, sometimes not) why a musician was popular (or not) in the first place.  For me and my goal of the ultimate Ipod collection, it’s a cheap way (if I’m scouring yard sales or thrift stores) of getting the best cuts into my own personal rotation.

The Best of Kansas – What can I say about this group.  They’re a nadir in American progressive rock and I would just as soon listen to Styx.  Out of this collection (thank God, I only paid a dollar for it) I managed to put three songs on my Ipod.  Dust in the Wind, Carry on My Wayward Son and (this was a stretch) Point of Know (cute spelling) Return.  I think I got my money’s worth.  When I was in high school, in order to get to know our classmates better, we had to talk to a single classmate, get to know them and talk to the rest of the class about them.  All I remember was this girl loved Kansas and carried the album, Leftoverture around with her a lot.  Gah!!

The Best of Van Morrison – Here’s a collection that Van the Man put together himself.  This has some great career highlights (including songs from his time with Them) and functions as a gateway album.  Morrison made some phenomenal albums in the late sixties-early seventies that are under-represented here.  Astral Weeks, one of the greatest albums of all-time, has only one song in this compilation.  He was (is) a force of nature.  I remember reading an interview he did with Rolling Stone magazine where he said that Moondance was written with Frank Sinatra in mind.  That would have been great to hear.

Chronicles – Steve Winwood – No longer Little Stevie, this guy has been around forever with the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, and Blind Faith.  This collection highlights his solo work.  The phrase that comes to mind for these overplayed songs is “Familiarity breed contempt”.  They’re good songs, but you’ve heard them and most of “classic rock" so often, that you want to puke.  It’s sad, that great music, due to oversaturation, is now loathed (by me anyway).  For more interesting and slightly less played, music featuring Steve Winwood, check out his albums with Traffic.