Greatest hits cd????

[chrisarclark]

A 'singles filled affair' is surely an awful idea. The biggest mistake of Morrissey's singing career has been his choice of singles. Dagenham Dave, Fatty, Roy Keen, The Youngest, Pregnant etc are obviously some of the worst songs he's ever written.
Moz is right to remove a few of his singles from the tracklisting and bung on some of the brilliant album songs and b-sides that the averaeg music fan will never have heard...

first, idisagree with the common belief that Morrissey has chosen poorly when selecting singles throughout his career. all of the songs which you name (save TYWTML, which is still an obvious single) are great songs and make they all make for excellent singles (save perhaps PFTLT, but it was a non-album release anyway). Morrissey's singles hav been, for the most part, very strong and well chosen. looking back, album tracks and b-sides that could be argued as being better songs are rarely better single candidates.

second, the average music fan will not appreciate many of the brilliant album tracks and b-sides- people who buy these types of collections are juste looking for the "hits." b-sides are really a terrible idea to include on a greatest hits type compilation becos one of the secondary hopes in selling sucha collection is to entice those who buy and listen to the comp to then buy the albums. now, you might argue that including album tracks will draw people to buy the albums, but then if you keep including different album tracks on these sorts of comps, eventually it dilutes the need to buy the album cos yuve already got most of the albumtracks thanks to the compilations. album tracks are meant to be discovered when listening to the album- singles are meant to sell the album- greatest hits comps are partly meant to sell the albums, therefore greatest hits comps should predominantly (if not exclusively) include singles.

 

[Paulc]

Re-issue ! Re-package ! Re-package !
Re-evaluate the songs
Double-pack with a photograph
Extra Track (and a tacky badge)


Vulgar

 

[Buzzetta]

You are all forgetting something... Instead of choosing a number of tracks, chose music that adds up to less than 80 minutes of time on a CD. Use iTunes to figure it out.

 

[Buzzetta]

first, idisagree with the common belief that Morrissey has chosen poorly when selecting singles throughout his career. all of the songs which you name (save TYWTML, which is still an obvious single) are great songs and make they all make for excellent singles (save perhaps PFTLT, but it was a non-album release anyway). Morrissey's singles hav been, for the most part, very strong and well chosen. looking back, album tracks and b-sides that could be argued as being better songs are rarely better single candidates.

second, the average music fan will not appreciate many of the brilliant album tracks and b-sides- people who buy these types of collections are juste looking for the "hits." b-sides are really a terrible idea to include on a greatest hits type compilation becos one of the secondary hopes in selling sucha collection is to entice those who buy and listen to the comp to then buy the albums. now, you might argue that including album tracks will draw people to buy the albums, but then if you keep including different album tracks on these sorts of comps, eventually it dilutes the need to buy the album cos yuve already got most of the albumtracks thanks to the compilations. album tracks are meant to be discovered when listening to the album- singles are meant to sell the album- greatest hits comps are partly meant to sell the albums, therefore greatest hits comps should predominantly (if not exclusively) include singles.

Or do what U2 did with the U218 disc. They made a singles disc adding Windows in the Sky and The Saints are Coming. If you did not want to buy the U218 singles disc then you could simply by the singles of those two songs with additional b-sides.

Morrissey needs to hire someone who knows how to market his material. I've said it time and time again. Offical web page and do a DMB - Phish and or soon to be Prince model where they sell live CDs straight to the consumer. Get the concerts you want fully mastered. Even the Radiohead model which was a gamble was a success.

 

[Stitchell]

Am I the only one that thinks the Greatest Hits plan is a terrible idea? Morrissey, like Dylan and Neil Young, doesn't really have 'hits' but a large body of work with nearly every song that is some fans all time fave. Some of the singles he has released have been of a lower quality than the b-sides that accompanied them. As good as the b-sides and album tracks are, if they are unknown to the wider pop audience, the album is unlikely to sell well.

Saying that, I didn't even try to assemble a tracklisting cos mine would change every day

 

[Maurice E]

first, idisagree with the common belief that Morrissey has chosen poorly when selecting singles throughout his career. all of the songs which you name (save TYWTML, which is still an obvious single) are great songs and make they all make for excellent singles (save perhaps PFTLT, but it was a non-album release anyway). Morrissey's singles hav been, for the most part, very strong and well chosen. looking back, album tracks and b-sides that could be argued as being better songs are rarely better single candidates.

second, the average music fan will not appreciate many of the brilliant album tracks and b-sides- people who buy these types of collections are juste looking for the "hits." b-sides are really a terrible idea to include on a greatest hits type compilation becos one of the secondary hopes in selling sucha collection is to entice those who buy and listen to the comp to then buy the albums. now, you might argue that including album tracks will draw people to buy the albums, but then if you keep including different album tracks on these sorts of comps, eventually it dilutes the need to buy the album cos yuve already got most of the albumtracks thanks to the compilations. album tracks are meant to be discovered when listening to the album- singles are meant to sell the album- greatest hits comps are partly meant to sell the albums, therefore greatest hits comps should predominantly (if not exclusively) include singles.

Well in the days before Houdini's poll, you and I would have just had to agree to disagree. But I'm afraid we now have concrete evidence (i.e. not journalists' opinions, not chart positions, but votes from us lot) about which songs are any good. Nearly all the Smiths singles have managed scores of at least 9 out of 10 but only a tiny minority of Moz singles have achieved this level. Dagenham Dave and Roy Keen got 6 point something which is flipping appalling for songs in their own right let alone ones which are supposed to showcase albums. Tons of Morrissey singles have scored less than 8 out of 10 placing them firmly in the 'mediocre to quite good' bracket while b-sides and album songs have provided him with the majority of his 9/10 scores; Nobody Loves Us, Jack the Ripper, Now my Heart is Full etc.
If the leaked 'best of' tracklisting is correct, Moz is absolutely right to weed out those patchy, mediocre singles and replace them with moments of brilliance from his back catalogue. If he doesn't do this, he'll just lend weight to the tedious theory that the Smiths were great but Morrissey's solo stuff is rubbish coz, comparing the average Smiths single to the average Morrissey single, it would be hard to disagree...

 

[Child In Pieces]

Does anyone think if Moz signs with Warner Bros. that his greatest hits might ALSO include Smiths songs?

 

[chrisarclark]

Well in the days before Houdini's poll, you and I would have just had to agree to disagree. But I'm afraid we now have concrete evidence (i.e. not journalists' opinions, not chart positions, but votes from us lot) about which songs are any good. Nearly all the Smiths singles have managed scores of at least 9 out of 10 but only a tiny minority of Moz singles have achieved this level. Dagenham Dave and Roy Keen got 6 point something which is flipping appalling for songs in their own right let alone ones which are supposed to showcase albums. Tons of Morrissey singles have scored less than 8 out of 10 placing them firmly in the 'mediocre to quite good' bracket while b-sides and album songs have provided him with the majority of his 9/10 scores; Nobody Loves Us, Jack the Ripper, Now my Heart is Full etc.
If the leaked 'best of' tracklisting is correct, Moz is absolutely right to weed out those patchy, mediocre singles and replace them with moments of brilliance from his back catalogue. If he doesn't do this, he'll just lend weight to the tedious theory that the Smiths were great but Morrissey's solo stuff is rubbish coz, comparing the average Smiths single to the average Morrissey single, it would be hard to disagree...

that poll is for ardent Moz fans- this compilation will not be primarily aimed at people who already are visting morrissey-solo.com every week.

did you look at my tracklisting? by taking juste two singles from each era (including "Now My Heart Is Full" which was a single in the US) ihav in fact weeded out the the supposed "weak" singles. iknow you think YTOFMF isa weak single (despite it being brilliant), but then juste replace it with "Tomorrow" if it makes you happy. surely you cant argue with anything else there- im not saying these are Morrissey's 18best tracks, but as an attempt at offering an even representation spanning his enitre solo career and trying to make it as commercial an offering as possible so as to hopefully attract a wider audiance and make some money off it, id say its a pretty damn good list.

theres no doubt that a 44track collection is largely useless. it simply will not sell other than to hardcore completists.

and no, stich, yurenot the only one who thinks a greatesthits comp isa bad idea- ihate them, but if yure gonna do it, you might as well do it right.

 

[ringchase]

i cant wait till this comes out if it ever does, hopefully they will annouce a date soon.