Can anyone else relate with me here? There are many popular songs out there which are sold to us in various different ways, but I will only purchase them the traditional and correct way. By buying the full album. I want to experience every track a band has to offer, to experience their full range of musical abilities. I will never buy a single, unless the song is avaliable only on a single and I very much disagree with the modern trend of purchasing one track from an album and sticking with it, then repeating it endlessly. It's something I used to do, always, often because I had heard a song on a video game - often Burnout 3, Tony Hawk's Underground 2, the rock music section of Midnight Club 3 on PSP and many more - until I realised just how incomplete and unsatisfying it seemed. I have since completed almost all of these albums, and I have gained many new songs I could refer to as favourites as a result.
Though I would never now buy a single or a lone track from an album, it's clear from personal experience that it's gotten people more into bands and encouraged the purchasing of entire albums. However, the other way in which music is sold to us, I simply despise. It is a way is which music is sold without any passion and are created with the presumption that any idiot will pick it up and make the record companies a little richer. It is a word that in the world of music, I view as a swear word. And that word, my friends is: Compilation.
Yes, I can't stand the endless stream of compliation albums that are presented to us, wether it be to present a collection of popular rock songs, or to have a collection of songs hopelessly linked together by some ridiculous theme. I view them as being annoying and unnecesarry. This is why:
The collection of songs is awful. Many compilation albums are put together to be aimed succesfully at the general British public. And it is quite clear that these groups putting the albums together view us as a group of morons. According to them, the British public are crazy for groups who were at their most popular in the 1980s and that includes one hit wonders, or cheap sounding pop tunes from the safest and most dull boy/girl-bands. We seem to all be loving people who stay by eachother and do family things, have a painfully simple sense of humour and like our music to be all fuzzy and poppy, which we often know because we heard the song in an TV show or advert. It's humiliating. As a consequence, we are presented with compilation albums with songs that supposedly link together and are songs to listen to for some mundane theme and is filled with god awful songs, which allow middle aged parents to get all nostalgic and allow their children to empbrace the fuzzy safe crappiness the compilation has to offer.
Many compilations feature songs that should not be put together. It's very sad because I often see tracks by Queen, once of the most powerful and legendary bands in the world, who have left a grand and influencial legacy on the world of rock music, loaded onto these horrible collections, surrrounded by horrible 1980's acts like Bananarama and Spandau Ballet. Queen's music surely does not deserve to be degraded like this.
Themes are created which I cannot agree with. These companies responsible for these compilations think they can create a collection that everyone will take to fondly. This is clearly bullshit, these CD's cannot impress everyone, so let's use myself as an example. There is a compilation album lying around in my house somewhere called something like "101 Hits of the 80s". it claimed to contain all the greateset hits from the 1980's, yet at no point did "Master of Puppets" or "Angel of Death" make an appearance. I found another one of these collections "101 Running Songs", a theme that is ludicrous to base a collection of songs on, which featured "How to Save a Life" by The Fray. How on earth is that a running song? It's slow and bleak sounding. That, to me is not a suitable running song and I know I'm not the only one who thinks this, but the selection of tracks on the whole album are not tracks with which I can agree are good running songs, because for me, a good running song would be something like "Clouds Over California" by DevilDriver. www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0K3eBuoZw8
Only radio edits of songs will appear on these albums. As I have said, the majority of compilation wish to keep things fuzzy and safe, therefore many songs will be shortened and swear words will be censored. It's probably why I never see any favourite bands of mine, as they are often anti-censorship and good on them for expressing their wish for freedom. Other artists will just be desperate to have their music flogged around the place as possible, so will make any possible sacrafice to their song they can. It's probably why the majority of music on these albums to be absolutley awful.
Since I often do shuffle songs, it's been argued before that compilations should be perfect for me, but this is absolutely not the case. Though I don't always listen to an album as a whole, I always want top own every track from the album to experience the full range of music a band has to offer, and if that makes me sound like some obsessive collector, then I will gladly take on that title. The compilation albums I have seen released over the years are nothing but a pitifully predictable collection of awful songs aimed at idiotic, middle aged fools who try to cling onto the past. And my mum. But she's different. I think the best way to top things off is to say that compilation albums represent everything I hate about music marketing and their mass popularity seems to show a worrying sign about the world in which I live. Basically, I'm surrounded by idiots.
