2007’s Greatest Hits

By DAVID THORPE

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The Holiday Season is here again, and you know what that means: It's time for the music industry to chew up and regurgitate its extensive back catalog into our little peeping beaks! It's time for every band with at least one album and/or at least one hit single to crap out a useless compilation so they can pay down their label debt and score one last sweet holiday hit of horse! So, what's under the tree this year?

Spice Girls - Greatest Hits

Hindsight may be 20/20, but nostalgia is blind as a bat. I'm shocked and rather outraged that a Spice Girls reunion was successful on any level; when they broke up in 2000, it was because the world had completely lost interest in their insipid, outmoded, overexposed bullshit. Seven years later, they sell out arena tours in 30 seconds. Why? How? Did everyone get comically conked in the fucking noggin by a coconut? Is this the obligatory "amnesia" episode of the sad, stupid sitcom of the music industry? Now they've put together a greatest hits package and it'll probably sell like gangbusters. Sure, you could buy all three albums in a bargain bin for a combined total of about $4, but why do that when you could be a complete retard instead? This is the question the music industry poses to us, and our answer is "durrrr."

Goo Goo Dolls - Greatest Hits Volume One: The Singles

The smart thing about this title is that it gets you all pumped up to buy Volume Two. If all the singles are included on Volume One, what wonders are in store next time around? A breathtaking array of Goo Goo Dolls album tracks? Some sweet Goos B-sides or blistering live cuts? And -- check this out -- what if there's a Volume Three? Carve out some space on that CD shelf, baby, cause the Goo Goo Dolls are coming over and coming alive.

The Best of 2Pac

This set comes in two parts: Thug, which bears a cover shot of Pac rippling his back muscles in a commanding display of machismo, and Life, which shows him poignantly rubbing his sinuses to indicate his socially conscious side. "I've been up all night considering the plight of the ghetto," he seems to say, "and now my sinuses could sure use an exasperated rub to release all the tension inherent in the contradiction between my tumultuous public life as a misogynist braggart and my inner desire to write positive, sensitive poetry about keeping ya head up." This split package illustrates the famed dichotomy that defines Tupac's legacy: on one hand, a hard-as-nails thug; on the other hand, a complete fucking hypocrite.

The Libertines - The Best Of: A Time for Heroes

Sometimes creating a Greatest Hits package is a nearly impossible task. Should the artist pick the songs, or should the fans? Should the tracklist be determined by commercial success or their critical standing? Is it better to risk confusing neophytes with a comprehensive double-disc overview, or risk jilting fans with excessive omissions in the name of brevity? There are those bands whose catalogues are so vast, varied and revered that the idea of compilation becomes daunting, even oppressive. Then there's the fucking Libertines.

Godsmack - Good Times, Bad Times - 10 Years of Godsmack

Ten years, dude, can you freaking believe it? Yeah, we've had some hella crazy times. Ten million crazy albums sold, tons of crazy touring and crazy awesome chicks. I've included this awesome picture of a dude on a motorcycle riding into a crazy sunset because I feel like this captures all the awesome shit we've been through. Have a great summer, keep in touch, dude-man, it's been real. Stay cool. Yours truly, Godsmack.

Various Artists - WWE Raw's Greatest Hits

This seems like a pretty bad business move. Do the people who would want this album even posses the mental faculties required to purchase it? Won't they just walk into the record store, utter a wordless groan at the clerk and slap a greasy handful of buttons, lint and cat poop on the counter? Even if they successfully bought the album, wouldn't they take it home to find that they'd already ruined their CD players by trying to listen to pancakes?