Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Journey Get It Right With Volume 2

I have to admit that I'm a completist.  I believe that a 'best of' should have the 'best' and a 'greatest hits' should contain the 'greatest.'  So I get let down often.  Bands leave out hits.  It happens.  Sometimes it's in lieu of that new single that they expect will earn its place as a hit as well.  Sometimes... well, sometimes it seems to fans that someone was drinking or didn't care.  A hit left off a retrospective album can become lost to new fans who have purchased the hits disc as their introduction to the band.  They will never know what they missed (unless they buy all the early albums like I would.)  But, I also love seeing these kind of wrongs righted and Journey has now done so.
Their original 1988 Greatest Hits collection only had 15 tracks (until the addition of "When You Love A Woman" as a 2006 bonus track.)  Great songs, all of them.  Yet the band had 25 chart hits on the Billboard Hot 100, 6 other hits on the U.S. Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and even a few U.S. Adult Contemporary chart hits.  Their new Greatest Hits Volume 2, released yesterday, contains 17 songs that aren't on the Volume 1 (like the Top 20 hits "Still They Ride" and "Suzanne.")
Let's break this down a bit more systematically.  The original Greatest Hits included the 1978 hit "Lights" which went to #68 and when released as a live version in 1993 went to #74 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.  So, skipping bypassing two Top 20 hits made sense because "Lights" was a 'greater hit'?  It is a beautiful song and a fan favorite live but even 1983's "After The Fall" went to #23 (same position as "Send Her My Love" attained) but didn't make the 'greatest hits' list.  I can beat this dead horse a bit more but you get the point.  It's a good time to remind fans that Journey weren't just those 15 or 16 songs from Volume 1 and nudge them to go shopping.  What I could see is that maybe the songs from the first collection had a special sound to it or gelled better as a set.  I mean, how could they leave a song like this off it for any other reason.  Go get Volume 2, folks!

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