Before They Were Hits

This album has had over three decades to make an impact, and it says something for its staying power that, in the face of more recent, more generously programmed, and better mastered compilations of the duo's work, it remains one of the most popular parts of the Simon & Garfunkel catalog…

This album has had over three decades to make an impact, and it says something for its staying power that, in the face of more recent, more generously programmed, and better mastered compilations of the duo's work, it remains one of the most popular parts of the Simon & Garfunkel catalog – which doesn't mean it isn't fraught with frustrations for anyone buying it…

The only Paula Abdul album most listeners will need, Greatest Hits gathers almost all the singles from her first three albums in one place. The 16 tracks here include an amazing run of eight consecutive Top Ten hits, six of which reached number one, over a span of approximately three years (before more soulful, urban sounds began to conquer Abdul's audience). In most cases, the versions included are the 7" single edits, which often differed from the album cuts and are hence quite nice to have collected. The only questionable choice is that the Top 20 single "Will You Marry Me?" was left off in favor of an unnecessary "Megamix Medley," but it's hard to imagine most fans finding this anything more than a minor flaw.

Without question, the Byrds were one of the great bands of the '60s and one of the few American bands of their time to continually turn out inventive, compelling albums. As they were recording a series of fine records, they turned out a number of classic singles that unquestionably defined their era. The Byrds' Greatest Hits does an excellent job of chronicling the peak years of their popularity before they went country-rock on 1968's Sweetheart of the Rodeo…

The Brotherhood of Man ranks among the United Kingdom's most successful pop groups of all time, their long career spreading across two very separate incarnations of the band, together with a string of highly infectious hit singles that carried the group through much of their first decade together, and success at the 1976 Eurovision Song Contest…

The Brotherhood of Man ranks among the United Kingdom's most successful pop groups of all time, their long career spreading across two very separate incarnations of the band, together with a string of highly infectious hit singles that carried the group through much of their first decade together, and success at the 1976 Eurovision Song Contest.

The GSC compilation 36 All-Time Greatest Hits does offer three-dozen solid songs by Dinah Shore, one of America's foremost entertainers from the '40s to the '60s, though they're scattered across three discs and the performances are of a dodgy vintage…

These are the greatest hits of the version of Big Mac that produced Hits with a capital H! While pre-Stevie Nicks-Lindsey Buckingham versions of the group charted in the U.K. five times between 1968 and 1973, the post-blues-rock edition of the band reached unprecedented commercial heights beginning with "Rhiannon," a No. 5 smash in the spring of 1976. It's on this 16-track solid-gold set, along with the rest of the hits up through 1988's "Everywhere." A long version of "Sara" and some bonus tracks are included for extra value. ~ Steven Stolder