Very Best of Classic

Arriving at the twilight of the 1960s, Santana were psychedelic pioneers who ushered Latin rock into the mainstream with their first three albums: Santana, Abraxas, and Santana III. Thanks to their appearance at Woodstock, their eponymous album was a smash hit right out of the gate, with its single "Evil Ways" making it into the Billboard Top Ten in 1969. They remained at the top of the charts until 1973, when leader and namesake guitarist Carlos Santana began exploring esoteric, spiritual jazz fusion on his own. Carlos may have wandered away from the band who shared his name, but he always returned to the group, sustaining them through years both productive and fallow.

The Steve Miller Band is an American rock band formed in 1966 in San Francisco, California. The band is managed by Steve Miller on guitar and lead vocals, and is best known today for a string of (mainly) mid-1970s hit singles that are staples of classic rock radio, as well as several earlier acid rock albums. Steve Miller left his first band to move to San Francisco and form the Steve Miller Blues Band. Shortly after Harvey Kornspan negotiated the band’s landmark contract with Capitol Records in 1967, the band shortened its name to 'Steve Miller Band'. In February 1968, the band recorded its debut album Children of the Future. They went on to produce albums Sailor, Brave New World, Your Saving Grace, Number 5, Rock Love and more. The Steve Miller Band’s Greatest Hits 1974-1978, released in 1978, sold over 13 million copies. They continued to produce more albums and in 2014, Steve Miller Band is touring with the rock band Journey.

Exactly ten years after Dire Straits' first compilation, Money for Nothing, appeared in the stores, their second, Sultans of Swing: The Very Best of Dire Straits, was released. A decade is a significant span of time, and the average band would have produced enough material for an entirely different collection, one that shared no similarities with its predecessor. Dire Straits is not the average band, however, and during those ten years, they released exactly two albums – 1991's On Every Street, their first studio album since Brothers in Arms in 1985, and 1993's On the Night, a live album culled from tapes of the record's supporting tour. Not quite enough new material for a new greatest-hits album, but it had been years since Dire Straits had released an album of any sort (a compilation of BBC sessions snuck into the stores in 1995) – hence the birth of Sultans of Swing.

Foreigner is a British–American rock band, originally formed in New York City & London in 1976 by veteran English musician and ex–Spooky Tooth member Mick Jones, and fellow Briton and ex–King Crimson member Ian McDonald along with American vocalist Lou Gramm. Jones came up with the band's name as he, McDonald and Dennis Elliott were British, while Gramm, Al Greenwood and Ed Gagliardi were American. Their biggest hit single, "I Want to Know What Love Is", topped the United Kingdom and United States charts among others. Another one of their hit singles, "Waiting for a Girl Like You", peaked at number two on the US chart for a record-setting 10 weeks. They are one of the world's best-selling bands of all time with worldwide sales of more than 80 million records, including 37.5 million records in the US.

It only seems like there has been an endless stream of Grateful Dead compilations. In reality, there has only been a handful, and the most notable of those were released while the band was still an active recording and touring unit in the '70s – and before they had belated chart success in the late '80s, 20 years after their debut album. So, Warner/Rhino's 2003 collection The Very Best of Grateful Dead marks the first attempt to do a thorough single-disc overview of the group's career, encompassing not just their classic Warner albums but also the records they cut for their own Grateful Dead/UA and Arista.

Blinded By The Light: The Very Best Of Manfred Mann's Earth Band is a compilation album released in 1992 by Manfred Mann's Earth Band. Manfred Mann's Earth Band are an English rock band formed by South African musician Manfred Mann. The band's hits include covers of Bruce Springsteen's "For You","Blinded by the Light" and "Spirit In The Night". After forming in 1971 and despite a short hiatus in the late 1980s/early 1990s, the Earth Band has continued to perform and tour through the present.

There have been many compilations drawn from the four albums Cream originally released between 1966 and 1969. But the one most commonly available since the early '80s was the ten-track Strange Brew: The Very Best of Cream (1983), a barebones collection focusing on the group's hit singles. Note, then, that this album, despite the similar title, is a newly compiled 1995 CD/cassette containing all of the recordings on Strange Brew, plus ten more. It is thus the most comprehensive Cream anthology on the market, and includes all the group's essential tracks on a single disc with superior sound in a package containing good annotations.

There's a certain relief that this 2009 Rhino reissue of 2002's double-disc set The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac doesn't even attempt to dabble in the early blues work of the Peter Green band, and treats the addition of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks as ground zero. The two eras of the band don't sit well together, and it's best to isolate them, since those who want the hits don't need to hear the blues. Here, it's the prime of the platinum years, with almost all of the big songs in their original hit versions (the one real exception is a live version of "Big Love" from 1997, but most listeners aren't going to be too upset with the substitution).