Greatest hits album
compilation of songs by a particular artist or band
A greatest hits album or best-of album is a type of compilation album that collects popular and commercially successful songs by a particular artist or band. While greatest hits albums are typically supported by the artist, they can also be created by record companies without express approval from the original artist as a means to generate sales. They are typically regarded as a good starting point for new fans of an artist, but are sometimes criticized by longtime fans as not inclusive enough or necessary at all.
It is also common for greatest hits albums to include new recordings, remixes or unreleased alternate takes of the hit songs, plus other new material as bonus tracks to increase appeal for longtime fans (who might otherwise already own the recordings included). At times, a greatest hits compilation marks the first album appearance of a successful single that was never attached to a previous studio album.
History
The first greatest hits album was Johnny Mathis's Johnny's Greatest Hits, released in 1958. The album collected eight of Mathis's charting singles, as well as three non-charting B-sides and an altogether new track. The album spent three weeks at the number one spot on Billboard's Best Selling Pop LP's chart. The greatest hits album format then gained popularity in the 1960s and 1970s among American and British rock and pop artists. One notable example was the Beach Boys 1974 album Endless Summer, which upon release was certified 3× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.
“Greatest hits album” enters the record as compilation of songs by a particular artist or band. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Greatest, hits and album can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Greatest hits album” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Greatest, hits and album provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q723849. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1958 and 1974.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Greatest hits album” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.