In his book "Last Shop Standing" Graham Jones (see here) remarks on how Greatest Hits packages and compilations are stagnating the music industry. Apparently Roxy Music have had seven such items , and over the past week there's another Bruce Springsteen's Greatest Hits, another compilation to celebrate Blur's reformation called Midlife and another Black Sabbath Greatest Hits Compilation.Add this to the rush of "Platinum Collections", "Dad Rock" compilations for Fathers Day , and similar ones on Mothers Day, Christmas and the like and you can see just how bloated and lazy the corporate music industry has be
come concentrating solely on moving product ra
ther than nurturing music . The two items should be compatible , though the fact that the industry is run by accountants shows in spades.I put together a short video featuring recycled music , soundtracked by Roxy Music's Remake/Remodel from their eponymous debut, available for download here.
However in some ways greatest hits are not all bad, they may be a good introduction to a band , and it's good to see bands still touring even if they do rest on their laurels so to speak. Fleetwood Mac (with the genius of Lindsey Buckingham) and Fairport Convention are two that spring to mind. But the best news on this front for was that Arthur Jeffes, the son of the late great Simon Jeffes has put together a band to play the music of the truly wonderful Penguin Cafe Orchestra and will be touring with them , including old and new compositions. Now that IS worth looking forward to. Information here.
