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Greatest Hits Quotes

Quotes on compiling a career onto one disc

Musicians here treat a greatest hits album less as celebration and more as a milestone that can feel like an ending — the moment a career gets summarized before the artist is fully ready, as heard across this Music talk.

Truth is, you make albums, and some of those songs are hits, and some of the greatest hits albums have songs that weren't hits. You have a career, the reason why we're still around 10 years is that we do...

Quotes by Adam Duritz

The greatest hits in some weird way marks the end of something.

Quotes by Sheryl Crow

I think all the bad blood started when Geffen released a greatest hits package of my solo stuff.

Quotes by Sammy Hagar

When we were on the road, I found out that my greatest hits album went Gold. They freaked out. Things really came to a head when we started arguing about a Van Halen greatest hits package.

Quotes by Sammy Hagar

Culture Quotes

If I would have ever dreamed that I wouldn't be in Van Halen anymore and was going to have resume my solo career again, I would have never contributed anything towards my own greatest hits package.

Quotes by Sammy Hagar

I'm not interested in gigs unless I really want to do them. I walked away from music in 1997, and then there was a greatest hits in 2002. Thank God, it didn't do too well because the record company wouldn't...

Quotes by Pete Burns

But to put out a greatest hits on one CD was totally impossible, I just couldn't do it. The best compromise was to put out two CDs - Early Days - which is what it is - and Latter Days.

Quotes by Jimmy Page

I try to be careful to not just say it's a greatest hits show because we've also made efforts to keep people up to date so to speak because we continually write and record and put out albums.

Quotes by Gerry Beckley

'Limbo' has been one of the greatest hits of my career. A great response all over the world, not just Latinos but people in Europe and America.

Quotes by Daddy Yankee

Emotion Quotes

I'm not trying to hide from my past. I want to roll in it. Like a dog, rolling in feces, I'm rolling in the feces of my greatest hits - that's a bit of a wild way of looking at...

Quotes by Billy Idol

I think that finding a way into somebody's life that's sort of off from a side angle can tell you more about that person than a greatest hits approach.

Quotes by Bill Condon

We didn't just want to go out and do that whole greatest hits thing.

Quotes by Andy Taylor

Every album is just a greatest hits of whatever songs are on a pile when I go in to make a record.

Quotes by Amanda Palmer

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Greatest Hits quotes collection about?
These are musicians reflecting on what it means to release a compilation of their best-known songs, and the mixed feelings that can come with it. More than one quote treats a greatest hits record as a kind of ending rather than a celebration.
Why do artists have complicated feelings about greatest hits albums?
For some performers, putting out a compilation can feel like an admission that their most creative period is behind them, even while it's also a mark of commercial success. That tension is exactly what several quotes on this page capture.
Is there a quote about the difficulty of picking songs for a compilation?
Yes, one artist describes how impossible it felt to fit a career's worth of songs onto a single disc, eventually splitting the release into two separate volumes instead. It's a useful quote for content about the editing side of a music career.
Does this page include anything about band conflict over a greatest hits release?
One quote references real tension within a band once a solo greatest hits package started coming together, including arguments about how to handle the band's own compilation. It ties in well with our Music and Culture quote pages for anyone covering music industry drama.
Are these quotes only from rock musicians?
The examples on this page lean toward rock and solo-career artists, but the underlying sentiment about mixed feelings toward a compilation applies to Popularity and legacy in music more broadly. It works for any post about an artist's back catalog, not just one genre.

Others treat the package as proof of real Popularity, gold record and all, even amid arguments over how it got released.