Great Inventions

When it comes to music, one innovation that I think is pretty great is the compilation. It just makes it so much more convenient to get all the vital songs of one particular artist without buying a bunch of albums.

For example, I picked up the Jim Croce "36 All-Time Greatest Hits" album yesterday. I don't know Croce's music, but it's supposed to be fairly good. However, I have no interest in buying a bunch of his albums. A particular risk with buying albums is that most artists have at least one or two albums that REALLY sucks. Buying randomly at a record store, it's like a box of chocolates ("you never know what you're going to get"). With a compilation, I can be reasonably sure that I'll get all the songs worth having.

In another musical note, I gave Sgt. Pepper's another listen tonight. There are some great songs on it, but I still don't understand why it is universally considered such a work of genius. It is supposed to be groundbreaking, and I'm sure it was at the time. But I guess that listening to it today, I don't find the music that mind-blowing, which its supporters believe it to be. hmmm....