The triumph of the Greatest Hits

Music, as those of us have attempted to cajole strangers into investigating the nether regions of the Sparks catalogue can wearily attest, is, in theory, a matter of opinion. Except it's not. Popular music - hence the name - is about sales. No more no less. Sales figures - and for the sake of argument we must accept VH1's corrolations - are a neutral truth, the one that breezily informs us that Robson And Jerome's self-titled opus is superior to Coldplay's Parachutes. Both were built for success, but Robson And Jerome (sadly, Britain's robust libel laws mean I cannot share the solitary fact I know about this esteemed disc) did it better. And yet now we know we live in a nation ruled with arbitary sway by Queen's Greatest Hits in particular and greatest hits in general. On many superficial levels, this is bad news. It's bad news for the artists who toil away on their latest opus, only to find their catalogue cherry picked. It's bad news too for the music's scribes. I can bang on about the majesty of Abba's Arrival as the ultimate pop statement. It doesn't really matter. The public just want some singles bunged together. Let's be brutally frank, it's a good thing. You wouldn't buy 20 bruised apples to eat one good one, would you now? The public haven't got the time (let alone the inclination) to compare Abba albums. So they will cherry pick and get on with their lives. Good. Anyway, I've listened to them so you don't have to. Equally interesting, is who and what the public doesn't care for. There's no Rolling Stones (this may be because they have never made a genuinely great album) and Bob Dylan, but there is Jason Donovan and David Gray. This, for all it pains the purists, is the real world speaking plainly.