Greatest Hits - Duran Duran versus Asia

I'm really into my music, my collection is so large I probably have something for every occasion: Rock & Roll for when I'm driving, electronic to get me energized, Mozart for concentration, jazz for relaxation.

What I like is a really satisfying album, the kind one can listen to from beginning to end and the music is just right. Disks like Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon or Wish You Were Here, ELO's Out Of The Blue, AC/DC's Back In Black, Led Zeppelin's II, IV, and Houses Of The Holy, the soundtrack to Heavy Metal or the first Matrix movie, Rob Zombie's Hellbilly Deluxe.

Another musical joy is when a band puts out a really good Greatest Hits collection. This doesn't always happen, for instance REM left "It's the end of the world as we know it" off their recent collection, which is odd considering this was their first mainstream hit. Van Halen left a whole bunch of songs off Greatest Hits Volume 1 (including all the David Lee Roth covers), but are fixing that when Best Of Both Worlds comes out next month.

Recently I picked up two collections from 80s bands. I like 80s music, not only because it's what I grew up on, but I've found that it makes great summertime music. I guess 80s pop just fits right in with the general mood you get on a nice sunny day. Anyway, here's what I picked up: Duran Duran's Greatest and Asia's The Very Best Of Asia: Heat Of The Moment (1982-1990).

First of all let me say that Duran Duran's album is unbelievably good. This is actually their second greatest hits album (another trend in the music business, release a compilation that's lacking a few songs then put out an all inclusive album a few years later), but Decade lacked some of their well known songs. Greatest has it all, boy does it sound good when I'm driving around in the sunshine! They don't get any better than this.

Asia's is also their second collection, their first only held 8 songs (most of which came from the first album). This one has 18, it not only spans their first 3 albums with the original lineup, but also contains some B side rarities.

The only odd thing about this collection is that two of the songs are edited down. I'm assuming this is to fit everything on one CD, since there's just over 76 minutes of music. They cut over 1 minute out of Sole Survivor and just over 2 minutes from Here Comes The Feeling. As odd as it seems, they did a better job on the second song; it's almost impossible to listen to Sole Survivor since it sounds so butchered. Maybe it's me, but why not just cut one song from the collection so you don't need to edit anything? But considering how much music is here, maybe I should quit bitching.