The Best of Bowie

The Best of Bowie is a David Bowie compilation album released in 1980. The cover was based on the 12-inch single sleeve design of Bowie's "Fashion". It made No. 3 in the UK Albums Chart.

In addition to including the rare 7" edits of "Fame" and "Golden Years", the compilation contains unique edits of "Life on Mars?" and "Diamond Dogs", ostensibly to allow all 16 tracks to fit on one LP. Early copies of the LP had a sticker on the back cover showing the track listing. If the sticker was removed, the original track listing could be seen, showing "Drive-In Saturday" (from Aladdin Sane, 1973) as track 7 in place of the live version of "Breaking Glass", which explains the latter's appearance out of chronological sequence here.

Track listing

All songs written by David Bowie, except where noted.

Best of Bowie

Best of Bowie is a career-spanning greatest hits album by English recording artist David Bowie. It was released on 22 October 2002. The songs range from his second self-titled album (1969) to Heathen (2002). It was released 35 years after his debut album, David Bowie.

In each of the 21 territories that the album was released, it was given its own track listing, based upon which songs were most popular locally. In a number of countries, there were two versions – a single-disc version, and a double-disc version. All in all 63 tracks appear in at least one of the 20 different versions. The country the edition came from can be identified by a small national flag on the spine, except for the Argentine/Mexican, Eastern European and UK editions, which are "flag-less".

All the tracks are digitally remastered either from 1999 or, for the single edits, 2002, with the exception of "Under Pressure", which is also at a lower volume than the rest of the disc.

A DVD version of the compilation was also released, containing 47 videos and live performances as well as alternate versions and easter eggs. Some of the videos on this collection, notably "China Girl", "Loving the Alien" and "Day-In Day-Out" are the censored versions of the original videos.

Greatest hits album

A greatest hits album, sometimes called a "best of" album or a catalog album, is a compilation of songs by a particular artist or band. Most often the track list contains previously released recordings with a high degree of notability. However, to increase the appeal, especially to people who already own the original release, it is common to include remixes and/or alternate takes of popular songs; even new material (previously unreleased). At times a greatest hits compilation is the original release for songs that have themselves been released as a single and charted successfully.

Notable compilations

Madonna's The Immaculate Collection is the best selling greatest hits compilation by a solo artist; all of the songs on it are presented in different versions than the original hit versions. The Eagles' Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) is the best selling greatest hits compilation by a group and also one of the ten best selling albums in history. Greatest hits albums are typically produced after an artist has had enough successful songs to fill out an album release. Some artists, such as Mariah Carey, Madonna, Janet Jackson, Britney Spears, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, The Beatles, Kenny Rogers, Aerosmith, Kiss, U2, Dolly Parton, Journey, Los Tigres del Norte, Queen, Kylie Minogue and Billy Joel, have released multiple greatest hits albums through their long careers. Some greatest hits albums are released only at the end of the artist or group's career. For example, My Chemical Romance released a greatest hits album after they disbanded. Other artists, like Eminem have released hits albums in the center of their success. He released Curtain Call: The Hits in 2005 and then Shady XV as a compilation album in 2014.