The 9 Most Unnecessary Greatest Hits Albums of All Time

A Greatest Hits album is an artist's testament to a long and prolific career. Or at least it would be, if it wasn't for the fact that pretty much anybody can release one, regardless of how few hits they actually have to their name. As evidence of this, we give you...

The window of time in which the world actually gave a shit about Vanilla Ice was quite slim, maybe a year, max. Granted, during those twelve months, the man put together a dazzling string of accomplishments: the first rap song to reach #1 on the Billboard pop charts, one of the best selling rap albums of all time, several Grammy and American Music Award nominations, sex with a still hot at the time Madonna. It was a good run.

But as adored as he may have been for 52 weeks in 1990-1991, he was absolutely fucking hated a million times more for about ten years after. An incident in which he was supposedly dangled from the ankles off a balcony from the top floor of a hotel and forced to sign over the publishing rights to his biggest hit ever is still used as comedy fodder to this day, most recently on a 2006 episode of Entourage. Chew on that for a second, the fact that Vanilla Ice was almost murdered by Suge Knight is thought to be hilarious by millions of people. This album could be called The Very Best of That Fucking Ice Ice Baby Dick That Suge Knight Should Have Dropped To His Death and nobody would bat an eyelash.

Best Moment:
How do you pick just one? Is it "Ninja Rap," a song whose "go ninja, go ninja, go!" chorus evokes kick ass visions of actual ninjas doing the running man, until you realize it's a song from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II soundtrack? How about "I Love You," a tender hip hop ballad that shamelessly apes LL Cool J's "I Need Love" but does it in such a pussified way it manages to make "I Need Love" sound like "Fuck Da Police" in comparison? Perhaps "Satisfaction" would be more to your liking, a tune in which our hero samples The Rolling Stones greatest riff ever, almost certainly without their permission, and proceeds to take a four minute long hip hop shit on it. Really, we can't decide. It's all pretty goddamned awful.

Most Awesome Amazon.com User Review:
"If you decide to buy this CD, wait patiently by the mail box till it arrives. Upon arrival, quickly open the box, then pull the security tape from the jewel case. Open the jewel case and place the CD in one hand. Break the CD in half, then slit your wrists with the remaining shards. As you begin to die look at your reflection in the mirror-like surface of the broken CD, and ask your self what you were thinking when you ordered this CD!"

The second sentence of Nelson's Wikipedia entry perfectly sums up the total lack of need for this "best of" collection to even exist: "They had a No. 1 hit in the United States with "(Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection" during the week of September 29, 1990." Yep, for one fucking week, these dudes were kings!

To honor that devoid-of-talent week in 1990, someone decided to do the years of research required to come up with 10 other Nelson songs possibly worth hearing and gather them together on The Best of Nelson: The Millennium Collection. To think, while Y2K paranoia had us celebrating the millennium hunkered down in a bomb shelter scared that a rogue ATM was going to burst through the door at the stroke of Midnight, we could've spent it with this collection of non-hits, celebrating both the coming of the 21st century and Matthew and Gunnar Nelson's glory days. All seven of them.

Best Moment:
"Won't Walk Away," an about-as-awesome-as-Nelson-will-ever-get pop-rock cheese fest that answers the age old question, "what would it sound like if The Replacements were gang raped by Styx?"

Most Awesome Amazon.com User Review:
"Nelson's powerful melodic sound was the logical follow up to the Journey/Foreigner/Loverboy arena rock sound of the 80's. NELSON ROCKS! There, I said it."

Fact: kids have shitty taste in music. Actually, just about everything kids like, excluding toys and video games in some cases, totally fucking blows. They don't know any better. In light of this, we don't care how many "hits" this kid may or may not have had as a result of catering to the 8 and under demographic (we didn't check). We are grown folks talking about grown up shit and we say this kid makes the list.

Ok, we're kidding, of course we checked, we're semi-professionals! Unless you count the single "Aaron's Party (Come and Get It)" peaking at #35 as a hit, there is no place in the world for this attempt at revisionist history. By far, the most shocking thing about this album, other than that it exists at all, is the title. Look at the album cover; even he looks a bit surprised. Most requested hits? Requested by who? This implies that there were studies done, numbers crunched and songs eliminated because, compared to "My Shorty," they just couldn't justify including them due to their less than impressive request history. We call bullshit. We want to see the numbers. A Freedom of Information Act request is pending.

Best Moment:
"That's How I Beat Shaq," in which a 15 year-old white kid tells his friends how he met Shaquille O'Neal on a playground and schooled him in a game of one on one. In the end though, it turns out to be a dream! Aw hell naw! We didn't see that coming, yo! But wait, there's a twist! At the end of the song comes the line "If it was a dream, and it wasn't real, how'd I get a jersey with the name O'Neal?" as if to imply some Freddy Krueger shit had just taken place. His friend's reply with a shocked "whooooaaa!" Our reply? "You probably bought it at motherfucking Foot Locker, now go do your homework."

Most Awesome Amazon.com User Review:
"A greatest hits collection from the greatest EVER!!! A.C. gets his props as all of his illustrious hits are presented in Dolby 5.1 surround sound!!! WORD. Don't sleep on Aaron Carter, although the omission of "Stride (Jump on the Fizzy) is inexcusable."