Beginning in the late nineties, the band presented an elaborate backstory: they told everyone that they were brother and sister when, in reality, they married in 1996 and divorced in 2000. It makes some sense that the White Stripes-a band fully dedicated, from its outset, to anachronisms and incongruities-would embrace the greatest-hits form at the end of 2020. There are a handful of greatest-hits collections-Tom Petty and the HeartbreakersвЂ™ вЂњGreatest HitsвЂќ chief among them-that I would defend as masterpieces. It can be edifying (and sometimes thrilling) to watch a writer or writers evolve over time. At their best, greatest-hits albums cleanly illustrate an artistвЂ™s creative arc. Still, IвЂ™ll cop to some fondness for the format.

(Though the ordering is different, вЂњThis Is the White StripesвЂќ hews awfully close to the track listing for вЂњThe White Stripes Greatest Hits.вЂќ) Greatest-hits albums do still appear from time to time (the indie-rock band Spoon released an excellent one, вЂњEverything Hits at Once,вЂќ in 2019), but they mostly feel like one more thing (along with fair revenue for songwriters, extensive liner notes, and large-format album art) that streaming has made obsolete. вЂќ series, which compiles the most popular or emblematic tracks by any given artist, allows the service to create, present, and perpetuate a kind of populist canon-greatest-hits albums for the digital era. The popularity of curated playlists, in which songs by different artists are grouped together by mood, genre, or some other inscrutable metric, seems to indicate that itвЂ™s well behind us. ItвЂ™s harder to pinpoint precisely when the album era ended. PepperвЂ™s Lonely Hearts Club Band,вЂќ released in 1967, is generally considered the first entry of the so-called album era, in which records were no longer merely collections of individual songs but narrative objects in their own right. Though the idea of an album as a complete, cohesive text now feels entrenched, itвЂ™s actually a fairly recent (and brief) development in the history of recorded music. A Decade of SongвЂќ) have each sold upward of twenty million copies. For decades, вЂњEagles: Their Greatest HitsвЂќ vied with вЂњThrillerвЂќ as the best-selling album of all time, while similar compilations by Madonna (вЂњThe Immaculate CollectionвЂќ), ABBA (вЂњGold: Greatest HitsвЂќ), the Beatles (вЂњ1вЂќ), Bob Marley (вЂњLegend: The Best of Bob Marley and the WailersвЂќ), Queen (вЂњGreatest HitsвЂќ), Elton John (вЂњGreatest HitsвЂќ), and CГ©line Dion (вЂњAll the Way. The reality that greatest-hits albums have always been wildly lucrative for artists-attracting, as they do, the dilettantes and dabblers-probably hasnвЂ™t helped to win over the purists. A real listener should be prepared to endure duds, filler, cringey spoken-word interludes, skits, and various half-cooked song-experiments before getting to the thrill of the single. Using that logic, an entire album of recontextualized hits is simply too indulgent. That dismissal also jibes with the music geekвЂ™s tendency to moralize suffering: a belief that pleasure needs to be both earned and accounted for. вЂњSheвЂ™s always been a hermit,вЂќ he said.ДЇor devoted fans, greatest-hits records can feel like a cheat, in part because they repudiate the long-playing album as a sacrosanct document, inviolate and complete. As with most breakups, the precise catalyst for the rupture remains unclear, although, in an interview with Rolling Stone, in 2014, Jack suggested that Meg wasnвЂ™t especially keen on the demands of celebrity. On Friday, the White Stripes-the garage-rock duo founded by Jack and Meg White, in Detroit, in 1997-released a twenty-six-track greatest-hits compilation, titled вЂњMy Sister Thanks You and I Thank You: The White Stripes Greatest Hits.вЂќ The band put out its sixth and final LP, вЂњIcky Thump,вЂќ in 2007, before officially dissolving in 2011. Meg and Jack White, of the White Stripes, pose for the camera in 2001.

Seal greatest hits rar