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A greatest hits album (sometimes referred to as a "best of" album) is a compilation album of successful, previously released songs by a particular music artist or band. To increase the appeal of the album - especially to people who already own the previously released material - it is common to include remixes or alternate takes of popular songs or new material, with new songs often being released as singles (and themselves sometimes becoming successful).

Greatest hits albums are typically produced after an artist has had enough successful songs to fill out an album release. Some artists, such as Queen and Billy Joel, have released multiple greatest hits albums through their career. Some greatest hits albums are released only at the end of the artist or group's career, as was the Stone Temple Pilots' Thank You. They are aimed at fans who liked a few of their songs or singles, but not enough to buy an artist's entire catalog as well as potential new fans who want to sample the most famous work of an artist or group with just one purchase.

In British pop music, when a band releases a Greatest Hits album, in most cases after three or four studio albums, it is usually taken as a sign that the band are about to split up. Examples include Greatest Hits albums by Atomic Kitten, Steps, S Club 7, Blue and Take That, although the latter band would reform nine years later. Recent exceptions to this "rule" include Westlife, Girls Aloud and Sugababes, who have either released or are committed to releasing new material after their greatest hits collections.

Some bands refuse to release a greatest hits album, notably Radiohead, AC/DC and Metallica. Manic Street Preachers initially refused to do a greatest hits, but in the end Forever Delayed was released. Also, the country music star Garth Brooks long opposed the release of a greatest hits collection, but agreed to it in 1994^[1] but only for a limited time (his release, The Hits was quickly deleted, but not until selling well over ten million copies).

Greatest hits collections can also boost a falling music career. The Beautiful South's first Greatest Hits album, Carry on up the Charts, was originally strongly opposed by the band. However, upon release it became one of the fastest selling albums in chart history. ^[2]

In 2005, some greatest hits albums became ridiculed because many young "pre-mature" artists were releasing them. The likes of Hilary Duff, 'N Sync and Mandy Moore released greatest hits albums though they might have had only a handful of hit singles in their short careers ^[3]. This is not, however, a new phenomenon: Ayumi Hamasaki, a Japanese pop star, released her first best album, A Best only 3 years after her debut, although she already had nine number 1 singles; Kenny Rogers and The First Edition, for example, issued Greatest Hits in 1971, three years after their first top 40 pop hit. Ol' Dirty Bastard released The Dirty Story: The Best of ODB after two albums and three singles. Ringo Starr issued his greatest hits album, Blast From Your Past, after a mere three solo albums in the 1970s, while Jason Donovan had a hits album out in 1991, only two years after he debuted, and despite only having 3 albums and 7 singles, Christina Milian released Best of Christina Milian in 2006. Underground hip-hop artist Apathy's first official release on CD was It's The Bootleg, Muthaf*ckas! Vol. 1, a 2-disc compilation of many of the rappers singles previously only available on vinyl. Cockney Rejects,Mrs. Miller, Alien Ant Farm and The Boomtang Boys satirised this by having Greatest Hits as the title of their respective debut albums. Welsh rappers Goldie Lookin' Chain also did this, however this was only a half-joke as they had already released a number of albums locally, the songs of their first album on general release being taken from these previous albums.