I'd have had Decade and Meaty Beaty at the top of my list.

Singles Going Steady by Buzzcocks is another.

Jules

Good game.  Excellent choices.

Beatles - Red and Blue, obvs?

I’d have to say Neil Young’s Decade - similarly for the essential and the unreleased. Who’d have thought at the time that a triple album would later only cover a fraction of his career!?

That is indeed a superb compilation, in part because of those tracks which at the time it was difficult to get elsewhere. Many of his very best songs - eg Tomorrow is a long time. Cover photo from the Bangladesh concert is great as well.

It does beg the question of which other compilation albums were/are indispensable. I’ll start the bidding with Rolled Gold, the vinyl version (best Stones album of all time?) and Meaty, Beaty , Big and Bouncy (still cherish the thought of my dad asking for that when buying my Christmas present).

In fairness, this is the track list for my first essential album;
Watching The River Flow
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
Lay Lady Lay
Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
All I Really Want To Do
My Back Pages
Maggie's Farm
Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You
Positively 4th Street
All Along The Watchtower
The Mighty Quinn (Quinn, The Eskimo)
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
If Not For You
New Morning
Tomorrow Is A Long Time
When I Paint My Masterpiece
I Shall Be Released
You Ain't Goin' Nowhere
Down In The Flood

Clue: The other one is not ‘Under The Red Sky’.

Something with The Band on it?

Jules

 

But David, you didn’t ask which was the other one… 🤔🤭😂

My latest missive for His Majesty's Press: https://skirky.blogspot.com/2026/04/sorted-for-cheese-and-fizz.html Originally published in The Bury Free Press.

And, furthermore, rofl.

Jules

Lol