When I'm Gone

This morning, I started writing a post about greatest hits albums. Eminem just released Curtain Call, and I was wondering why anyone would bother buying a greatest hits album when they can download individual tracks and create their own greatest hits CD.

Greatest hits CDs filled an obvious need. Before digital music, the only way you could get all the songs you wanted on a tape was to painstakingly dub whatever songs you wanted on to a tape. The greatest hits CD took all the work out of compiling that CD. But with music so freely available, either through i-tunes or other music service, compiling a greatest hits CD is a few clicks away.

Move that music onto an i-pod or other MP3 player, and that greatest hits CD is even less attractive.

But before I finished writing the post, I clicked on Yahoo, and saw that Eminem was getting back together with Kim. A few clicks later, and suddenly I was watching his new video, When I'm Gone, somewhere on MTV's website.

The video was amazing, and the song, only released on the Greatest Hits CD, was strong enough to get me to run out to Target, and buy the CD.

I still don't see a strong future for greatest hits compilation CDs, but if it means anything at all, Curtain Call is awesome.