I’ve always been in two minds about ‘Greatest Hits’ compilations. On the one hand, you have all of the artist’s most popular hits – ones that you might even know more than the chorus too – in one handy collection. It’s the artist at their best. No padding, no filler. No b-sides or remixes. Simply their greatest hits. An precursor, perhaps, to launching a fully-fledged collection of their back catalogue. All well and good.

But on the other hand…well…it just feels like cheating. If you buy a Hits compilation, what about all of the other songs by the artist that you’re missing out on? Isn’t a Hits compilation really just a ‘Most Marketable Songs’ collection – for instance, you don’t see Franz Ferdinand’s ‘Shopping for Blood’ or Ocean Colour Scene’s ‘I Wanna Stay Alive With You’ storming the charts. You’ll find rarer (if sometimes rougher) gems if you buy the albums, you’ll bore impress more friends with your knowledge of obscure music. Is it not just a snub to the artist? Aren’t you just saying "Well, I like your songs, but only your really popular ones" If you’re going to buy music, then for God’s sake, do it properly.

These moral dilemmas have a way of haunting me, so it was with some trepidation that I handled ‘Then And Now (1964-2004)’, a recent Greatest Hits compilation by The Who. "I’m so sorry,", I insisted to the CD, "but I promise that this is just to get me started. I’m sure you’re great, but I don’t really know any more than two or three of your songs! I’m not ready for your albums yet!" The CD glared at me, in that way that CDs don’t, and I bought it, shame-faced.

Thing is, it is a good CD, and seems to me to be a perfectly adequate introduction to The Who, taking in their whole career. There are no surprises; you have ‘My Generation’, and ‘The Kids Are Alright’, and the good-but-a-bit-camp ‘Pinball Wizard’. As is often the case on today’s Greatest Hits compilations, you also have two new recordings, ‘Real Good Looking Boy’ and ‘Old Red Wine’. Unless you know The Who already, though, this inclusion probably won’t bother you a great deal. And if you know The Who already, you probably have all their hits anyway, and would only buy this CD for those two extra tracks. Goddamn marketing ploys. You see what I mean? Barely a few hundred words in and I’m already annoyed. They’re not Greatest Hits if they’re new. In fact, they probably never would be Greatest Hits – if they’re that good, then why weren’t they released as singles?

I digress, as is my wont. If you like The Who (and if you don’t, then you really should), then you’ll like this album, but we’re talking about a band with a career spanning four decades; I can’t believe you can distill that into just one CD without losing a lot of excellent material. So, if you want something to spur you onto expanding your own collection of quality music, then this will do the job nicely.

Just, promise me you won’t stop with just a Hits collection, ok?