If You're Only Going to Buy One Greatest Hits Set From... Earth, Wind & Fire

Yeah, yeah, I’m overdue.  But this is a tough one for me, because of Maurice White’s death.  I really like Earth, Wind and Fire – I have five studio albums and two greatest hits sets by the band, which is more than I own by either the Eagles or Jefferson Airplane/Starship.  From 1975 to 1979, they were the premier funk/r&b band.  After that, they got lumped in with disco (unfair) and people got sick of them pretty quickly (somewhat fair – Maurice White was awfully prolific during that time period, and might have been better served by taking a break).  Still, the band tours today (they hadn’t performed live with Maurice White for over a decade, due to his Parkinson’s issues), and they still draw pretty well.

There are a pile of EWF hits sets to choose from, and none of them are perfect.  This one is the closest, and the best dollar value.

Greatest Hits

Easy enough to remember the title, right?  17 songs, most of which are truly great hits (two non-singles are included – “Reasons,” for obvious, uh, reasons, and “Gratitude,” for less obvious ones, at least to me), and only one top 20 pop hit is missed (1982’s “Fall in Love With Me”).  The disk is $6.99 right now on Amazon, and the MP3 download is an unbelievable $5.00 (that may be a special promo price so that Amazon can rake in a few more bucks now that Maurice White is dead – I think I’ve seen higher prices at other times, and iTunes has it at $9.99). 

Here are the others available (links are to the Wikipedia entries when available):

Another Time (1974) is a compilation of the band’s first two albums on Warner Brothers records (all of their big hits were on Columbia), and it’s almost a different band.  This was never released on CD to my knowledge, and since those first two albums are available on CD and MP3, there really isn’t much need to search this out (aside from one song, “Handwriting on the Wall,” which is otherwise unavailable).

The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire Vol. 1 (1978) is the one almost everybody has on vinyl, if only to play “September” at parties (it was never made available on any studio albums).  This is a crackling good set (although it didn’t occur to me until now how presumptuous it was to call it Volume 1) with no misses whatsoever.  However, since it’s usually the same price as Greatest Hits, and is missing a lot of the songs from that album (the only song here that Greatest Hits doesn’t have is the never-a-hit “Love Music,” plus a few megamixes from the 2000 CD rerelease), it’s now pretty skippable.

The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire Vol. 2 (1988) isn’t nearly as necessary as the first volume, although it includes three great hits in “Boogie Wonderland,” “After the Love Has Gone,” and “Let’s Groove.”  However, it also fails to include “Fall in Love With Me” (is there something Maurice didn’t like about that song?), and scrapes up a bunch of midchart mid-70s hits while foregoing “System of Survival,” a great near-miss from 1987 that should have gotten more airplay.

The Eternal Dance (1993) is a three-disk box set that has every big hit and all but a few of the smaller ones (“Fall in Love With Me” and “System of Survival” are both here), plus a smattering of album cuts, live versions, and alternate takes.  I think it’s still in print, as Amazon has the physical box at $33.99 (although I suspect if Amazon sells out, Sony won’t be making more copies).  Here’s the odd thing:  Amazon doesn’t have it for download, but iTunes does – at $19.99.  The booklet is nice, but it ain’t worth 14 dollars. 

Elements of Love: The Ballads (1996) is another odious “all love songs” hits set.  If you want only the love songs, buy a longer hits set and program your MP3 player accordingly.

The Essential Earth, Wind & Fire (2002) shows that while Columbia/Sony does a great job on this series 95 percent of the time, sometimes they fall asleep at the switch.  Chronologically it’s all over the place, and while “Fall in Love With Me” finally made it to a hits set, “System of Survival” is still nowhere to be found (unless you can dig up a copy of the limited edition three-disk set, which is now out of print).  Further, six out of the nine songs from 1979’s I Am are here, including three tracks that weren’t even released as singles (at least here in the States) – while “Star,” also from that album and a song that did chart on the Hot 100, doesn’t make the cut.  $11.88 for the CD and $14.99 for the download on either Amazon or iTunes – but I’d grab The Eternal Dance off iTunes first.

Love Songs (2004) – wait, they had to release two of these fucking things?

Playlist: The Very Best of Earth, Wind and Fire (2008) is on CD only, and it’s probably worth it as a truck-stop purchase.  It has its share of headscratchers (who thought “Be Ever Wonderful” was more important to include than “Got to Get You Into My Life”?), but it’s $5.99 on Amazon, and as far as cheap hits set series go, the Playlist sets from Sony are far better than those awful 20^th Century Masters things from UMG.

No pop greatest hits sets from the individual members.  Maurice White released one solo LP in 1985 with a remake of “Stand By Me,” which was quickly forgotten the following year when Ben E. King’s original became a hit all over again.  Philip Bailey (he’s the one with the high tenor/falsetto; he sings both those parts and Maurice White’s in concert now) doesn’t have any pop anthologies (mostly because other than 1985’s hit “Easy Lover” with Phil Collins, he didn’t have many solo pop hits), but he did release a number of gospel albums concurrent with his pop career in the 1980s.  The one-disk The Best of Philip Bailey: A Gospel Collection, released in 1991, is available for download on both iTunes and Amazon.  He’s done a couple of jazz albums as well.

Just in case you’re debating between one disk and two, here’s the difference between Greatest Hits and Essential EWF.

Song Title	Year of Release	Billboard Peak	Greatest Hits	Essential EWF
Fan the Fire	1970	-
Love Is Life	1971	93
Evil	1972	50		Yes
Keep Your Head to the Sky	1972	52		Yes
Mighty Mighty	1974	29	Yes	Yes
Kalimba Story	1974	55	Yes	Yes
Open Our Eyes	1974	-		Yes
Drum Song	1974	-		Yes
Devotion	1974	33		Yes
Hot Dawgit (with Ramsey Lewis)	1974	50
Shining Star	1975	1	Yes	Yes
Sun Goddess (with Ramsey Lewis)	1975	44
That's the Way of the World	1975	12	Yes	Yes
Reasons	1975	-	Yes	Yes
Yearnin' Learnin'	1975	-		Yes
All About Love	1975	-		Yes
Sing a Song	1975	5	Yes	Yes
Gratitude	1976	-	Yes
Can't Hide Love	1976	39	Yes	Yes
Getaway	1976	12	Yes	Yes
Saturday Nite	1976	21	Yes	Yes
Ponta de Areia (Brazilian Rhyme)/Be Ever Wonderful	1977	-		Yes
Serpentine Fire	1977	13	Yes	Yes
I'll Write a Song for You	1977	-		Yes
Fantasy	1978	32	Yes	Yes
Got to Get You Into My Life	1978	9	Yes	Yes
September	1978	8	Yes	Yes
Boogie Wonderland (with The Emotions)	1979	6	Yes	Yes
After the Love Has Gone	1979	2	Yes	Yes
In the Stone	1979	58		Yes
Star	1979	64
Can't Let Go	1979	-		Yes
Wait	1979	-		Yes
You and I	1979	-		Yes
Let Me Talk	1980	44		Yes
You	1980	48		Yes
And Love Goes On	1981	59		Yes
Let's Groove	1981	3	Yes	Yes
Wanna Be With You	1982	51
Fall in Love With Me	1983	17		Yes
Side By Side	1983	76		Yes
Magnetic	1983	57
System of Survival	1987	60
Thinking of You	1987	67
Sunday Morning	1993	53