Earlier this year we saw Kanye West change the generally considered norm of an album with The Life Of Pablo. Since it’s release in February West has regularly updated the album; altering the track listing, adding or extending vocal features, changing the mix of songs, and is still evolving it to this day. With digital music an album is no longer just a collection of songs, it can be an ever-changing expression.<\/p>\n
On a similar level David Gray’s upcoming best-of album on Spotify is looking to change the format. Rather than a pre-defined selection of his ‘best’ tracks Gray wants his fans to decide what his best music is, and keep the album updated as their opinions change. How’s he going to do this?<\/p>\n
Using Spotify’s stream counts Gray’s best-of album will act more as a dynamic playlist that shows his most popular tracks down to the least popular. The playlist will constantly update it’s track listing positioning as his tracks gain more\/less popularity. Gray’s label Kobalt says that it’s best described not as ‘The Greatest Hits’ but as ‘Your Greatest Hits’.<\/p>\n
Speaking on the upcoming digital concept collection, David Gray said: What we have on our hands with ‘The Best Of David Gray Weekly’ is an ever evolving Best Of that is different every week, every month, every year, every decade. The more you stream a track, any David Gray song, the higher in the playlist it appears.”<\/p>\n
It’s not quite going to change the way we look at the concept of a greatest hits compilation like Kanye West did for LPs but none-the-less it’s a unique concept that shows the evolution of music in the digital age.<\/p>\n