Joe Strummer once claimed that the Clash had stardom in their hands, then they dropped it on the floor and broke it. Pearl Jam took the opposite tact: they purposely left stardom behind. Nirvana may have ushered in the age of grunge and alternative rock, but Pearl Jam were the biggest band in the land during the first half of the '90s, dominating radio airwaves, MTV, and college dorms alike. Most bands would have embraced such widespread acclaim, but the quintet bristled at this vein, and started to restlessly explore new musical territory, a move that eventually whittled their fan base down to just the hardcore by the beginning of the next decade. That hardcore following was still large, and the band could still have the occasional surprising crossover hit, like the 1999 cover of J. Frank Wilson's teen tragedy classic "Last Kiss" that went to number two on the Billboard charts, but they were no longer the biggest band in the land. Spanning two discs, Rearviewmirror (Greatest Hits 1991-2003) chronicles that journey and it does an expert job not only of capturing the moment when Pearl Jam were monstrously popular, but proving that they still turned out good music even when they were fading from the spotlight. Unlike most career-spanning, multi-disc retrospectives, Rearviewmirror does not emphasize latter-day albums in order to achieve a sense of balance that's inherently phony. Of the 33 tracks, only 12 date from the post-Vitalogy era, which means that the bulk of the collection concentrates on their early-'90s heyday, and nearly every radio hit and concert staple is here, outside of the Victoria Williams cover "Crazy Mary" and "Tremor Christ." While their presence would have been nice, they're not terribly missed, partially because such non-LP cuts like "State of Love and Trust," "I Got ID," "Last Kiss," and "Man of the Hour" are collected here, but mainly because the compilation plays so well. The songs are divided into the "Up Side" and "Down Side," meaning the first disc has all the rockers and the second disc has all the ballads. At first, this seems like a questionable strategy, since it's usually preferable to have all the hits follow in chronological order, but what makes this work is that the songs on each disc are presented in chronological order, and they sustain their mood quite well (this is partially helped by Brendan O'Brien's new mixes of "Once," "Alive," and "Black," which retain the feeling of the original songs but remove much of the dated glossy sheen in the production). Distilled to their hits and anthems, all of Pearl Jam's best qualities shine through and they sound bigger, better, and frankly more coherent than they do on their full-length albums. And that's why Rearviewmirror is a cut above most '90s hits collections: it not only gives casual fans all the hits, but it captures why the band mattered, while providing a better listen than their proper LPs in the process.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

There are no two ways around it: Greatest Hits: Every Mile a Memory seems to arrive a little early in Dierks Bentley's career, appearing in May 2008, just five years after his self-titled debut album. In those five years Bentley released just three albums -- not a lot to build a greatest-hits album on, so the album is pumped up with two pretty good new songs (the smooth midtempo love song "Sweet & Wild" and the peppier "With the Band') and five live tracks chosen by fans (three of them live repeats of songs heard in their studio incarnations earlier on the album), bringing the track total up to a respectable 17 tracks. These are nice bonuses, but the real worth of Every Mile a Memory is the same as any greatest-hits album: it's a place to get all the hits in one tidy package, and this has all of Bentley's charting singles between 2003 and 2008 minus "Domestic, Light and Cold," which scraped the bottom of the country charts in 2005. Taken together, these singles make Bentley out to be more of a straight-ahead balladeer than his proper albums do, but anybody frustrated by this development will already have his three albums. This is for the casual fans -- along with those hardcore fans who helped pick the five live tunes here under the enticement of being listed as executive producers in the album's liner notes -- and for those fans it gets the job done nicely.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

There are no two ways around it: Greatest Hits: Every Mile a Memory seems to arrive a little early in Dierks Bentley's career, appearing in May 2008, just five years after his self-titled debut album. In those five years Bentley released just three albums -- not a lot to build a greatest-hits album on, so the album is pumped up with two pretty good new songs (the smooth midtempo love song "Sweet & Wild" and the peppier "With the Band') and five live tracks chosen by fans (three of them live repeats of songs heard in their studio incarnations earlier on the album), bringing the track total up to a respectable 17 tracks. These are nice bonuses, but the real worth of Every Mile a Memory is the same as any greatest-hits album: it's a place to get all the hits in one tidy package, and this has all of Bentley's charting singles between 2003 and 2008 minus "Domestic, Light and Cold," which scraped the bottom of the country charts in 2005. Taken together, these singles make Bentley out to be more of a straight-ahead balladeer than his proper albums do, but anybody frustrated by this development will already have his three albums. This is for the casual fans -- along with those hardcore fans who helped pick the five live tunes here under the enticement of being listed as executive producers in the album's liner notes -- and for those fans it gets the job done nicely.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Midnights isn't a retreat so much as a return, a revival of the moody electro-pop that kept Reputation roiling. Where that 2017 record carried a measure of defiance, the vibe of Midnights is contemplative even when beats are insistent, as they are on occasion. Despite these fleeting moments of urgency, the record is clearly a soundtrack to be played in the wee hours of the morning. In that sense, Midnights is a kindred spirit to Folklore and Evermore, the twin 2020 albums Swift released during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, yet those records felt like collections of short stories where these songs -- whether in their standard 13-song variation or the lengthy "3 AM Edition" which runs an additional seven tracks -- all feel like confessions, even if they display the sense of exacting lyrical detail she's honed since Lover. These compositions provide a sturdy foundation on a record that wants to capture the aimless suspension of late-night insomnia, a time filled with regret, recriminations, and resignations. Swift spikes this moodiness with hints of steeliness -- witness the cool swagger of "Vigilante Shit" -- but that's merely an accent on an album designed to deliver variations on one specific mood. Although this monochromatic palette tends to highlight the limits of co-producer Jack Antonoff's bag of tricks -- nothing here feels surprising, even when he's playing with textures and teasing out the music's dream pop elements -- the narrow focus is the main attribute of Midnights, as it plays to Swift's sense of control and craft: she may be singing about messy emotions but she sculpts those tangled feelings into shimmering, resonant songs.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Greatest Hits is an excellent, thorough 14-track collection containing all of Journey's big hits, from 1978's "Wheel in the Sky" to 1986's "I'll Be Alright Without You." Although the songs aren't presented in chronological order and a handful of minor hits ("Suzanne," "Walks Like a Lady") aren't included, it doesn't matter, since every essential Journey single -- "Only the Young," "Don't Stop Believin'," "Any Way You Want It," "Separate Ways," "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'," "Open Arms," "Send Her My Love" -- is here, which means that it's all most casual fans will ever need.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo