But if good things happen at the sites of horrible mishaps, as a popular American sentiment whose evidence is seen at roadside shrines to the victims of auto accidents seems to contend, so do kick-ass unforeseen consequences grow from cynical marketing devices and contractual obligations. From the record-collector irritant of the Greatest Hits collection springs the frustrated completist-collector’s light shining in the darkness, the B-sides and rarities compilation. As necessary as they are insulting to a collector who, buying them, concedes failure in the attempt to get ahold of every recorded release by a given artist, these collections let the pitiable completist save face. If you go through my Steve Miller Band collection, note that I have all the albums, and then see “Greatest Hits Volume One” and “Greatest Hits Volume Two” filed in with the rest of them, you’re liable to think I’m either stupid or neurotic. (For the record, I am both.) If, on the other hand, you’re looking through the thirty-seven albums by the Fall that you noticed sticking out like a sore thumb from the middle of my collection, and you run across Collected U.K. 7” Singles and Flexis 1979-1982, you’re going to flip, because even if I already had all those, having them all in one place is cool. Thinking that somebody went to the trouble to compile them is cool, and the service that such collections do to history is almost endlessly cool. By combining a few “great hits” with other matters of historical interest, the collection suddenly justifies itself. You Fall collectors can relax, by the way; Collected U.K. 7” Singles and Flexis 1979-1982 is a figment of my imagination.