Better Than Best

What is with the need for everyone to be "the best"? It's applied in various forms with equally ridiculous results when you stop to think about it. I never thought I'd see the day where I'd be quoting from a song that I detest but even Tina Turner knows the difference; "you're simply the best, better than all the rest".

In the novel world we have a constantly changing "best seller" list. A list? They can't all be the best. The best of anything is an exclusive club with a membership of one. Everything below first place is not "best". Is the novel in 10th place "best"? No, the 9 above it are all better than it, so it can't be, unless my education is wrong and there is such a thing as being better than best. If so, what is it?

Albums released as "Greatest Hits" or "The Very Best Of" from one band or artist implies that everything they will do from then on will flop, as you've already decreed their best work is on that CD. The "best" of any artist is very subjective and personal, but a "greatest hits" is a pure numbers game. So why is it that record company leeches re-release a "greatest hits" with slightly different songs and order, and a couple of "previously unreleased" songs? What part of "previously unreleased" can possibly be a "greatest hit"?

It gets even worse when the record companies put this stuff out again and again from artists and bands who are no longer working, or ignore the wishes of a band and put it out anyway. These leeches like to claim they're "supporting the artists" when they screw the artists on their contracts and re-release stuff where all of the profits stay with the company.

Compilation CDs are a joke too, "The Very Best Rock Songs On The Planet Ever Vol 199". It's the same stuff that appears on every other rock compilation album with a new cover. How many superlatives do they have to put on it? How much money do the bands and artists get from their songs appearing over and over in these compilations? I'm guessing peanuts. It's an industry way of printing money.

Anything that's ongoing can't possibly have a "best" unless we believe that whoever dictated that list has seen the future and decided that everything from then onwards is shit. In which case he or she should start investing on the number one singles from week to week, as they have the almanac that could set them up for life "Back To The Future" style.

In the English football leagues the top three tiers are as follows:

1. Barclays Premiership
2. The Championship
3. League One

All three divisions imply "best" with "premier" "champion" and "one". Each one implies they are the top of the tree, that when you win it, there is nowhere else to climb. The only one that applies to is the actual top division, the Barclays Premiership. Are their egos so fragile that they have to use stuff like this to convince themselves they are the best, when there is another one or two divisions of teams better than them?

US sports are a joke in this regard too, where they have a national US wide league, with a few teams from Canada thrown in and compete for the "world series". Since when was a US national league "the world"? I guess it almost guarantees that a US team will be the "world champions" without the expense of having to bribe officials.

So with my tongue firmly in my cheek I'll state that this has been my best post ever, from here on in, it'll all be drivel as I have indeed been to the future and had to sign an NDA on the way back. What I can say is that in the future it rains.