Pantera Releasing Two New Compilations This Year, One Cool, One Not So Much

I understand, in theory, why labels release so many greatest hits/compilation albums — they’re really cheap to release, and in the days of physical media, at least, I’d wager they usually sold pretty well. There will always be casual fans who don’t care about entire albums, and n00bs looking for a crash course in a band they’ve heard is great.

What I don’t quite understand is why these things still get made in the digital era, when said n00bs and casual fans can access whatever the hell they want via a wide variety of perfectly legal streaming services.

I mention it because it’s been announced that there will be two new Pantera compilations released later this year, and while one of them seems like it might be cool/serve an actual purpose, the other does not.

Let’s start with the one that does not seem cool. Entitled History of Hostility, it’s being marketed as “a nine-track Pantera primer,” which is all well and good, but, again — can’t anyone who needs a Pantera primer just get it on Spotify or Apple Music or Rdio or Streo or whatever is hip right now (or, given that all nine tracks are presumably singles with accompanying music videos, YouTube)? This isn’t catering to young’uns; it’s catering to old people who still buy physical media and are somehow just now getting into Pantera a quarter of a century after the release of their most famous album and fifteen years after they broke up. How many people like that can there possibly be in the world?

Anyway, History of Hostility will be out October 30. Here’s the thrilling cover art:

Now, onto the cool-sounding release. Per the band’s Facebook page…

Rhino will also be releasing a new boxed set and single disc compilation. THE COMPLETE STUDIO ALBUMS 1990-2000, compiled of Cowboys From Hell (1990), Vulgar Display Of Power (1992), Far Beyond Driven (1994), The Great Southern Trendkill (1996), and Reinventing The Steel (2000). Two versions of the collection will be released on December 11, one a 5-CD set and the other a limited edition 5-LP set on colored vinyl . The LP version of the studio albums box also includes a 7” with two rare, non-albums tracks making their vinyl debut. The first is “Piss,” a song that debuted in 2012 on the 20th Anniversary Edition of Vulgar Display of Power. The second is “Avoid The Light” from the Dracula 2000 soundtrack.

Fuck! See, that makes sense to me as a release. I own all of Pantera’s albums, but I don’t own any of them on vinyl, colored or otherwise, so here’s a chance me to get ’em all in one fell swoop, probably at a lower price than it would cost to collect them individually, and hopefully in a box with cooler art than the History comp has. And even Pantera completists who already own the band’s discography on vinyl will wanna get this.

So, December 11. Just in time for Hanukkah. Y’know, if you’re looking to buy me something pretty.