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Greatest Hits is the second greatest hits album and final release by Irish boy band Westlife. It was released on 18 November 2011 by RCA Records and Sony Music. ''Greatest Hits'' is the group's second greatest hits album following ''Unbreakable: The Greatest Hits Volume 1'' (2002). The album is the group's first album not under Syco Music and not under the tutelage of Simon Cowell, having left Syco and Cowell in March 2011. The greatest hits album contains numerous singles that span throughout the band's career, as well as four new songs produced by John Shanks, which includes the lead single "Lighthouse", which was released on 14 November 2011, and "Beautiful World", the album's second single, which was released on 17 December 2011. The compilation was released in two different formats, a standard edition containing the album's eighteen tracks, and a deluxe edition featuring numerous other singles of the band's discography, as well as a DVD containing almost all of the band's music videos. Upon the album's release, ''Greatest Hits'' received mixed reviews from music critics, with some reviewers praising the compilation's structure, while others disliked the group's musical style implemented in the songs. The compilation reached #4 in the UK Albums Chart; it is the lowest peaking position for a Westlife album. The album debuted at the #1 position on the Irish Albums Chart, while it peaked within the top forty of New Zealand and Norway. ==Background== It was recorded from May - September 2011 with the band's ''Gravity'' producer Shanks and new producers like Dan Radclyffe and Boxsta Martin. On 5 September 2011, it was confirmed the album to be simply titled as ''Greatest Hits''. The group said, "It’s almost hard to believe that we’ve been doing this for as long as we have. We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved and are looking forward to releasing our ''Greatest Hits'' as a special thank you to our fans who have supported us throughout our career." Egan added: "Our greatest hits album is out soon, and we’ve worked so hard to put together four or five new tracks for the album. The new songs are great and we’re all really pleased with them. We think the fans will love them too." Feehily added, "It's a very different Westlife", "We are putting the finishing touches to our new songs" Bryne explained: "I'm doing a bit of everything to be honest, We just came back from the UK, we were there for four days. We were in the studio for four or five weeks but we finished there about a month ago." In ''China Daily'', they said that Westlife has taken their music and career to another level. “‘We’re all at least 30 years of age. We could all go home now and we’d be all right for the rest of our lives,’ Feehily says. “So, if we are going to make more records, we want to do it well. Otherwise we don’t want to do it at all.” The album is a three-disc set. On 4 September 2011, Amazon.co.uk and Play.com revealed aside from the standard and deluxe editions, each record stores have included free postcards and an exclusively signed copies respectively. On 8 September 2011, the pre-order link for the said album has already been available for 36 countries on their official store. On 15 September 2011, the pre-order link for the special limited edition of the box set was announced.` It featured a 2CD/DVD deluxe version of the boys' ''Greatest Hits'' album alongside a poster and exclusive pictures of the boys and included a special photobook showing the boys incredible journey over the last 14 years including a selection of submitted fan pictures. As a special thank you for all of the amazing support so far, the boys have signed the first 500 copies of the box set. The signed edition of the album was sold-out in less than 24 hours. Before that, in August 2011 they made a contest for the fans to contribute on the upcoming Westlife boxset. They were looking to make a special boxset filled with some of the greatest things that you have collected over your time as a Westlife fan. On 27 and 31 October 2011, Sony Music announced a "PureSolo competition" of singing along with their hits and "an album listening party" respectively. On 6 November 2011, they launched a joined venture with MixPixie that customize a personalised album cover. This product is approved by several music record labels and will be fully launched by the year 2012. Westlife is the first on-hand to accept this product. Added for HMV.co.uk events were album signing personally by the lads with the schedule as follows: HMV Glasgow Buchanan Street, Monday, 21 November 2011, 9.00 am; HMV Newcastle Northumberland Street, Monday, 21 November 2011, 1.00 pm; and HMV Manchester 90 Market Street, Monday, 21 November 2011, 6.00 pm A final tracklist for the collection of the 18-track standard edition of the album was confirmed by Swedish's CDON.com while the additional deluxe edition wasn't revealed yet. On 12 October 2011, the official site completely announced the tracklisting. While ''4music'' first announced the tracklisting for the DVD. There are four new tracks on the standard edition, those are: "Beautiful World" (written by Feehily, Shanks and Ruth-Anne Cunningham), "Wide Open" and "Last Mile Of The Way" (co-written by Byrne, Filan, Dimitri Ehrlich, Coyle Girelli) and the lead single to be released on 14 November 2011, "Lighthouse".〔 According to group member Kian Egan, the band were asked by their record label if they wanted to re-record the vocals by former member Brian McFadden for the album. The band rejected the proposal as they "wanted to keep it true to the original singles". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Greatest Hits (Westlife album)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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