If Chinese Democracy is really coming out this year after a decade of delays (personally, we won’t believe it until we go to the record store and pay $13.99, and even then, we’ll worry about Axl Rose coming to our house to take the CD back), can other albums on rock fans’ wish lists be far behind? We’re not talking about fantasy records that never got made (Hendrix plays Nirvana’s Greatest Hits!), but long-promised, sometimes-bootlegged discs that could be officially released right now if the musicians and the record-company lawyers would all sign off: Reissues of the Peter Green era of Fleetwood Mac. Neil Young’s 1980s box set. The Grey Album. Bob Seger’s early Detroit singles.
The high-voltage number one on that list: a greatest-hits album from AC/DC, who after thirty-three years, still don’t have one. (The soundtrack to Stephen King’s Maximum Overdrive doesn’t count — it doesn’t even have “Hells Bells”!) Sure, that absence is part of why Back in Black has sold a mind-boggling 21 million copies. But if you think that Australia’s mightiest band will inevitably have to put their catalog up on iTunes, then the smart play for them would be to release a killer best-of CD a year before that, because fans will be rolling their own anyway.
Which album would fill a gaping hole in your record collection if it became available?

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- Portions of Album Content Provided by All Music Guide © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC.