[TR24][OF] Alabama - Greatest Hits - 1986/2016 (Country, Folk)

Greatest Hits is the first greatest hits package released by the American country music band Alabama. The album was released by RCA Records in 1986, and has since been certified platinum for sales of 5 million units by the Recording Industry Association of America. By the mid-1980s, Alabama had become the most dominant act in country music. During the first half of the decade, the Fort Payne, Alabama-based group had 18 No. 1 songs in as many single releases (discounting their 1982 Christmas single, "Christmas in Dixie"). They had released six multi-platinum albums and had won many awards from the Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music.
Alabama's first greatest hits album includes eight of their hit singles; seven of those reached No. 1 on the Billboard magazine Hot Country Singles chart between 1980 and 1985. The eighth song of that group was "My Home's in Alabama", widely considered by fans to be their signature tune (despite only reaching No. 17).
Released in 1986, Greatest Hits runs a mere ten tracks, so it simply doesn't have enough room to chronicle all the hits they had in the early '80s; though they had years of hits still to come, they already had become a fixture at the top of the country charts, turning out too many hits to fit in this collection. That said, this does an excellent job of summarizing this early peak, containing many songs that became perennials of modern country: "Mountain Music," "Feels So Right," "Tennessee River," "40 Hour Week (For a Livin')," and "My Home's in Alabama." Later collections would offer more, but this collection provides the songs that are at the core of their sound, and, years later, it is still an excellent crystallization of what Alabama is all about.