English term (edited): year-end \"hits\" collections were always preceded with \"huge\"

Huge Hits

Year-end Hits collections were always preceded with Huge and were released around November. Not to be confused with Telstar's Greatest Hits of (year) which had been issued since 1985.

From December 1995, BMG and Warner Music partnered for a new series of Hits albums, and Hits 96 was the first release of the relaunched brand. This was a very successful relaunch, and once again the Hits series started to rival the success of the contemporaneous Now releases of the time. Unlike the earlier Hits albums, there were up to five compilations a year, and instead of a volume number, the titles of this series had varied titles: Hits, New Hits, Fresh Hits, Big Hits and Huge Hits – this title is then always followed by the year of release; for example, Fresh Hits 1997.

In December 2000, Hits 2001 was released and this indicated that the following year there would be a continuation of the standard release pattern of New, Fresh, Big and Huge Hits. However, there was a failed attempt at refreshing the Hits brand once again. The compilers decided to rename Hits to Music: The Definitive Hits Collection, and the new series was billed to contain a much broader range of chart hits designed to appeal to buyers of the hugely successful and long-running Now That's What I Call Music series.