Two albums into her Asylum Records career, Linda Ronstadt was poised on the very brink of superstardom — one more push (1977′s Simple Dreams would do it), and the little ol’ folk singer from Tucson would be the biggest-selling female artist of the decade. However, an army of new fans had arisen who needed to know more than the bare statistics, and that was why Greatest Hits became one of the key stocking stuffers of the 1976 holiday season. Reflecting, for the most part, on Ronstadt’s prior four years of recording, Greatest Hits dipped into prehistory just once, with the inclusion of the Stone Poneys’ “Different Drum.” The remainder of that band’s output was overlooked, however, and so was Ronstadt’s eponymous debut album; next came a cut from Don’t Cry Now, and then one from the 1974 chart-topper Heart Like a Wheel, her final two albums for Capitol, and then a couple from Prisoner in Disguise and Hasten Down the Wind, and the blistering run of singles spawned by both of those albums: “Love Is a Rose,” “That’ll Be the Day,” “Heatwave,” “Tracks of My Tears,” and if anybody noticed that her biggest hits were old radio favorites, then all the more power to Ronstadt, for being so able to make them her own. In the modern age of CD anthologies and 80-minute discs, a mere 12-track hits collection looks impossibly tightfisted. At the time of release, however, Linda Ronstadt Greatest Hits was a triumph, a bargain, a genuinely great album. Listened to today; it remains so. Ronstadt’s had a lot of hits collections since this one was issued. But this is still the greatest. – Dave Thompson