"The Byrds' Greatest Hits" is the first compilation album by the American rock band the Byrds, released in August 1967 by Columbia Records. It is the best-selling album in the Byrds' discography and achieved notable success on the US charts, reaching number 6 on the Billboard Top LPs chart. However, it did not make an impact on the UK charts. The album collects some of the band's most popular tracks from their early career, highlighting their influential sound during the mid-1960s.
Upon its release, The Byrds' Greatest Hits garnered favorable reviews from critics. Paul Williams, writing for Crawdaddy!, praised the album for transforming a typical greatest hits collection into a "rediscovery" of familiar music with artistic depth. WCFL Beat magazine acknowledged the Byrds' role in shaping the pop scene and paving the way for psychedelic music. In the UK, Record Mirror awarded the album four stars, highlighting its chronological collection of singles and the evolution of the band's sound. A November 1967 review in Beat Instrumental described it as one of the best collection LPs of the year, featuring timeless songs.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine, reviewing for AllMusic, considered it a definitive single-disc summary of the Byrds' prime years. Sarah Zupko of PopMatters noted that the Byrds captured the mood of their era perfectly. Robert Olsen, in his review of the SACD version for Music Tap, found the album to be a comprehensive compilation from the band's early albums, though he noted an over-representation of the first album and an emphasis on Dylan covers. Peter Kane, reviewing the 1991 re-release for Q magazine, appreciated the clarity of the original recordings.
The album was included in Robert Christgau's "Basic Record Library" in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies 1981 and ranked at number 178 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003. However, it was removed from the list in the 2012 update.
