Far Out Magazine has published a list celebrating ten essential various-artists compilations that it argues shaped rock and pop music as significantly as classic studio albums. The feature argues that compilations, unlike a band's defining LP, often quietly introduce entire genres and scenes to wider audiences, either by capturing an emerging underground at its earliest stage or by resurrecting overlooked material years later. Soundtracks such as The Harder They Come and Saturday Night Fever were deliberately excluded to keep the focus on curated multi-artist collections.

Among the entries highlighted are Angular Recording Corporation's Cold Waves + Minimal Electronics Volume One (2010), which helped revive interest in minimal synth and coldwave acts like Eleven Pond and Bal Paré; Earthworks' The Indestructible Beat of Soweto (1985), credited with introducing South African mbaqanga artists such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo to Western listeners ahead of Paul Simon's Graceland; and NME's C86 cassette (1986), a Rough Trade and NME collaboration that became so influential it lent its name to an entire indie jangle-pop genre.