Foo Fighters' Greatest Hits, which was released this week, spans the band's 15-year career by focusing on their many hits. Best-of collections are an interesting thing -- they're a great introduction to a band you may not know much about, but ideally they'll also get you interested enough to explore that group's studio albums in order to get a better understanding of all their sonic dimensions.

With that in mind, I've put together a list of the Top 10 Greatest-Hits Collections and included notes on what these compilations do and don't include. With the holidays just around the corner, these albums might make for fun stocking-stuffers for that young rock fan in your life.

Top 10 Greatest-Hits Collections

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Creed haven't released a new studio album since 2001, but last week they returned with their mediocre comeback record, Full Circle. Creatively, it may be a bit of a mixed bag, but how will it do commercially? We got our first hint today when this week's Billboard 200 album chart was announced. Full Circle landed at No. 2 with sales of 110,000 copies, bested only by Michael Jackson's posthumous This Is It.

It's hard enough to reclaim a fan base after years of inactivity, but Creed are also returning to the spotlight at a time when the music industry is radically different than the era when they thrived. No stronger indicator of this was the fact that when Creed's last album, Weathered, debuted on the sales chart, it moved 887,000 units. Now, that was during the height of their popularity, but the sad fact is that such a sales figure would be nearly impossible today because of reduced album sales. Of the band's previous studio albums, none has gone less than sextuple-platinum. No matter how beloved Full Circle becomes, that simply won't happen, so expectations will have to be adjusted accordingly.

In other rock news, the New Moon soundtrack fell from last week's top spot to No. 8, selling 69,000 units, which brings its approximate total to about 337,000 copies in less than a month. The accompanying film will be released November 20, so it'll be interesting to see if the album gets a sales boost around that time.

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Saving Abel are currently on the road, but if you've only seen them during earlier tours, they're giving fans an additional reason to attend these shows -- you'll get to hear them try out new material that will probably end up on their sophomore album.

Speaking with Billboard, the band members mentioned several songs that they're previewing on this tour, including "Hell of a Ride," "Bloody Sunday" and "Tap Out." Drummer Blake Dixon says, "Basically right now we've got the album pretty much finished, and I think if we put it out right now people would love it. But we want to make sure we're completely ecstatic with it."

The record doesn't have a title yet, but from the band's comments, it appears that they want it to continue in the vein of their commercially successful 2008 debut, Saving Abel. They use words like "edgy" and "raunchy" in their description of the new songs, and those adjectives could certainly be used when discussing Saving Abel, which was boosted by the salacious slow-burn single "Addicted."

No exact release date has been set, but the band say they'll be putting out the album in the first half of 2010. But that doesn't mean they're done writing material for the record. "Hopefully [we'll] come up with just a few more tunes that are over the top," Dixon said, "kind of like how 'Addicted' was one of the last songs we recorded for [Saving Abel]. We want to take a little more time and put a little more into it and just come out with the best product we possibly can."

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Glasvegas are working on the follow-up to their self-titled debut, and it sounds like the Scottish quartet will be sticking with the romantic spirit of their first record for this new effort.

"Love gained and love lost," frontman James Allan told NME.com when asked to describe the forthcoming record's themes. "The idea of finding love and losing love. I still think I'm clueless when it comes to songwriting and describing how I'm feeling, what I've seen and what comes to me in the middle of the night. But it is an album of love songs. It is a definite follow on from the debut, which also had love songs on it, but was mainly about having aspirations to love."

As Allan suggested back in July, the group will leave their native Glasgow and head to Los Angeles to do the actual recording of the album. While they're in L.A., they'll be working with renowned producer Rick Rubin on the record's drum sounds. There's no word yet on when this follow-up will be released, but I wonder if Glasvegas will be bumping into the Red Hot Chili Peppers while they're in Southern California -- the Funky Monks have made their last five albums with Rubin, and the expectation is that they'll team up with him again for their new record.

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In July, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith announced that the group would reconvene in October to finally begin work on their follow-up to 2006's multi-platinum Stadium Arcadium. Well, it's almost Halloween now, so how are the guys doing on the next record? ClashMusic caught up with Smith to ask about their progress. According to him, things are moving forward -- and they may be eyeing a release date for the album.

"We're gonna write for a while, it usually takes us a while," Smith said, which echoes his comments from July when he noted that the band "do a lot of improvising and jamming" when they start mapping out a new record. Asked about when we can expect the album, Smith was somewhat vague: "Some time next year, maybe this time [next year]."

That comment, of course, will inspire a lot of headline-writers to proclaim that we'll definitely receive the new RHCP record in October. But considering how noncommittal Smith's response was, I'd suggest that we consider October just to be a general timeframe for its release -- let's see how the improvising and jamming go first.

More Red Hot Chili Peppers:

• Red Hot Chili Peppers nominated for Rock Hall
• Top 10 Red Hot Chili Peppers Songs

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Back in February, Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland made a promise to the band's fans: "STP will have a new record out in early 2010." Eight months later, Weiland isn't giving any specific timetables, but it still sounds like we'll be getting a new STP record next year -- and it may be sooner rather than later.

Talking with Spinner, Weiland said that the band are focusing on their current tour, which will go through the end of this year. But once that's over, "we're going to finish the album," he says. "And then when we finish the album, there will be a big tour around its release and that will probably be a long tour."

If this all comes to fruition, this new album would be the band's first since 2001 and their first since getting back together for a reunion tour in 2008. Around that time, I wondered if this was just a one-off reunion or whether the band had a legitimate second act in them. Lord knows there was a certain amount of tension during that tour that suggested we shouldn't cross our fingers that STP would stick together afterward. Well, it appears that they have at least one more album in them -- and one more tour.

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The New Moon soundtrack debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 last week, despite having a shortened sales week due to the album being rush-released to combat online leaks. For an encore, the album landed in the top spot in this week's chart, selling an impressive 153,000 copies. (In its shortened week, it moved 115,000 units.)

The resilient sales figures have to be good news for Chop Shop/Atlantic, who put out the album, but perhaps more importantly, it also suggests that the Twilight franchise as a whole still holds a lot of interest for fans. The Twilight soundtrack, which came out a year ago, was a commercial force, selling over two million copies in the U.S., and the accompanying film grossed over $191 million at the domestic box office. As with the first soundtrack, the New Moon album came out well before its tie-in film's release. If the soundtrack keeps selling well, one would have to assume that the New Moon film, which opens November 20, should be a strong performer as well. With Halloween fast approaching, vampires are clearly on a lot of people's minds.

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Them Crooked Vultures will be releasing their self-titled debut on November 17, and on that same day the band will kick off a four-date West Coast tour. These will be their final U.S. shows of 2009 -- they'll be heading to Europe in December and then Australia and New Zealand in January.

As anticipated, the band released the first single from Them Crooked Vultures yesterday, called "New Fang." You can hear the track on the band's MySpace page.

Them Crooked Vultures Tour Dates:

• Nov. 17 - Los Angeles, CA - Wiltern Theater
• Nov. 19 - Oakland, CA - Fox Theater
• Nov. 21 - Seattle, WA - Paramount Theater
• Nov. 22 - Portland, OR - Roseland Theater

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U2 are about to wrap up their North American tour, which was highlighted by last night's show at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena that the band streamed online through YouTube, but they've now announced some tour dates for 2010.

The band will kick off this second wave of shows on June 6 in Anaheim, California. As of now, there are only 12 dates confirmed, but one would expect that more shows will be unveiled, especially considering that there are lengthy gaps between these performances. What we also don't know at this point is whether U2 will have a new album out by the time of their return to North America. The band members have discussed releasing a follow-up to this year's No Line on the Horizon soon, but no concrete plans have been made yet.

U2 2010 Tour Dates:

• Jun. 6 - Anaheim, CA - Angel Stadium
• Jun. 12 - Denver, CO - Invesco Field
• Jun. 16 - Oakland, CA - Oakland Coliseum
• Jun. 20 - Seattle, WA - Qwest Field
• Jun. 23 - Edmonton, AB - Commonwealth Stadium
• Jun. 30 - East Lansing, MI - Spartan Stadium
• Jul. 3 - Toronto, ON - Rogers Centre
• Jul. 6 - Chicago, IL - Soldier Field
• Jul. 9 - Miami, FL - Land Shark Stadium
• Jul. 12 - Philadelphia, PA - Lincoln Financial Field
• Jul. 16 - Montreal, QC - TBA
• Jul. 19 - New York, NY - New Meadowlands Stadium

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Puddle of Mudd have been one of the most commercially successful rock bands of this decade -- they've landed five singles in the top spot of the mainstream rock charts -- and they'll look to continue their run with Volume 4: Songs in the Key of Love & Hate. Hitting stores December 8, Volume 4 will feature 10 tracks, including the lead single "Spaceship," which you can hear right now on the band's MySpace page.

If "Spaceship" is any indication, Volume 4 will stick with the tried-and-true post-grunge formula that has served this Los Angeles quintet well over their career. "It's easy and predictable to say I'm most proud of this record," Puddle of Mudd frontman Wes Scantlin said in a press release, "but I think it's more appropriate to say I'm most proud of what we've accomplished as a band to this point." As long as they don't try to fix what's not broken, you can bet that a good chunk of their loyal fan base will be very happy with the results.

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