The Best Of...

The Best Of... on ADA Sound Ltd., catalog number ADASD 0538, is a Russian-market CD compilation released in 1996 under the Diamond Collection banner. The back cover carries a 1996 release date, while the disc face itself is marked 12/1996 and carries a 1985 date, which likely refers to the source master licensing year rather than an original release. All seventeen tracks were copied directly from official Elektra releases, making this a licensed, if regionally produced, artifact of the mid-1990s Russian CD market expansion.

The cover image is immediately striking in its lo-fi, distinctly regional aesthetic. A black-and-white band photograph dominates the lower two-thirds of the front face, showing all four Doors members arranged in a loose cluster. Jim Morrison stands shirtless and central, his posture relaxed but his presence impossible to ignore. The other three members, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, and John Densmore, appear in darker clothing, framing Morrison without competing with him. The photograph has a slightly grainy, high-contrast reproduction quality that is consistent with the source limitations common to Russian pressings of this era. Above the photograph, the word Doors is rendered in a bold, fire-colored gradient lettering, cycling through orange, red, and yellow tones, a deliberate visual cue that echoes the psychedelic design language of the band's original era, even if the execution here is more desktop-publishing than hand-crafted. A gold banner running along the left edge reads Diamond Collection in both Latin and Cyrillic script, situating this release clearly within ADA Sound's broader mid-decade catalog series. Below the photo, The Best Of appears in a yellow serif font against a dark background. The overall layout is compact and unapologetic, making no attempt to replicate the original Elektra artwork and instead presenting something that reads as distinctly post-Soviet in its graphic sensibility. The disc itself, per the 12/1996 marking, carries the same branding. Jewel case construction is standard; there is no indication of an elaborate booklet or insert. The packaging is functional, not premium, and collectors should expect wear commensurate with a budget-tier release from that market and period.

The seventeen-track selection here is a broadly familiar greatest-hits sweep that will feel well-trodden to anyone with depth in their Doors collection. You get the obvious catalog pillars: Break on Through, Light My Fire, Riders On The Storm, Roadhouse Blues, LA Woman, People Are Strange, and The Crystal Ship, alongside slightly deeper cuts like Spanish Caravan, Five To One, and The Unknown Soldier. The sequencing does not follow the band's album chronology and makes no apparent thematic argument; it reads like a straightforward radio-hits assembly. For context on how these tracks have been packaged elsewhere, the Weird Scenes Inside The Goldmine double LP remains the definitive earlier compilation treatment, offering far greater depth and liner context. The Russian Diamond Collection release adds nothing editorially to the existing catalog. There are no bonus tracks, no alternate takes, no live recordings, and no liner notes of substance. What distinguishes this item is purely its provenance: a licensed Russian pressing from a period when the domestic CD market was still finding its footing, and when compilations like this served as genuine first points of contact for Soviet-era music listeners encountering the band in a post-Soviet retail environment. The ADA Sound Diamond Collection series released a number of Western rock titles under similar conditions, and the ADASD prefix catalog numbering helps identify siblings within that run. For those who track regional pressings of classic rock compilations, this fits alongside the kind of Eastern European releases that are increasingly logged on Discogs but remain underrepresented in Western collector databases. Fans hunting specific singles history may find the Light My Fire / People Are Strange or Love Her Madly / You Need Meat entries more relevant for tracing individual track origins. Similarly, those interested in the Roadhouse Blues and related material might cross-reference the Road House listing. Availability on the secondary market is intermittent; this is not a pressing that surfaces often outside Eastern European seller listings, though it is not a scarce item in the sense of limited-run collectibles.

This is a mid-tier regional compilation with no production enhancements and no collector premium beyond its Russian Diamond Collection origin. If you track ADA Sound pressings or Eastern European CD variants of classic rock titles from the 1990s, it earns a place in that niche. For general Doors listening or completist greatest-hits purposes, there are more authoritative options. Recommended only for regional pressing specialists.