Harry Nilsson - All Time Greatest Hits [Remastered] (1989)

At its core, Harry Nilsson's work was tuneful singer-songwriter fare, but the orchestrated arrangements and Nilsson's distinctive voice hinted at something more complex. A talent of many contradictions, his songs are alternately quaint ("Good Old Desk") and disturbing ("1941"), melodramatic ("Without You") and downright silly ("Coconut"). All Time Greatest Hits is exactly that, featuring those songs plus the Midnight Cowboy theme, "Everybody's Talkin'," the original version of "One" (later a hit for Three Dog Night), a couple of Nilsson's terrific interpretations of Randy Newman songs--"Cowboy" and "Caroline"--and much more. Largely forgotten these days, Nilsson is an artist whose oeuvre could do with some reassessment. This is as good as any place to start.