When Elektra originally released this compilation in 1980, The Doors' music reached a generation that had never seen the band perform. Together with the film Apocalypse Now, released a year earlier, Greatest Hits brought the band an entirely new audience. The ten tracks span the whole Jim Morrison era, from the 1967 debut to 1971's L.A. Woman: Light My Fire, Break On Through, Hello, I Love You, People Are Strange, Love Me Two Times, Touch Me and Roadhouse Blues, with the long pieces Riders on the Storm and L.A. Woman closing each side. Not to Touch the Earth, from Waiting for the Sun, is the less obvious pick of the set. The compilation became one of the best-selling compilations of all time, with around seven million copies sold in the United States alone.

This is the original ten-track running order, not the expanded 1996 version that added The End and Love Her Madly, among others.

This edition is an LP on white vinyl.