The Big Bang: The Essential Collection

The Big Bang: The Essential Collection is a compilation album by the Norwegian rock band TNT, released in 2003. The compilation mainly focuses on the studio albums the band released in the 1980s, from TNT (1982) to Intuition (1989). Guitarist Ronni Le Tekrø had suggested for the inclusion of several tracks from the 1992 album Realized Fantasies, however only the single "Downhill Racer" was included. No material was included from the band's most recent albums at the time, Firefly (1997) and Transistor (1999). The compilation also includes two newly recorded tracks, "Hey Love" and "Satellite", and an outtake from the Tell No Tales sessions, "Destiny".

The compilation went gold in Norway.

Band

 * Dag Ingebrigtsen – vocals and guitars
 * Tony Harnell – vocals
 * Ronni Le Tekrø – guitars, guitar synthesizer, keyboards, 1/4 stepper guitar
 * Steinar Eikum – bass guitar
 * Morty Black – bass guitar, pedal synthesizer, fretless bass with reverb and chorus effect on "Forever Shine On"
 * Diesel Dahl – drums, percussion
 * Kenneth Odiin – drums, percussion
 * John Macaluso – drums, percussion

Additional personnel

 * Bård Svendsen – keyboards, programming and background vocals
 * Håkon Iversen – background vocals
 * Bjørn Nessjø – keyboards and programming
 * Carlos Waadeland – keyboards and programming
 * Kjetil Bjerkestrand – keyboards
 * Joe Lynn Turner – background vocals
 * Dag Stokke – keyboards
 * Rich Tancredi – keyboards
 * T.J. Kopetic – keyboards

Production

 * Bjørn Nessjø – producer (tracks 1–18)
 * Tony Harnell, Ronni Le Tekrø – producers (tracks 19–20)
 * Rune Nordahl – engineer
 * Björn Engelmann at Cutting Room Studios – mastering, remastering
 * Tommy Hansen – mixing
 * John Cappadona – front cover artwork
 * Tor-Erik Ledang – cover design and additional artwork