80's Hits

Every episode of BBC Radio 2’s popular Sounds Of The 80s show takes listeners on a journey back to a well-loved decade with its distinctive musical landscape. Hosted by Gary Davies (and formerly Sara Cox) the show delves into the various genres that made the 80’s so musically diverse from classic and alternative pop to rock, dance and hip-hop. UMC and the BBC have teamed up to compile a set of official Sounds Of The 80s branded collections that will showcase the decade’s fabulous sounds in three bite-size chunks. Each carefully compiled 3CD album will include UK Chart smash hits taken from every major music catalogue including Universal, Sony, Warner and BMG to do the show and the decade the justice it deserves. I Think We’re Alone Now celebrates the biggest and best hits from the last three years of the decade and features the likes of New Order, The Bangles, Boy George, The Stranglers, Terence Trent D’Arby and many more…

Smashes, Thrashes & Hits is a compilation of Kiss's greatest hits from their '80s career. Since there weren't enough chart-toppers from that period to fill an entire album, however, '70s classics from their more theatrical days are also included, such as "Love Gun," "Shout It Out Loud," and "Rock and Roll All Nite." (Peter Criss' power ballad, "Beth," is also featured on the album, but is a re-recorded version with then-drummer Eric Carr on vocals.) This combination of classic power rock and pop-metal is what makes the record entertaining, and the album's two new tracks, "Let's Put the X in Sex" and "(You Make Me) Rock Hard," continue to display Kiss' interesting melodies. Although necessary only to the avid Kiss fan, Smashes, Thrashes & Hits is an acceptable compilation and is another good introduction to the band.

You might have thought that, since the 1998 merger of MCA and PolyGram, creating Universal Music, brought the hits Cher scored in the 1970s and '80s for Kapp, MCA, Casablanca, and Geffen under one roof, the next time they got around to doing a best-of they would combine all those catalogs. No such luck. In the wake of Cher's 1999 comeback with "Believe," Geffen issued its own comp, If I Could Turn Back Time: Cher's Greatest Hits. So, when MCA came to compile The Best of Cher as part of the midline-priced 20th Century Masters/The Millennium Collection series, they simply took the 1974 MCA Greatest Hits album, stripped off two B-sides, and added the 1979 Casablanca disco hit "Take Me Home" and the 1971 Sonny & Cher hit "All I Ever Need Is You."

One of a series of single-artist CD anthologies on Liberty sharing this title, this collection compiles 15 of Juice Newton's hits and album tracks.

Dead Or Alive - Evolution: The Hits
EAC Rip | Included: EAC Log + CUE + Flac + Covers | Size: 582 MB | RAR files | RS.com
Release: June 24, 2003 | Label: Epic / Sony Music | Number: Epic 511026 2
Genre: New Wave / Dance | Original Recording Remastered | Mono/Stereo: 2 Channel

Album Review
Evolution: The Hits is a good summary of Dead or Alive's most popular material, concentrating on their chart hits. And there were more of those than you might remember — eight are included that made the U.K. listings, along with four that made the U.S. charts (all of which charted in the U.K., too), including "You Spin Me Around (Like a Record)," "My Heart Goes Bang (Get Me to the Doctor)," "That's the Way (I Like It)," "In Too Deep," and "Something in My House." Popular as some of this stuff might have been, it really epitomizes some of the silliest and most histrionic aspects of those strange days when new wave and the new romantics were being diluted yet further into synth-heavy dance-pop. Three tracks here make their U.S. debut, although these are all from post-'80s releases: "Sex Drive" was released on 1995's Nukleopatra and "Hit & Run Lover" and "Isn't It a Pity" on 1991's Fragile (the latter was only issued in Japan). Also on board are a 2003 remix of "Turn Around Count 2 Ten" and a "metro 7" edit" "You Spin Me Around (Like a Record)," neither of which was strictly necessary unless Epic/Legacy was desperate to pad the running length. Pete Burns contributes the sleeve note.

Despite being renowned in certain parts of the world (especially in Italy and their hometown of Paris), the space-age outfit Rockets remains largely obscure – even though they arrived on the scene at almost he same exact time as Kraftwerk and prefaced Devo by several years. The multi-membered outfit originally formed in 1972, under the name Crystal, performing on-stage in their regular street clothes. But by 1974, Crystal had evolved into Rocket Men, issuing a debut self-titled single, while its members began to assume the identities of aliens; complete with silver makeup covering their skin, grey contact lenses, space suits, and bald heads.