Pure '80s #1s

Eighties music is awesome! Great for partying. Great all around.

A lot of really good music on this CD, and the price was reasonably Fair. Plus these songs aren't remastered as far as I can tell, which tells me then that they are as I remember them from back in the day. Sometimes all you want to do is hear the music you love the way you used to hear it. I really enjoyed the CD!

I bought this several years ago because of all the hits. It isn't easy to find a CD with so many hits that are not the same as many others. This is one of the better collections. As others have said it would be nice to have the artists pictures on the cover, or better yet when you play their song for the graphic instead of the Pure 80s cover. Song/Artist: Eye Of The Tiger (Album Version) by Survivor Owner Of A Lonely Heart by Yes Addicted To Love (Edit) by Robert Palmer Everybody Wants To Rule The World by Tears For Fears Don't You (Forget About Me) (Remastered) by Simple Minds Higher Love (Single Version) by Steve Winwood What's Love Got To Do With It by Tina Turner Every Breath You Take (Remastered 2003) by The Police Arthur's Theme by Christopher Cross The Living Years by Mike And The Mechanics When I See You Smile by Bad English Kyrie by Mr. Mister Kiss On My List by Hall and Oates Down Under by Men At Work Karma Chameleon by Culture Club She Drives Me Crazy by Fine Young Cannibals Maniac by Michael Sembello All Night Long (All Night) (Single Version) by Lionel Richie

This is the fifth and final volume in the Pure 80’s series, a really good collection of the big hits of that fun and optimistic time of VCR’s, Cable TV, the Brat Pack and, of course, MTV. Put out by Universal, it is actually a group effort by the four labels that make up over 90% of the music business. This helped the series enormously by making practically every hit of the era eligible for inclusion. Of course there are some exceptions. Ever since Elvis and then the Beatles and Rolling Stones, the superstar acts have prohibited the inclusion of their songs on collections, the thinking being that it dilutes the value of their catalog. So here you won’t find Michael Jackson or Madonna, Paul McCartney or Prince, Whitney Houston or Janet Jackson, Bon Jovi or Bruce Springsteen. There are other acts absent as well, but there are only five volumes in this collection (88 tracks, total) so they couldn’t include everyone. But overall this is a solid collection and a good way to survey the decade. Every decade has a wide range of styles but certain sounds end up representing the era more than others. With the 80’s it’s the synth/pop/drum machine sound and that’s what Pure 80’s covers the best. Of course by mid-decade almost everyone was using this combination, though sometimes mixed with traditional instruments. In fact the first volume really focuses in on this sound as the birth of the 80’s along with MTV and the Second British Invasion. Every volume has other sounds as well from R&B balladeers to jazz-influenced groups and comeback artists. Some genres are avoided. There aren’t any 80’s funk bands, not even Kool & the Gang, none of the glam rock from the later part of the decade or any rock harder than Rick Springfield or Survivor. I was a little disappointed by an overall absence of Canadian acts besides Glass Tiger; no Bryan Adams, Corey Hart, Loverboy, Rush, Triumph, etc. But they generally had a mainstream rock band sound which could also be from the 70’s or 90’s. If you have collected the entire series you may be disappointed by the presence of six songs on this disc that were on earlier volumes. There were 230 number one songs from 1980-1989 so surely they could have picked other tracks; and with all the money these media conglomerates have it wasn’t to be cheap. But when I look at them I see that they are mostly big songs, emblematic of the decade: Addicted To Love, Everybody Wants To Rule the World, Don’t You (Forget About Me), Higher Love, Karma Chameleon and When I See You Smile. Also, some people will buy only this disc or the first, eliminating the .middle volumes. Some of the highlights include surprise comebacks by Yes, Steve Winwood and Tina Turner. Yes, a prog-rock album powerhouse of the 70’s had reformed with enough old members to keep their name and had their first hit single since 1972’s Roundabout. It was accompanied by an elaborate action video. Steve Winwood had first been heard as the lead singer on the Spencer Davis Group’s Gimme Some Lovin’ in late 1966 and had also been in Blind Faith and Traffic.Tina Turner had never been as big as she should have been until she finally made a spectacular comeback with What’s Love Got To Do With It, one of the most played songs of the summer of ‘84. I was really glad to see the Police finally included in the Pure 80’s series. Every Breath You Take was certainly one of the biggest songs of the decade with the triumph of Synchronicity in 1983. (It’s also perhaps my favorite song of the 80’s). It’s an odd song, one of the meanest, most threatening songs since John Lennon wrote Run For Your Life. It’s a stalker’s anthem. But the warm sound of the music and vocal worked against the lyrics, making it sound superficially like the song of a devoted lover who simply wants to watch over his beloved. I understand it’s even used at weddings now. The 80’s isn’t the 80’s without Tears For Fears and one of their three megahits from Music For the Big Chair. They had a special knack for producing big pop hits and at the same time including them on complex, deeply felt albums, two things that usually aren’t found together. Mike Rutherford of Genesis had a number one that included two choirs, one of boys, one of adults, and rare subject matter about communication between fathers and sons and generations in general. It could have been preachy or overly sentimental but he managed to pull it off perfectly. The video featuring him with his 8 year old son was also just right. Men At Work’s Down Under is another great 80’s theme song and the start of their brief but brilliant run at the top of the charts. I think I heard them virtually every day on the radio in late ‘82 and all of ‘83. They unfortunately got involved in a long lawsuit with a publishing company that owned the rights to a children’s song written in 1934 and claimed it was too similar. It isn’t very similar and fortunately the kids song publisher got only a fraction of what they wanted. Pure 80’s is the best series of discs of the decade that I know of. It takes at least five discs to cover the essentials. If you only want one disc, Now That’s What I Call 80’s Music and 80’s Gold (2-cd set), both similar multi-label projects, are equally good. Of course we will all have our lists of songs we feel should have been on them ( Careless Whisper, Total Eclipse of the Heart, Baby Come To Me, Take On Me, Money For Nothing), but we probably have those songs anyway. Buy it or download it, there’s nothing but songwriting and production credits in the booklets. This is the fifth and final volume in the Pure 80’s series, a really good collection of the big hits of that fun and optimistic time of VCR’s, Cable TV, the Brat Pack and, of course, MTV. Put out by Universal, it is actually a group effort by the four labels that make up over 90% of the music business. This helped the series enormously by making practically every hit of the era eligible for inclusion. Of course there are some exceptions. Ever since Elvis and then the Beatles and Rolling Stones, the superstar acts have prohibited the inclusion of their songs on collections, the thinking being that it dilutes the value of their catalog. So here you won’t find Michael Jackson or Madonna, Paul McCartney or Prince, Whitney Houston or Janet Jackson, Bon Jovi or Bruce Springsteen. There are other acts absent as well, but there are only five volumes in this collection (88 tracks, total) so they couldn’t include everyone. But overall this is a solid collection and a good way to survey the decade. Every decade has a wide range of styles but certain sounds end up representing the era more than others. With the 80’s it’s the synth/pop/drum machine sound and that’s what Pure 80’s covers the best. Of course by mid-decade almost everyone was using this combination, though sometimes mixed with traditional instruments. In fact the first volume really focuses in on this sound as the birth of the 80’s along with MTV and the Second British Invasion. Every volume has other sounds as well from R&B balladeers to jazz-influenced groups and comeback artists. Some genres are avoided. There aren’t any 80’s funk bands, not even Kool & the Gang, none of the glam rock from the later part of the decade or any rock harder than Rick Springfield or Survivor. I was a little disappointed by an overall absence of Canadian acts besides Glass Tiger; no Bryan Adams, Corey Hart, Loverboy, Rush, Triumph, etc. But they generally had a mainstream rock band sound which could also be from the 70’s or 90’s. If you have collected the entire series you may be disappointed by the presence of six songs on this disc that were on earlier volumes. There were 230 number one songs from 1980-1989 so surely they could have picked other tracks; and with all the money these media conglomerates have it wasn’t to be cheap. But when I look at them I see that they are mostly big songs, emblematic of the decade: Addicted To Love, Everybody Wants To Rule the World, Don’t You (Forget About Me), Higher Love, Karma Chameleon and When I See You Smile. Also, some people will buy only this disc or the first, eliminating the .middle volumes. Some of the highlights include surprise comebacks by Yes, Steve Winwood and Tina Turner. Yes, a prog-rock album powerhouse of the 70’s had reformed with enough old members to keep their name and had their first hit single since 1972’s Roundabout. It was accompanied by an elaborate action video. Steve Winwood had first been heard as the lead singer on the Spencer Davis Group’s Gimme Some Lovin’ in late 1966 and had also been in Blind Faith and Traffic.Tina Turner had never been as big as she should have been until she finally made a spectacular comeback with What’s Love Got To Do With It, one of the most played songs of the summer of ‘84. I was really glad to see the Police finally included in the Pure 80’s series. Every Breath You Take was certainly one of the biggest songs of the decade with the triumph of Synchronicity in 1983. (It’s also perhaps my favorite song of the 80’s). It’s an odd song, one of the meanest, most threatening songs since John Lennon wrote Run For Your Life. It’s a stalker’s anthem. But the warm sound of the music and vocal worked against the lyrics, making it sound superficially like the song of a devoted lover who simply wants to watch over his beloved. I understand it’s even used at weddings now. The 80’s isn’t the 80’s without Tears For Fears and one of their three megahits from Music For the Big Chair. They had a special knack for producing big pop hits and at the same time including them on complex, deeply felt albums, two things that usually aren’t found together. Mike Rutherford of Genesis had a number one that included two choirs, one of boys, one of adults, and rare subject matter about communication between fathers and sons and generations in general. It could have been preachy or overly sentimental but he managed to pull it off perfectly. The video featuring him with his 8 year old son was also just right. Men At Work’s Down Under is another great 80’s theme song and the start of their brief but brilliant run at the top of the charts. I think I heard them virtually every day on the radio in late ‘82 and all of ‘83. They unfortunately got involved in a long lawsuit with a publishing company that owned the rights to a children’s song written in 1934 and claimed it was too similar. It isn’t very similar and fortunately the kids song publisher got only a fraction of what they wanted. Pure 80’s is the best series of discs of the decade that I know of. It takes at least five discs to cover the essentials. If you only want one disc, Now That’s What I Call 80’s Music and 80’s Gold (2-cd set), both similar multi-label projects, are equally good. Of course we will all have our lists of songs we feel should have been on them ( Careless Whisper, Total Eclipse of the Heart, Baby Come To Me, Take On Me, Money For Nothing), but we probably have those songs anyway. Buy it or download it, there’s nothing but songwriting and production credits in the booklets.

Wonderful quality of the c D .

You don't have to like every song on this collection (I certainly don't) to enjoy the snapshot of the decade that it offers. There were all chart-toppers during the 1980s and they reflect the culture of those years: slick, smooth, facile, and of course catchy. The stuff that rises to commercial success can span both sappy dreck ("Arthur's Theme" by Christopher Cross) to irresistible pop (Tina Turner's "What's Love Got To Do with It") to what was then cutting edge alt-rock which now sounds quaintly like "classic rock" (fro the likes of Simple Minds, Tears for Fears, The Police, Fine Young Cannibals and more). Fun stuff to hear again.

Great cd !

Great collection of 80s #1 Hits.

Recopilación excelente

The music is right on track. Like my expectation. This is a very good CD. Very nice music

Ce que je voulais

Ce CD représente très bien les années 80 !

This CD is definitely for the 1980s fan who is trying to build his/her collection of 80s music on a budget. I would normally pass on buying this CD as 12 of the 18 songs are easily found elsewhere, but the other 6 songs on the CD are hard to find, which is the reason why I ended up buying it: Christopher Cross, Mike & the Mechanics, Mr. Mister, Fine Young Cannibals, Steve Winwood and Tina Turner. This CD is worth buying (but not for more than $10 plus shipping).