Customer Reviews

Greatest Hits 2

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

PHYSICAL, TOTALLY HOT, and GREASE took Olivia Newton-John's career to new levels from 1978-1982. She transformed her sound from mellow country folk music, to dance, pop, rock, even some disco. All this is chronicled on this magnificent album. I had a vinyl copy when I was a little kid which broke, 3 cassette copies, and now I own it on CD. The material is exellent. "Physical" and "Make A Move On Me" represent PHYSICAL. "Magic", "Suddenly", and "Xanadu" come from the XANADU soundtrack. "A Little More Love" is the only song present from TOTALLY HOT. "Hopelessly Devoted To You", and platinum single "You're The One That I Want" from the GREASE soundtrack. The new songs on the album "Heart Attack" and "Tied Up" are outstanding. "Heart Attack" has been a long time favorite. Olivia's vocals are aggressive, and it's instrumentation is terrific, mainly drums and horns. "Tied Up is equally intriging, I can't help but sing along. Unfortunately the album misses some great songs along the way (this could easily be a 20 song collection). "Summer Nights" (from GREASE), "Deeper Than The Night (from TOTALLY HOT), and "Landslide" (from PHYSICAL) should automatically be here. "Suspended In Time" (from XANADU) is such a gorgeous song I'd love to have it on this album. "Gimmie Some Loving", "Carried Away", "The Promise", could also be listed here. Liner notes with lyrics would make a good addition. However, the music, where it really counts, makes up for all the rest. GREATEST HITS VOLUME 2 is the kind of album you could listen to over and over. From the opening drum beat on "Heart Attack", to the final vocal echo on "Xanadu". Ten amazing, consistent, fun, and fantastic songs gathered in one place. It would be nice if MCA Records put GREATEST HITS VOLUME 1 back in print for us to listen to and purchase.

Olivia Newton-John will always be one of my favorite singers. As a little kid all excited at the prospect of seeing the movie Grease, little did I know that on that night a sweet singer/actress from Australia would leave me dazed and bedazzled by my first sighting of a beautiful woman; I've been looking for my own Olivia ever since then, a cute Sandra Dee type who, under the right circumstances, can magically turn into a wild, extremely hot show-stopper. I don't think some people these days realize just how wildly popular Olivia was in the late 70s and early 80s, the era from which these tracks are taken. Physical was atop the charts just short of forever, and for that day and age the single was a delightfully suggestive little song (at least for a kid like me), if you can consider anything sung by an angel to be suggestive. The earliest recordings featured in this collection go back to 1978: from the Grease soundtrack come Hopelessly Devoted To You (one of the best love songs ever) and You're the One That I Want (a duet with John Travolta that I will certainly never forget thanks to the movie), while the scale-climbing A Little More Love is taken from Olivia's Totally Hot album. 1980's Xanadu may not be a critically successful movie, but it provides us with three great hits: the infectiously upbeat Xanadu (with ELO), Magic, and Suddenly (a really nice duet with Cliff Richard). Olivia's best-selling Physical album from 1981 provides only two tracks: the mega-hit Physical single and the rather sultry Make a Move On Me. The remaining two tracks, the memorable hit Heart Attack and Tied Up, were, if I'm not mistaken, recorded specifically for this greatest hits album.

There are better, more comprehensive greatest hits albums on the market today (ones featuring the earlier hits not included on this collection), but for a long time this was the Olivia Newton-John greatest hits album to have, featuring Olivia's best hits from the years she basically ruled over the world of female vocalists. Her voice is timeless and remains plaintively beautiful to this day. Whenever I listen to this album, I have to wonder why I haven't been listening to it every day for the last twenty years. Pure beauty never goes out of style, and no female singer has ever equaled the beauty of Olivia's voice, body, mind, and soul.

This collection has all of Olivia's hit songs that are really worth listening to from 1978-1982. It was released in the fall of 1982 and I have heard that it was still on the charts well into 1984! The opening track, a song you can only get on here, "Heart Attack"(#3, November 1982) is a fast and aggressive tune, and another song you can only get on here is the slinky "Tied Up" (#38, February 1983). The suggestive "Physical" (#1, November 1981) was her biggest hit staying on the top for 10 weeks! There are a few songs on here from soundtracks including the ballad "Hopelessly Devoted To You" (#3, September 1978) and the smash duet with John Travolta "You're The One That I Want" (#1, June 1978) from the hit movie-musical "Grease" and "Magic" (#1, August 1980), the romantic "Suddenly" (#20, January 1981) with Cliff Richard, and a collaboration with ELO on "Xanadu" (#8, October 1980), all three being from the box office bomb "Xanadu". But, who could forget the bouncy "Make A Move On Me" (#5, April 1982) with its sing-a-long chorus and danceable beats? Olivia's first top ten hit with her new look and new musical direction is "A Little More Love" (#3, Februaury 1979) from the album "Totally Hot". If you are looking for a nice collection of the catchiest Olivia tunes, all on one cd, then get this one.

Olivia Newton-John, an icon, a beauty queen, actress, mother, and woman of principal. Throughout her career, olivia has had her ups and downs...all artists have. but her successes outweigh her not so hot times. Olivia is my hero, and also...good personal friend. Her greatest hits albums are a milestone in yet a great many more miles to be traveled. My fave from this particular album is "HeartAttack" All Of her albums, especially this one is worth owning!!!!!!

i have dug Olivia Newton John for so long it's incredible.Her voice is timeless.Hopelessly Devoted to you is my song here.that song still speaks to me.Magic is great.Her voice&music has no Labels.SHe still has a Rich Quality about her to this day.i listened to this collection earlier today.

Ten good songs, but for the price, fork out a few more bucks and buy a better "greatest hits" collection, like "Magic" or "Gold." BIG hits like "Deeper Than The Night" and "Summer Nights" were totally ignored for this album.

I know that her greatest hits #1 was not something I was going to like.

This greatest hits #2 has all the songs I remember. Especially Magic, Hopelessly Devoted (Grease), You're the one that I want (Grease), Physical, Suddenly (sung with Cliff Richard)and Xanadu. Definitely brings back memories.

Songs on here are:
Heart Attack
Magic
Physical
Hopelessly Devoted To You
Make A Move On Me
A Little More Love
You're The One That I Want
Tied Up
Suddenly
Xanadu

Before there was Madonna or Janet there was a female artist that I simply couldn't get enough of and it was Olivia Newton John. This "Greatest Hits 2 Album", maybe short and there may only be 10 songs on it, but that's all you need. The songs compiled for this hits' album come from the years, 1977-1981, including two unreleased songs. The album start off with the ever catchy "Heart Attack", this is Olivia, this song is just super, her voice is just so strong on this song. Then comes "Magic" another gem, another classic, next her biggest hit "Physical", need I say more O.K. ten weeks at #1, and another favorite and another classic, this classic by the way will be 20 years old this October, then "Hopelessly Devoted To You", superballad and another signature song for Olivia, next "Make A Move On Me" off of the "Physical" album and came Olivia a top 5 hit, I remember her performing this song on Solid Gold, then there's "A Little More Love", a slinky side of Olivia and another top 5 hit, then from the "Grease" soundtrack her excellent duet with John Travolta "You're The One That I Want", then there is "Tied Up", "Suddenly" and finally "Xanadu"(from the movie of the same name) another great song. Excellent album all the way around no matter how you look or listen to it. I still remember watching Olivia's concert on HBO, in 1982, and she was great then and still is today. I can't give this album anything other than an A+++++, I just love this album.

And I am here on Amazon to buy it again. That's how good it is. And I have an iPod. I don't buy a cd anymore unless it's great. You can see from some of my more recent reviews how mean I can be as a critic and I don't have anything but nice things to say about Olivia and this compilation. This is Olivia at her peak. In an era of crappy singers like Ashlee Simpson and Madonna who have to lip synch live and mediocre singers like Jessica Simpson and Pink, in an era where even the great singers like Kelly Clarkson sing stupid lyrics plucked from the Beverly Hills vocabulary book (last years word was "jaded")this is absolute pop perfection. It doesn't get any better than "A Little More Love". Huge kudos to John Farrar for writing nearly all of these great pop songs. And to top it all off you are forever easy on the eyes Olivia!

There's something truly magical about this album, which is odd considering it is just a compilation - one of the many in a career where the number of Olivia compilations on the market outnumber her studio albums! This, however, is one of only a handful which were endorsed and compiled with Olivia's blessing. Whilst Olivia's career over the last ten years has been 'dodgy' to put it lightly, part of the reason 'Greatest Hits Volume 2' is such a delight is it was released at a time when to say Olivia was the world's biggest female popstar was a justified accolade.

...The Hollywood phase of her career when 'commercial' seemed synonymous with 'innovation' - something truly lacking from today's musical climate! Purists will argue that her best years were in the early and mid seventies when the majority of her output fell into the 'country' or 'easy listening' categories. With this, I argue profusely. Her recording career up until 1978 was rather hit-and-miss, her albums containing stellar songs sitting side-by-side by embarrassments not even Anne Murray would have touched. This compilation covers the four years from 1978 - 1982, the four years in Olivia's career when she went from strength to strength.

Her blossoming movie career (which died shortly hereafter) is well-represented with half the album culled from the soundtracks to the stellar 'Grease' and, erm, less-than-stellar 'Xanadu'. Never fear, because the music is as memorable as it was 20 years ago. 'You're The One That I Want', despite being massacred by karaoke singers worldwide, is still the fifties-meets-seventies-sing-a-long it was when Olivia and Travolta first wiggled their respective booties in that 'Shake Shack'. 'Hopelessly Devoted To You' remains Olivia's most successful pop-by-numbers ballad ('I Honestly Love You' can't hold a candle to this John Farrar-penned selection), whilst 'Xanadu' and 'Magic' have gone on to be rather highly-appreciated camp classics from a film which garnered similar accolades.

Her non-soundtrack work is represented through two albums which, suffice to say, are the two best albums she ever released. 'Totally Hot' could've done with more of a showing than just 'A Little More Love' (umm, MCA, where in the world is the R'n'B/pop drum-and-bass confection of 'Deeper Than The Night'?!), but the song is about as perfectly edgy as Olivia ever got, so no complaints here. The other album represented by two cuts is Olivia's uber-successful 'Physical' - the briliant title track gets another outing here, as does the sing-a-long bouncy synth-romp that is 'Make A Move On Me'.

This collection also boasted two non-album tracks which perfectly segue between the shimmering synth rock of 'Physical' and the more aggressive dance-based sound of the 'Two Of A Kind' soundtrack. 'Heart Attack', from the pen of Steve Kipner who also wrote 'Physical', is perfect Olivia-fare with a powerhouse chorus and a chugging drum and quirky bassline. 'Tied Up', on the other hand, is a slinky little pop/rock number which is closer in feel to Olivia's 'Recovery' than anything else... melodically quite dark, but still infectious enough to be a hit (perhaps the record-buying public didn't agree with me, as it sadly stalled just inside the Top 40 in the US).

This was Olivia at her peak. Best listened to in conjunction with the 'Olivia Newton-John, Live!' VHS released the same year. Olivia's 'Physical' tour captured in such a way that it stands up today alongside some of the greatest tours of the 90's. Olivia is in great voice, and singing some of the best songs of her career. From here it all went a bit pear-shaped, but luckily we have flawless compilations like this to remind us what a gem Olivia really is.