Customer Reviews

Living In Oblivion : The 80's Greatest Hits, Vol. 4

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There are some tracks on this disk that (thankfully) I had never heard of. However, there are a few songs here that are very difficult to find.

Belly of the Whale - Burning Sensations. In fact it was for this one song that I bought the CD.

Get out of London - Intaferon. As previously mentioned this is a hard song to locate.

Also, WangChung, Tones on Tail and the Thompson Twins add to the value of this disc (for me at least.)

Beyond the obvious hits there are some quite catchy numbers that most people (like some reviewers) will completely ignore. Go! by Tones on Tail is a radio classic, and You Don't Know by Scarlett & Black is a delight. A must-have for those open to hearing things they haven't heard a million times before.

As with any compilation, some tracks you already have, some you want, and some you don't really care for. The selling point for me was the inclusion of Intaferon's 'Get Out Of London' - REALLY hard to find on CD - and I'd rather get it on this for a handful of bucks than on the Olsen twins' Winning London soundtrack for maybe 3 times the price.

How wrong are some reviewers. This is one of the cds of the series I enjoyed the most. There are some real gems in this cd that now are unfortunately really living in oblivion. Take for instance Sister of Mercy by Thompson Twins or the wonderful (tough some how cheesy) You don't know by Scarlett and Black and the sophisticated new romantic sound of Digging your scene by The Blow Monkeys.
If you like the sophisticated and mannered sound that were common in some big name groups of the 80s give a try to these lesser known but excellent groups: The Blow Monkeys or Thompson Twins. You wont be dissapointed.
Anyway, this compilation really surprised me. I didn't expect to hear that many really goods songs but I did. I didn't care for two or three songs all the other ones are really great.

If you want to get that old 80s groove on at home in your button up, long sleeve shirt, sunglasses, and underwear, then this is a must have. In fact the serious (5 CD Set) is chalk full of all those one-hit wonders of the 80s along with a few of the main stream artists of that time like Thompson Twins, Tears for Fears, etc...
Those of you in your 30s to low 40s will live this CD and its companions. I recommend getting them all to add to any 80s collection. It beats buying each individual artest.

The Living In Oblivion series of CD compilations does something that many similar compilations do NOT do: they give us some great variety of "hits".

There is no doubt that "Mickey" by Toni Basil was a huge hit. There's also no doubt that "Our Lips are Sealed" was a break out hit for the Go Go's, but the Funboy Three version wasn't. But what about "Living in a Box"? It only hit the Billboard top 100 at #89 in 1987. So why is it here? Why are a large number of these songs? They're not top 10 hits, right?

Wrong!

I'm sick to death of so many compilations relying on top 40 hits from the 80's. The U.S. music tastes are typically very different from those of Europe. Just because a song doesn't make the U.S. Billboard top 40 doesn't mean that it isn't a hit in other countries. And although I'm an American, my music tastes have always run more in line with those of Europe.

I'm delighted that the Living in Oblivion series (and the Pop and Wave series) have incorporated a variety of hits from the U.S. and Europe.

I also like that some of the more obscure groups and their songs are available on these compilations. There are several songs on these albums that never were released on CD (as they hadn't come into being at the time of the groups' albums initial releases), so albums such as these are the only place where you can find these hits. The Boys Don't Cry song "I Wanna Be a Cowboy" hit the Billboard charts at #12 in 1986, but the group disappeared soon thereafter. Then all of a sudden a dance version of that same song came out in the early 2000's and rocketed up the dance charts.

Don't be misled, the Living in Oblivion series is one of the absolutely best series for a variety of music from the 80's. If you want to hear run of the mill, top 40 only hits from the 80's, well, then you'll just have to look elsewhere.

Also, the liner notes and pictures of the groups included in the jewel box are really clever. You get to find out what the chart position was for the songs in the compilation and see what the groups looked like at the time of the song's release. My only issue with these liner notes is that the author of them seems to be disparaging the very music which these albums are espousing. Apparently many believe that the music from the 80's was vacuous and devoid of emotion. One need only listen to the song "The Promise" by the group "When in Rome" (Living in Oblivion Volume 5) to know that such a statement is false. While that group only had this one hit and then faded into obscurity, "The Promise" made the Billboard Top 100 at #11 and the Billboard Dance Chart at #1.

Anyway... I can't recommend this album and its entire series any more! It's simply awesome! Before believing those who would disparage this series of albums, please check the Billboard charts and you'll see that these songs were in fact hits.

GET IT!

Man this album takes me back to those crazy Southern California drinkin', bar hoppin' nights...If you like the 80's, this album and series is for YOU! I liked the mix of really popular and less known songs. Great Album/Series.

Living In Oblivion, Vol. 4, contains three notably great selections: "Mexican Radio", "Under the Milky Way", and "Belly of the Whale". The rest of the songs are either monster hits that can be found anywhere (i.e. Spandau Ballet's "True", "Come On Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runners) or unknown songs that are obscure for a reason. The compliation team seems to have gotten lazy here and the disc is unsatisfying as a result. Avoid unless you just want to get the whole set.

This is the type of 80s compilation i would go for it contains a lotof hits you cant find in any other compilations exspecially songs like Get Out of London - Intaferon and Sister of Mercy - Thompson Twins are something hard to find in other compilations i bought this album because it features Digging Your Scene [US Single Version] - The Blow Monkeys and also for Go! - Tones on Tail

And I still think it's a rip off. Ya' know how after the beginning of grunge there were about 1,000 other bands playing that style but in a totally sucky forgettable way? Well, that's what you have here, a lot of second rate songs. Don't get me wrong I love finding a really cool obscure song that I might have missed along the way somewhere. "Get Out of London" falls under that category, and that's about it. So what you are left with are the obvious hits that I am sure you can find on a much better compilation somewhere.
A lot of reviewers mention the fact that Go! by Tones on Tail is included and that is a good song but I would recommend picking up the entire album by that band.
I would recommend you look into "New Wave Gold" or "80's Gold" both are two disc sets with much better tracks.