Customer Reviews

Nipper's Greatest Hits The 80's

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

 

 

I already had most of these songs on each artist's respective Greatest Hits packages. I relgiously listend to American Top 40 from 1979 until 1991 when Casey Kasem left the show over a contract dispute and started his own countdown based on charts other than Billboard Magazine. I have recently been trying to get all of the Top 40 songs from that period on CD. This CD provided 3 missing pieces to my collection: "Hooked on Classics", "Puttin' on the Ritz", and "Funkytown". These gems from the 80's are great to hear again after many years. My only reason not for giving it 5 stars is that I wish it had included more rare to CD hits from RCA such as Larry Elgart's "Hooked on Swing" or a true rarity such as the late Rodney Dangerfields "Rappin' Rodney" which peaked out at #83 in early 1984. In any case, the CD is great and highly recommended.

This CD is a good cheap collection of 80s songs. The unifying theme is that they were all released under the RCA label ("Nipper" refers to the dog in the RCA logo), and they all made it into one chart or another. It's certainly not easy to listen to straight through. Songs were taken from country and pop charts, and the arrangement of songs seems to be specifically designed to alternate selections from the two disparate charts. Where else can you hear "Funkytown" lead into a tears-in-my-beer country lament?

Let's face it. You probably would only want it because it has one or two songs you like and you can't find them anywhere else. So your main concerns are whether the sound quality is good and whether the songs appear in their entirety. On that basis, this disc is good. If you're making your own 80s collection for the car, this disc is a good source to record from. Its worth beyond that is debatable.

The Amazon listing apparently shows the songwriter, not the group, thus this listing:
1. 9 to 5 - Dolly Parton
2. Guitar Man - Elvis Presley
3. Jessie's Girl - Rick Springfield
4. Love in the First Degree - Alabama
5. Hooked on Classics I and II/Piano Canerto No. 1/Flight of the... - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
6. Just to Satisfy You - Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson
7. Nobody - Sylvia
8. Maneater - Hall & Oates
9. Puttin' on the Ritz - Taco
10. Dare Me - The Pointer Sisters
11. We Built This City - Starship
12. Broken Wings - Mr. Mister
13. The Way It Is - Bruce Hornsby & the Range
14. 80's Ladies - K.T. Oslin
15. Funkytown - Pseudo Echo
16. You Snap Your Fingers (And I'm Back in Your Hands) - Ronnie Milsap
17. Waiting for a Star to Fall - Boy Meets Girl
This version of Funkytown charted in 1987. The original version, by Lipp's, Inc. charted in 1980 at Number 1.

This is a very good cd. It features some of my all time favorite hits of the 1980's such as Hooked On Classics and Puttin On The Ritz and such pop classics as 9 To 5, Jessie's Girl and Maneater. all on one neat CD. It even features Elvis Presley's last hit to make the top 40 portion of The Bilboard Hot 100 Gutar Man. The Ronnie Milsap song should have been There's No Getting Over You not the one that is on this Cd! The Alabama song should have the Studio (hit) version! Waylon should have sang without Willie on Theme from Dukes Of Hazzard! and KT Osland Should have not even appeared on this cd. in summing up this cd the pop songs are some of the best of the 80's but the Country songs (the ones that didn't hit the pop charts) we could have done without!

This CD has a few great hits on it. I bought it because of Taco's version of "Puttin' on the Ritz" and "Waiting for a Star to Fall," which at the time I could not find on any other compilation.

As the other reviewers have said, the country songs were disappointing to me. I would have rather had more pop songs. When I want country music, I'd like a whole CD of that. Nonetheless, this is a welcome addition to my collection for the sole purpose of making mix CDs for those long car rides. It's better than buying an entire CD of Boy Meets Girl or Taco for those two individual songs. I also thought the "Hooked on Classics I and II" was a strange thing to put beween those two country songs. I think that should have been at the end. My two cents.