Customer Reviews

Ultimate Survivor

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There are multiple Survivor GH collections available, some easier to find than others. Here's some info to compare / contrast what is on them:

1990 - Survivor Greatest Hits 1 - 10 songs, all previously released material, all hits
1993 - Survivor Greatest Hits 2 - 13 songs, including two new songs (I didn't really like them)
2001 - Fire In Your Eyes (Import) - 18 songs, really good collection of hits
2001 - Prime Cuts (Import) - 18 songs, not all the hits, but many excellent album cuts
2004 - Ultimate Survivor - 18 songs, all major and most minor hits, two previously unreleased tunes

I've reviewed all but the 1990 GH CDs, and the first four have varying availability on amazon.com.

For the casual fan who just wants the big radio hits, this CD has them. I personally like all the songs, but if you're mainly interested in the hits, this might be more than you really want. But who knows, you may love the ones you haven't heard yet. Their sound evolved, but remained consistent - there's not as much contrast here as there is with many bands' GH collections.

If you like just about everything you've heard from Survivor but you're not ready to get all their CDs, this is definitely a good place to start. It has songs from all seven studio albums, plus their huge hit "Burning Heart" from the "Rocky IV" soundtrack.

For those of you who are like me and own all the other Survivor CDs, getting this one comes down to three songs:
- Rebel Girl - the elusive tune which was left off the debut album (but can apparently be found on some Japanese versions of that CD). It's been hyped quite a bit. It's a catchy guitar-driven tune.
- Summer Nights - from "Premonition" - the vinyl album has a shorter version of this, but the "Premonition" CD I got from amazon.com three years ago has this longer version. So if you have "Premonition" on CD, you have this version (just over four minutes long).
- Rockin' Into The Night - also could have made it to the debut CD, but was given to 38 Special and became their breakout hit. Survivor's version is definitely good, but my ears have been trained to consider the 38 Special version to be the "real" version.

Some other notes:
- The only four songs on all five GH CDs are "Eye Of The Tiger", "High On You", "I Can't Hold Back", and "The Search Is Over" (their four biggest hits).
- This CD has extensive liner notes, with lots of good info.
- Some reviewers have mentioned poor sound quality. I think this CD has the best quality of these particular songs available (I've done the comparisons myself).
- The main omission from this CD is "The Moment Of Truth" from the "Karate Kid" soundtrack. It is available on the GH2 and FIYE collections. It's a decent song, but not essential.

Even though I already have the 1993 GH2 CD, I got this one, mainly for "Rebel Girl".

All in all, this is a very good collection of Survivor tunes. For the majority of people, I recommend this over any of the other greatest hits collections.

Good song selection. Good liner notes. But it sounds as if this cd was burned directly from the first generation cd copies of all the releases.

The first song "Eye of the Tiger" is mastered at the correct level. By the time you get to "I Can't Hold Back", you need to really turn up the volume to get the same loudness. Then when you get to "High On You", it is suddenly apparent that all the songs from "Vital Signs" are the same (LOW) Volume and all of the songs from "Too Hot To Sleep are at a different volume and the same for "Caught in the Game" and "When Seconds Count". If you have audio equipment that shows the playback levels this is a very obvious blunder. It has nothing to do with the album to album sound. This is really a pain if you burn compilation cd's and are used to remastered recordings being mastered at a certain loudness. The sound is fine, but was it really 'remastered'? There is no excuse for this up then down volume problem. This is worse than some budget compilations.

One other thing. There are a few essential songs missing. Where is "She's A Star" and "The One That Really Matters". Survivor had some great 'Rock' songs too.

Survivor fan's deserved a little better quality from this retrospective.

Well I love Survivor ever since they came up with "Eye Of The Tiger", I was only 10! I owned in the past few years several compilations, including the 1990 "Greatest Hits" that had 13 tracks, then I bought "Greatest Hits 2" to complete some of their best hits. In 1999 I bought the Japanese import "The search is over: Best Selection" that was the only compilation that included two greatest songs "I never stopped loving you" and "Ever since the world began". In 2001, I purchased the German import "Fire in your eyes" and I got to tell you the recording was superior to the so called "Original Recording Remastered" from Volcano "Ultimate Survivor" that I own presently. However, it is the best compilation so far but few essential tracks are missing such "Moment of truth", "I never stopped loving you" and "Ever since the world began".
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that Survivor is a great band and they deserve a DOUBLE DISC compilation.
Buy this one it is still the best in the market.

THE ULTIMATE SURVIVOR is just as good a collection as GREATEST HITS, containing several songs not on the earlier collection, including the rare single "Rebel Girl" (improved on in a cover version by the Outlaws), the unreleased original version of "Rockin' Into The Night" (which jump-started .38 Special's career), the full-length version of "Summer Nights", and the VITAL SIGNS album track "First Night." You should get both collections, as well as the studio albums EYE OF THE TIGER and VITAL SIGNS.

We have a number of Survivor compilations already. The latest one is in my opinion slightly better than their official one in 1993 because it has more of their great stuff and CAUGHT IN THE GAME and some of TOO HOT TO SLEEP tracks make it worth a purchase. And although there's no new tracks, Survivor version of ROCKIN' INTO THE NIGHT is a boon to 80s rock fans. It is one of the best songs Jim Peterik has created so far and thanks to Volcano record's effort we can now have Survivor's version. Rockin' Into The Night was supposed to be included in Survivor's debut but it somehow could not survive for debut's 11 track selection and was given to a southern rocker 38 Special. Ironically that hapless track became the first hit for 38 Special. REBEL GIRL was another hapless track. It seems that this track managed to survive for the album but it was kept for Japanese version's extra track and American fans could not taste this great track. Anyhow I hope it could reach huge number of music fans and pave the way for their major comeback.

Recommended for wide range of American music fans old and new.

WOW! Hits just keep coming on this one, how is this possible? The band is very talented and composing hits comes naturally with this band! This is the best rock album I have heard in a very long time. The only weak tracks I could hardly find are "Poor Man's Son", "American Heartbeat", "Caught In The Game"and "Didn't Know It Was Love". This leaves 14 solid gems out of 18,a great release, highly recommended, truly ultimate!

I recently went to a Survivor concert and they were Awesome! If you get the chance to go to their concert, Go! I just bought their album "Ultimate Survivor". and it's like being at the concert all over again (without the audiance noise). They were Great! I agree with the other reviews that said "it's too bad they didn't get the credit they deserve." They are truly a great band too, just like; Journey, REO Speedwagon, Poison, etc. And I love all those groups! I hope this helps. Have a Great Day and Enjoy this album!

This Survivor collection has it all. Eye of the Tiger, all their other big hits, minor hits and fan favorites, and previously unreleased songs. This disc is rather inexpensive and available at most stores. This disc is perfect for a casual fan or diehard fans alike. But why did I give it only four stars? The song "Popular Girl" is missing!!! This song, in my opinion is one of their best and is a rather popular Survivor song. Buy this
for all the classic tunes, but don't fret over the Popular Girl thing.

I have been looking for years for a definitive Survivor Greatest Hits package. This is the closest yet. However, this CD still is missing the following Billboard Hot 100 chart entries: "The One That Really Matters", "The Moment of Truth", and "How Much Love". This collection does however include ALL of the band's Top 40 hits. So, if you are just looking for the Top 40 hits, this is for you. If you are looking for all of their songs to make the Hot 100, then I would suggest buying this and trying to download the other 3 songs. The CD also includes great liner notes.

I'm not sure why some people are dissing this as "yet another Survivor compilation". Yes there's going to be overlap when there are multiple HITS collections out there, but this one stands out in that it contains the highly-sought-after debut single REBEL GIRL. Until now it was only available on a rare and very expensive Japanese issue, and I can tell you that there are a lot of Survivor fans out there who've been waiting a long, long time!