Customer Reviews

Vh1: I Love the 80s

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

 

 

I love the 80's. The greatest decade of all. Great Music, Movies, Clothes, and the beging of Videogames. How can you not love the 80's. Although these cd's arent that great they only give you a few of the songs so thats why i would give it about 3.5 stars.

I was thinking of getting this set but after sampling some of the clips it appears to me that these are either new recordings of old tracks live recordings. They sure don't sound like the originals.

I made the mistake of buying this, only to realize almost every single track on this CD is either a live recording or an "off" recording of the song. I'm not even sure what some of these versions are but they sound very strange. Save your money!

Betty Davis Eyes is definately a knock-off - NOT the original song. Why is Amazon selling this swill?? I want my $.99 back

This kind of music is the best. I wish there could be more songs on the cd because the music is so much fun to listen to and if I loved i am sure you will to if you LOVE THE 80's

14 songs have a hard time defining a decade. It's too bad Rhino couldn't have put 20 tracks on these "I Love" discs. This is a decent track selection but why do people insist on calling "My Sharona" a hit from the 80s? I don't know why you would think that the 1980s began in the summer of '79. If you call "My Sharona" an 80s hit, then you may as well call "Love Shack" a 90s hit. And why doesn't Rhino ever license the full length version of "Sharona"?! It contains some of the most ass kicking guitar licks ever waxed on a power pop tune and yet everytime it ends up on one of these hits compilations, it's the single edit with the best part of the song cut out. It's very frustrating.
Of course I realize that if Rhino could have licensed "Beat It", "When Doves Cry", "Like A Virgin" and "Born In The USA", then they would probably be here, but there are still a couple of odd choices on this disc.
I guess a lot of people have some good memories about the show "Square Pegs". I myself am looking forward to a DVD release of this series. But I don't think enough people remember the show or its theme song to warrant its inclusion here. And I also think that "Footloose" would have been a better Kenny Loggins choice. "I'm Alright" isn't much older than "My Sharona" and doesn't scream "80s" nearly as loud as "Footloose".
Also, if there were more songs then you could include "Walk This Way" or "Push It" in addition to "The Message" to represent the decade where rap/hip-hop became the pop music mainstream.

Loved the music, and was very satisfied with price. Although, someone, MUST WORK ON PACKAGING TO MAKE SURE ITEMS DO NOT GET DAMAGED.....My CD case was broken in half, I'm lucky that the CD didn't get damaged!!!

It seems clear that the persons who bought the MP3 download version of 'I Love the 80s' was buying an entirely different selection of music than what this physical CD contains. While I feel for their pain, I can't agree with their harsh opinions being applicable to Rhino Records' 'I Love the 80s' CD. While there ARE a couple of songs in this fourteen song set that I could've done without--themes songs from the TV shows 'The Greatest American Hero' and 'Square Pegs' aren't exactly how I wanted to remember the decade by--I have to admit that the disc does seem to capture the essence of the decade pretty well, if in a too short and decaffenated volume that would've been better served had it been fleshed out more.

There's no stadium-scale, big hair bands included here. And there's a definite lack of the decade's megastars being represented as well. But all in all the limited selection of songs do seem to work in grabbing onto the flavors of what made the 1980s so...1980s. Most if not all of the songs seem to have been remastered from the original source material; I compared a number of these songs against the original 1980s vintage CDs of several of the albums that were the source of these songs that I had already owned and purchased two decades ago, and the sound quality is definitely a set up from the dreary and dull audio that those early CDs and their still-developing technology were burdened with.

While most of the songs are straightforward if remastered reproductions of the original versions, I was disappointed that Rhino chose to use the censored version of Grandmaster Flash's 'The Message' rather than include an unedited copy. At least I still have the uncensored 12" single to commiserate Rhino's poor choice with. Considering that The Vapors' 'Turning Japanese' is about masturbation, the single instance of 'rough' language in 'The Message' hardly seems worth the 'bleep' cover-up, and certainly seems quite tame in comparison to the gangsta rap that was to come by the end of the 1980s. I also wasn't impressed by the CD artwork; the color theme seems more 1970s than 80s (where's the Miami Vice pastels...or the mauves, greys and rose?).

In the end and despite its flaws I'd still recommend this disc to any child of the '80s...and even to those who were not. It would probably go down even easier if one or three of these songs were considered personal favorites, but even if they aren't it's still a wide-opened peek into the decade. Just leave the Spandex in the closet where it belongs...and forget about bringing back the mullet.

The 1980's were *not* a good time to grow up in America. The country was in decay from the neglect and recklessness of the Reagan years - there was hardly anything for us middle class kids to do except create trouble (yet corporations and the very rich were getting a free ride ... like they are now).

Quite frankly, the decade stunk. The music was cheesy and the clothes and hairstyles cheesier.

BUT ...

I enjoyed this compliation of 80's tunes only because they brought me back to a more innocent time and I appreciate the range of music VH1 chose to include on this CD (blows Billboard's 80's year-by-year compilations right out of the water and them some).

I'm happy to finally own the Grandmaster Flash ditty "The Message" as well as "Turning Japanese" by The Vapors.

Definitely worth the money (now if VH1 would only do the ultimate nostalgia show - "I Love the 60's...").