Night Ranger's Greatest Hits

Night Ranger

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 26, 1989)
• Original Release Date: June 1989
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Mca
• ASIN: B000002PIU
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,811 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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  Music > Hard Rock & Metal > Pop Metal

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Night Ranger's career was certainly buttressed by MTV, which made the San Francisco Bay Area group a video staple in the early '80s. "Don't Tell Me You Love Me" stands as a fine piece of '80s hair metal, with bassist Jack Blades chunk-a-chunking his pickups to create that rock-locomotive sound. The band slows things down with "Sister Christian," a not-so-powerful power ballad that gave Night Ranger another significant single. Packaging a select portion of their catalog under the Greatest Hits banner is a bit of a stretch, though. Blades didn't even stick around for long, breaking away to join former Styx guitarist Tommy Shaw and Ted Nugent in Damn Yankees. For true devotees of '80s metal, Night Ranger's Greatest Hits is a must-have; for everyone else, enjoyment will last as long as a Night Ranger video. --Steve Gdula

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE BEST of '80s rock, October 15, 2001

By	Brad (CT) - See all my reviews

This is one of the greatest rock and roll bands I have ever heard. They are the most unpretentious, straight ahead and yet very talented group of rock musicians I have ever seen or heard in my 20-plus years of listening to rock music. Their melodic sound is equally awesome on such killer rockers as "Don't Tell Me You Love Me" and "(You Can Still) Rock In America" as it is on such ballads as the famous "Sister Christian" and the equally-as-good "Sentimental Street" and "Goodbye". I could rave about each and every song on this disk. If you are a fan of Night Ranger and '80s melodic rock, you know exactly what I mean. But what about the song selection?

That too is just about perfect. Every top 40 song is here. Every rock radio track is here. A couple of extra Night Ranger staples are thrown in. Every album to this point in their career is represented, even the latter two which didn't spawn the big hits their three amazing predecessors did.

For me, this collection still isn't enough. Each and every album represented on this collection has awesome tunes that aren't included here. But for "radio fans" of the band, this collection is about perfect. It truly is a great summary of one of the best bands I have ever listened to.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Take a trip down Sentimental St. w. Night Ranger, June 14, 2005

By	Daniel J. Hamlow (Narita, Japan) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Of the hard rock bands of the 80s, Night Ranger did an awesome job without actually being classified as metal. Some of their songs were tinged with the synths that typified 80's music, and along with contemporaries like Loverboy, their biggest hits were power ballads. Yet they did have quite a hard-edge without them going into metal. Case in point was "(You Can Still) Rock In America," their hardest rocking hit with a pulsing and snarling guitar a la Riggs that could've been on the Heavy Metal soundtrack, yet only made it to #51 in 1984. Barely scraping the Top 40 is another hard-edged number, "Don't Tell Me You Love Me" from Dawn Patrol, as is "Eddie's Comin' Out Tonight" from the same album.

"Sing Me Away" from Dawn Patrol (1982) alternated between hard rock guitar in the verses and a chorus tempered by synths. A pleasant enough number that somehow stalled at #54. However, their biggest hit was the power ballad "Sister Christian" of a teenage girl growing up and feeling the pangs of adolescence, from their second album Midnight Madness, which starts out with a gentle piano before the drums transition into the power guitars. This was their second Top 40 hit and only Top 5. "When You Close Your Eyes," also from MM, was more upbeat rock, though with a more poppified rock beat, kind of like Rick Springfield. This reached #14. The rocker "Rumours In The Air," also from MM, is a Loverboy-type number.

However, they had more power ballads, particularly on 7 Wishes, their second biggest album. It stood to reason, considering the success of "Sister Christian." I saw videos from 7 Wishes during my MTV years, so this is where I came in. "Sentimental Street," with its majestic synths opening and steady mid-paced beat, was their second biggest hit, charting at #8. The #19 song "Four In The Morning (I Can't Take It Anymore)" was quicker-paced, with the standard pop backbeat coupled with their usual sound, putting them in the same company as hard-rock tempered by pop groups like Loverboy, Heart, and Journey. And the wistful Auld Lang Syne-type rock ballad "Goodbye" is a magical combination of synths and guitars. Brad Gillis' guitar works its magic at the finale, accompanied by the synths. It seemed appropriate, as it turned out to be their last Top 40 hit, peaking at #17.

The only representative from Big Life, their 1987 album, is "The Secret Of My Success," the title track for the Michael J. Fox movie of the same name. With an uptempo Jan Hammer keyboard backbeat and a more pop/rock sound, it isn't as hard as their earlier oeuvre, but again, with repeated airplay on MTV, I got accustomed to this song, where others might've cringed. It peaked at #64, far below their usual chartings. "Restless Kind" from Man In Motion (1988), reverted to the usual power ballad genre, but by that time, two groups of metal had eclipsed Night Ranger, who had never ventured beyond hard rock, veterans like Def Leppard who exploded with Hysteria and newcomers like Skid Row and Guns N Roses. Needless to say, the song failed to even chart.

Following Night Ranger's breakup, bassist and lead vocalist Jack Blades joined Damn Yankees, where he scored a hit higher than "Sister Christian," namely "High Enough" which hit #3. Brad Gillis, who had been Ozzy's guitarist for the live Speak of the Devil album, tried his hand at a solo career before resurrecting Night Ranger with drummer and lead vocalist Kelly Keaggy.

Despite the absence of "Interstate Love Affair" from the movie Teachers, this collection captures the hard rockers at their best, and is ideal for those of us 80's people wanting a stroll down a Sentimental Street.

"And all this could be such a dream so it seems/I was never much good at goodbye" From Goodbye.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You can still rock in America, baby!, March 19, 2004

By	Brian A. Schar (Menlo Park, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This CD is a guilty pleasure, but what a pleasure! The one word that sums up this greatest hits compilation is "fun." If you were a fan of Night Ranger during its heyday, this CD will put a smile on your face. This may not be the greatest rock ever created, but it's energetic, well-done and...fun. Sure, it's a little cheesy in places ("Secret of My Success", for instance), but that just bumps up the fun meter another notch. If you grew up in the midwest, you will likely enjoy it even more, because you heard half these songs on the radio all the time in the 80s.

The secret of your success in selecting music is buying this disc!