Once again I have to question some of these song selections as “Classic Rock.” “American Pie” shows up on yet another compilation. I’m not sure I would consider Pilot’s “Magic” a Classic Rock hit. The same goes for Andy Kim’s “Rock Me Gently.”
Do you remember these songs? Any favorites here? GRADE: B
Tracklist
| 1-1 | –The Band | Up On Cripple Creek | 4:32 |
| 1-2 | –Billy Idol | Rebel Yell | 4:46 |
| 1-3 | –Stray Cats | Rock This Town | 3:25 |
| 1-4 | –Linda Ronstadt | When Will I Be Loved | 2:06 |
| 1-5 | –Poison (3) | Nothin’ But A Good Time | 3:44 |
| 1-6 | –Pilot | Magic | 3:03 |
| 1-7 | –Queensrÿche | Silent Lucidity | 5:46 |
| 1-8 | –The J. Geils Band | Love Stinks | 3:36 |
| 1-9 | –Canned Heat | Let’s Work Together | 3:13 |
| 1-10 | –Pat Benatar | You Better Run | 3:05 |
| 1-11 | –Robin Trower | Caledonia | 3:40 |
| 1-12 | –Andy Kim | Rock Me Gently | 3:28 |
| 1-13 | –Slaughter | Up All Night | 3:45 |
| 1-14 | –The Tubes | Talk To Ya Later | 3:45 |
| 1-15 | –Don McLean | American Pie | 8:35 |
| 2-1 | –The Hollies | Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress) | 3:16 |
| 2-2 | –Billy Squier | The Stroke | 3:38 |
| 2-3 | –The Babys | Every Time I Think Of You | 4:01 |
| 2-4 | –The Smithereens | A Girl Like You | 4:42 |
| 2-5 | –George Thorogood & The Destroyers | Bad to the Bone | 4:55 |
| 2-6 | –Great White | Once Bitten Twice Shy | 5:24 |
| 2-7 | –Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show | The Cover Of The Rolling Stone [Live] | 3:56 |
| 2-8 | –Little River Band | Night Owls | 5:16 |
| 2-9 | –Raspberries | Go All The Way | 3:22 |
| 2-10 | –Vixen (2) | Edge Of A Broken Heart | 4:24 |
| 2-11 | –The Sweet | Ballroom Blitz | 4:01 |
| 2-12 | –Tracie Spencer | Tender Kisses | 5:26 |
| 2-13 | –April Wine | Just Between You And Me | 3:55 |
| 2-14 | –Blue Swede | Hooked On A Feeling | 2:52 |
| 2-15 | –Sugarloaf | Green-Eyed Lady [Single Version] | 3:40 |
Horrible collection. Too much crap like Andy Kim, The Babys, Little River Band and hair metal groups like Poison, Vixen and Great White. And who the hell is Tracie Spencer? What radio station would play The Band and Queensryche in the same rotation? And Great White’s terrible cover of Ian Hunter’s Once Bitten Twice Shy. A handful of good tracks-The Band, Smithereens, Hollies, Robin Trower, Linda Ronstadt, Stray Cats, Sweet, Canned heat. I find 90 percent of these songs unlistenable. Even J Geilsv represented by one of their worst songs. I give this record a D-. Probably the worst compilation you have posted yet.
Have to agree with Steve!
Luckily for me I don’t remember many of the artists and songs at all.
Of course Canned Heat is an exception and “American Pie” one of the greatest songs imho.
So what are these doing in this silly collection?
Wolf, your guess is as good as mine. Steve is right about the weird mix of songs on these two CDs.
Steve, you’re right about the hodge-podge nature of this collection. The only explanation for the random selection of these songs is that the set was issued by EMI records. I have a much superior selection set for next Thursday.
This set looks like six random people were asked to just name the first five songs that came to mind.
Jeff, who knows…maybe that was the EMI selection process back then!
Yeah, Jeff is right (as are Steve and Wolf). What a very odd collection. I’d say I only know about half the songs (most of which don’t go together). If I had to pick five songs it would be Hooked on a Feeling (for the “ooga chuckas” alone), American Pie, When Will I Be Loved, Bad to the Bone (we’ve seen George Thorogood in concerts at least half a dozen times, first in the Blues Tent at Jazzfest in New Orleans), and Up on Cripple Creek.
Jeff, there is no flow of songs on these 2 CDs. You go from one jarring “hit” to another. I’m always impressed at the number of musical groups you and Jackie have seen!
Blue Swede’s cover of “Hooked” is pretty obnoxious. I’ll take the intro-free B. J. Thomas original, but not often.
I have a feeling (not hooked on it) that these were “hits” somewhere in the world, and weren’t too expensive for EMI to toss together. And that’s probably about as much thought as was put into it.
But, who knows, perhaps these were all Top Fives in rotation on Radio Belgium over the decade or so.
4-5 good songs easily available elsewhere surrounded by a lot of crap. A waste of whatever CDs are made from.
Michael, fortunately this 2-CD set was given to me by a “friend.” No money changed hands in my acquisition of this set. Now, I’m thinking of de-acquiring it…
Stray Cats, Canned Heat, Linda Ronstadt, George Thorogood, Don McLean, The Hollies…not much else worthwhile here, George.
A bit of trivia: I once worked with the ORIGINAL Pat Benatar, whose brother once married a singer named Pat.
Jerry, you are a fount of cool trivia! I have a Pat Benatar CD ready to listen to on my LISTEN REAL SOON stack. Time to move it up!
No. No. Pat Benatar is the female equivalent of Eddie Money.
Steve, I’ll move Pat Benatar back down the LISTEN REAL SOON stack…next to Eddie Money’s Great Hits!
This is just a mish-mash, undoubtedly based on what songs the label had the rights to put on the album. When you say “classic rock” to me, I’m thinking Beatles, Stones, Springsteen, CCR, Fleetwood Mac, U2, REM, Steppenwolf, The Doors, The Kinks, etc. I know everyone’s definition is different, but m betting Andy Kim & Little River Band ain’t gonna be on anyone’s list!
Fun fact: Before Pilot’s “It’s Magic” became a big hit, the group played at my junior prom (April 1974). A few months later, we were all looking at each other saying, “Wow, that band from prom has a hit in the radio!” Now the song is being used in a diabetes medication commercial.
Deb, you are so right about “It’s Magic” being used in that Ozempic commercial. And, they run that commercial a lot! How cool that you saw a group in person before it hit the Big Time!
Cool about the prom! And I HATE that “ask your doctor” ad as much as any of the ones running now.
By coincidence we were listening to the Classic Rock station in the car this morning, In order, they played:
Turn the Page – Bob Seger
That’s Just the Way It Is – Bruce Hornsby
Satisfaction
They also have a “Beatles Block” every day at noon. They play a lot of The Doors and Billy Joel as well. Whereas what used to be our “oldies station” (WCBS-FM) now plays a lot of ’80s and newer songs I’ve never heard of. Sad,
Jeff, same here. Our “Oldies” radio station has morphed into Best of the 1980s and 1990s station. When we had Sirus/XM Radio, we listened to their Sixties and Seventies channels on driving trips. But, we rarely drive anywhere today so we canceled Sirus/XM Radio.
Just the Linda Ronstadt song for me. Most I have never heard of.
Patti, there are some obscure groups and artists on these CDs.
That Hollies song is a favorite of mine.
Rick, I think the Hollies are an underrated group.
These are NOT classic rock!
Beth, “Classic Rock” is a very loose term for these songs.
So, Tracie Spencer had a record out at 11 or 12yo. Well. I imagine that wasn’t the healthiest situation (also a Model/Actress…).
The only songs that I know actively annoy me are “Ballroom Blitz” and the “Hooked” cover, but they do bring back amusing memories.
Living in the DC area, having at least a little money most of the time, and having a womanfriend who got my stick in the mud self unstuck a fair amount got me to see a lot of bands in the ’80s and ’90s, but almost never big pop acts. I did go for a wide range of music, though…DC being a locus for bluegrass and punk rock and to some extent jazz and classical as well as the only home of go-go music (the improvisational funk jam music Chuck Brown and others developed there) led to a lot of good concerts being handy, to an even greater extent than around Philadelphia, where I’ve been since the mid-’90s. Certainly more Hawaiian music around when I lived in HI, too.
Robin Trower can be good, but I don’t know that single.
The Band, the Ronstadt, and a few others I’ll actively listen to. Everyone but Spencer was recognizable, and most of the songs are as well.
Todd, these compilations of “hits” and “Classic Rock” flooded the record stores (remember them?) back in the 1980s and 1990s. As soon as Internet music became popular in the 2000s, the number of compilation CDs fell precipitously.
Well, NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC swooped in and tapped into the foresaken K-Tel audience and inspired others, too…
I worked in two Tower Records and a Tower Books in desperate days…hence my firsthand knowledge of what a whitewash the Cold Hanks documentary is…