I Want My 80's Box!

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Product Description ------------------- And, boy, you got it! Here are 42 of the biggest hits that dominated '80s radio and flashed across MTV-includes 867-5309/Jenny Tommy Tutone; Do You Really Want to Hurt Me? Culture Club; Poison Arrow ABC; Mickey Toni Basil; Steppin' Out Joe Jackson; Suddenly Last Summer Motels; Hold Me Now Thompson Twins; Walk This Way Run D.M.C.; Luka Suzanne Vega; Lady in Red Chris De Burgh; Addicted to Love Robert Palmer; Relax Frankie Goes to Hollywood; Harden My Heart Quarterflash; Sweet Dreams Eurythmics; Missing You John Waite; Weird Science Oingo Boingo; Oh Yeah Yello, and more. .com ---- God bless punk and new wave. Without them, '80s pop music might well have ended up as vapid and ghettoized as, well, pop music of the '90s. Those late '70s movements were frankly reactionary at heart (seeking to counter what was perceived as the overwrought tendencies of rock's prog and hard-rock elite and calling for a return to the diverse energy of '60s Top 40), but their influences can be felt on nearly every cut of this triple-disc hits anthology, from the Buggles ( /exec/obidos/ts/artist-glance/57731/${0} )' all-too-prophetic "Video Killed the Radio Star" to the nouveau funk of Kool and the Gang ( /exec/obidos/ts/artist-glance/81885/${0} ), the Dazz Band ( /exec/obidos/ts/artist-glance/39496/${0} ), and the Gap Band ( /exec/obidos/ts/artist-glance/39466/${0} ), to the nascent big-hairdom of Night Ranger ( /exec/obidos/ts/artist-glance/70836/${0} ) ("Sister Christian") and Whitesnake ( /exec/obidos/ts/artist-glance/45188/${0} ). If you're looking for the roots of alternative rock or obscure college playlist fodder, look elsewhere; this is prime-time '80s pop chart glory, as seen on MTV (over and over and over). Though the songs here cover a breadth of style and genre (if not necessarily substance), there's a remarkable unity of purpose and hook-laden musical accomplishment that's sorely missed. If this collection woefully shortchanges hip-hop, it still underscores a distinctly irony-free era where style admittedly triumphed over substance, as sed to the '90s, where style caricatured substance. --Jerry McCulley