Vh1 Rock Of Love

Meet the Ladies of Charm School
$0.00

Peep Show
$1.99

Vh1: I Love the 80s
$13.96
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.

Love Me Do
$0.99