GuideReviews Index

The Best of Rick Springfield Album Review
While this collection may not qualify as quintessential, it certainly does a good job of featuring this artist's best work and demonstrating why Springfield is worth remembering. As a songwriter, the former soap star and heartthrob has far more to offer than most gave him credit for at the time. He's gifted not only with a melody but epitomizes power pop accessibility in the best sense of the word.

The Police-Every Breath You Take: The Classics Review
As the lesser of two evils, this supposedly comprehensive Police compilation trumps its very similar predecessor, but it certainly does not succeed as a thorough summary of this influential band's career. Because of a couple of wasted tracks and a few unforgivable omissions, this album is not recommended for listeners looking to collect all the essential Police tracks in one place.

Guns N' Roses-Appetite for Destruction Review
This album is an important one on multiple levels, but its greatest strength is its sheer versatility and breadth as a document of hard rock across the decades. The skillful melding of punk, heavy metal, classic rock and blues turned the L.A. rockers into immediate superstars.

"Born in the USA" Album Review
This longtime legend's 1984 landmark offering is a record of the ages that transcends time and genre with its consistent excellence.

Journey "Greatest Hits" Album Review
A look at the 1988 compilation that still stands as the quintessential general interest document for the arena rockers' musical legacy.

Vault: Def Leppard Greatest Hits
While far from a perfect collection of the seminal British hard rock band's best material, this compilation accomplishes something any one of the band's prime '80s albums cannot. It assembles a high-quality, balanced blend of Def Leppard's finest power ballads and rockers on one CD, give or take a few. In this sense, it is the best choice for the many listeners who probably only want to own one disc from this important but far from album-consistent pop metal band.

"The Cars"
Playing like a primo greatest hits album, the Cars' debut is a stunning collection of top-flight pop songs, supported tightly and convincingly by a group of highly skilled and individually vital musicians. All nine songs still receive significant radio airplay, and that's in spite of the fact that most commercial radio doesn't know beans about quality music. The ongoing popularity of the Cars and the tunes from this album is a happy aberration.