Time-Life's ANOTHER LOST DECADE: THE 80's [2005-2006]

Time-Life Music has put out many music collections through the years including exhaustive collections of Eighties music like Sounds Of The Eighties (32 discs) and Modern Rock (21 2CD sets). One of the lesser known series from Time-Life is Another Lost Decade: The 80s.

June 7, 2005

55:10

Romance, the first volume in the miniseries, is dedicated to love songs from mostly British New Wave artists - only Pat Benatar and The Bangles represent the Colonies. There are neither surprises nor rarities here and judging from the sheer number of FOR SALE listings and low prices for this disc, it is the easiest one to come by in the series.

August 30, 2005
59:07

Half of the artists from the Romance disc make an encore appearance on Second British Invasion. In an interesting move, compiler Vincent M. Vero did not go the obvious route and choose the acts' biggest, most well-known hits. So while fans may very well have all of these songs, they don't have all of these songs on one disc - unless they have this disc.

October 4, 2005

54:48

At The Movies loses one point from the get-go by only including one song ("Weird Science") from a John Hughes film. The rest of the tracks are obvious with the possible exception of Wang Chung's "Hypnotize Me" (1987) which HERC had to look up - it's a Top 40 hit from the movie Innerspace although it was also featured on the band's release Everybody Wang Chung Tonight Mosaic and at least two of their greatest hits compilations. Put this one in the 6-CD changer with Cinemax Movie Hits of The Eighties, Soundtrack Smashes: The 80's, The 80's Movie Album: The Brat Pack Years and Ultimate 80s Movie Hits and play "guess which film".

February 28, 2006
59:05

The fourth and final disc in the series lives up to its name if only for the inclusion of the Deon Estus track "Heaven Help Me" which features George Michael and made the Top 5. To the best of HERC's knowledge, that track hasn't appeared anywhere else but on Estus's original 1989 album Spell. How hard to find are the other tracks? HERC looked 'em up:

  1 When Smokey Sings ABC 4:23 [30 comps and is on Spotify]
  2 The Honeythief Hipsway 3:11 [18 comps and is on Spotify]
  3 Heaven Help Me Deon Estus / George Michael 4:41 [no other comps but is on Spotify]
  4 Method of Modern Love Daryl Hall / John Oates 4:05 [3 comps and is on Spotify]
  5 Lay Your Hands on Me Thompson Twins 3:53 [14 comps and is on Spotify]
  6 The Flame Arcadia 4:07 [one other comp and is on Spotify]
  7 No More "I Love You's" Lover Speaks 4:05 [5 comps but not on Spotify]
  8 Deeper and Deeper The Fixx 3:46 [one other comp and is on Spotify]
  9 10-9-8 Face to Face 3:53  [4 comps and is on Spotify]
10 Downtown One 2 Many 4:28 [no other comps and not on Spotify] Top 40 1989
11 Strange But True Times Two 4:18 [one other comp and not on Spotify]
12 Sugar Free Wa Wa Nee 4:04 [one other comp and not on Spotify]
13 Out of Mind Out Of Sight Models 3:35 [4 other comps but not on Spotify]
14 Whirly Girl Oxo 2:59  [6 other comps and is on Spotify]
15 Breakaway Big Pig 3:37 [3 other comps but not on Spotify]

Eleven of fifteen tracks are indeed hard to find on other compilation albums while six of those are also not yet on Spotify. The title of "hardest to find hit on the collection" goes to One 2 Many's "Downtown":

ANOTHER LOST DECADE:
THE 80's
The Playlist