FORMULA 45 [1988]

For most of the late 80s through the mid 90s, HERC was a subscriber to Goldmine, a large newsprint magazine for music collectors.  It was on the Letters page in one issue, where a letter from John Book was published along with his address - comic books used to publish letter writers addresses, too, but who does that anymore?  HERC wrote John a letter and a friendship was founded.  Later, John would see a couple of his articles published within the pages of Goldmine which led to a gig contributing reviews to the very first print edition of the All Music Guide in 1992 before it came online.  In addition to stalking corresponding with like-minded music fans, HERC pored over the magazine's massive classified section, looking for records and CDs to add to his collection which he was in the process of rebuilding after selling off more than 500 vinyl albums and 275 CDs to pay medical bills incurred when his first child was born in 1987 during a brief period when HERC had no medical insurance.  Many rarities were acquired from vendors in Goldmine, including many promo only CDs and several "As Seen On TV" compilations from a dealer who bought the remaining inventory from Canada's Silver Eagle Records when they went out of business.  One of those warehouse finds is today's featured compilation:

HERC is pretty sure he paid $12 for Formula 45, which features forty-five original hits by original artists across three compact discs, all remastered with loving care and a golden ear by Larry Walsh.  There were no booklets included, only a single-sided front insert featuring the set's artwork and a rear insert with track listings and copyright information.  Each of the three discs also had copyright information for each track printed right on the discs.  The 1988 set draws from the catalogs of at least a dozen record labels and includes tracks from 1970-1984.  The music is mostly of the classic rock variety with a few pop hits scattered throughout and each disc has a running time of an hour or less.  

Before we get to the playlist, here are three choice tracks from the album:

As he usually does, HERC has loaded the Formula 45 Spotify playlist below, which contains all 45 songs from the compilation(!), with full-length album cuts rather than single edits for our extended listening pleasure: