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Customer Reviews of The Bangles - Greatest Hits

AMAZING VOCALS, & GREAT MUSIC!
This is a fantastic collection of songs by the most under-rated girl group of all time. I've been a Bangles fan for a long time, and it's great to see them back together recording a new album and a tour to follow sometime this year. There are 14 songs here, each one an excellent song. All of the classics you remember are here. 'Eternal Flame' is quite possibly the most beautiful, romantic love ballad of all time. Their soaring harmonic vocals are simply amazing. 'In Your Room' is very upbeat and catchy, and I love to play it on guitar. 'Manic Monday' is a great song all about not wanting to go to work and wishing it was still Sunday. Who could forget 'Walk Like An Egyptian', a cool song and a cool dance move. 'If She Knew What She Wants' is a slow, melodic rock song with a good guitar crunch and sweet harmonies. 'Walking Down Your Street' is upbeat, with a cool guitar riff and a great drum beat. 'Hazy Shade Of Winter' is a very, very cool version of the old Paul Simon song. It has another cool guitar riff, and simply amazing vocals that are right on time and never miss a beat. 'Be With You' is a cool track about wishing you were with a certain person that you just can't have. It is upbeat with lead vocals sang by the drummer Debbie Peterson. Also 2 previously unreleased tracks, 'Everything I Wanted' and 'Where Were You When I Needed You'. These songs bring back some great memories for me. If you're a Bangles fan, or a fan of great 80's music you should absolutely love this. Pick this one up, and be ready for their new album coming out this year, it's gonna rock. I can't wait, Rock On!

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Not enough hit records to justify a "Greatest Hits" package
It is true that the Bangles produced a couple of the best and brightest pop singles of the 1980's. In all they had a total of 7 or 8 songs that made Billboard's Hot 100. But to me it is a bit of a stretch to justify a "Greatest Hits" package for this group. There is simply too much filler on this disc for me to get excited about it. The bottom line in that I would never listen to the entire disc from start to finish. "Manic Monday" was clearly one of the great hit singles of the eighties. Aside from that there are only three other tunes on the disc I really liked. "Eternal Flame", "If She Knew What She Wants" and the remake of Simon and Garfunkel's "Hazy Shade of Winter" are all very enjoyable pop tunes. But I never quite understood why "Walk Like An Egyptian" became the groups biggest hit. I cannot put my finger on it but the song does absolutely nothing for me. Beyond that I find the balance of the tracks on this compilation, whether they hit the charts or not, to be very ordinary. Now I have been a collector for just about 40 years now. I try to acquire the best available collection of each artist. In addition to my vast collection of CD's and vinyl albums I also maintain a very large collection of 45's. With some exceptions the 45's are usually by those artists who did not have enough hit records to justify a "Best of" or Greatest Hits" compilation or in some cases like this one have a collection available I am not particularly interested in owning.
In the case of the Bangles I think I'm gonna stick with my 45's.

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Fine Collection
What can you say about the Bangles that hasn't been said a thousand times? I dunno. I do know that they certainly outdid themselves in the 80's. They say "They won't feel bad at all/When the hero takes a fall", and they're "Going down to Liverpool to do nothing all the days of their lives" which I don't think makes a whole lot of sense. I like "Manic Monday". It's a good song. "If She Knew What She Wants" is certainly nice. Both are rather mellow tunes.

Garage rock they may be, but that doesn't neccessarily mean hard rock. Not all their songs rock hard, thank God, because I'm not into hard rock.

Now from what I understand, "Eternal Flame" ruined the Bangles. I don't think the song's all that bad. It's just one of those rare torch songs (which hit #1), it's rather sad and it just makes you stop to think once in a while. Hearing "Eternal Flame" makes me want a girlfriend. I can't hear the song without it sticking in my head, in fact I can't hear most Bangles songs without them sticking in my head. "Manic Monday", "If She Knew What She Wants", they stick in my head for a long while. Even "Walk Like An Egyptian" is difficult to get out of my head.

I never heard of the Bangles until 2002, less than 3 weeks before Christmas. I saw the look Susanna Hoffs gave on "Walk Like An Egyptian". I was completely freaked out. I couldn't believe what I was seeing!

In October 2003, I ended up buying their "Greatest Hits" collection. I just couldn't take it anymore, it was eating me up inside. I wanted to hear what those girls could do. And it's excellent. I just didn't think their songs would be so hard to get out of my head, but they were. Still could be. I haven't listened to them in a long while. Listening to my favorite singers (James Taylor, Paul Simon) didn't do any good. I still had Bangles tunes stuck in my head.

I like that rather downbeat song, "Following". It's my favorite Bangles song not lead by Susanna Hoffs. The song is just mostly Michael Steele (bassist) throughout the whole song. She just picks up a guitar and plays the song. That song has to be the mother of all downbeat songs. It is REALLY downbeat. Most Bangles tunes tend to be rather upbeat, but "Following" is very downbeat. "Why do you call me?/Why do you look for me?/Why do your eyes follow me the way they do?" Michael sings. In the song, it sounds like she's accusing her boyfriend of being obsessed. He follows her around all the time and he just can't concentrate on anything else.

Just like I said, it's a rather downbeat song. Probably the most downbeat song recorded in the history of music, even today it still is. Michael Steele really outdid herself with "Following". And yes, that too, is hard to get out of my head. Most Bangles tunes are.