AM radio at it's best

Neil Diamond may have a throaty quality to his voice but he still records the same AC style songs as the wonderful Manilow. the difference is that Manilow relied more on thoughtful ballads while Diamond recorded mostly mid/up-tempo love songs like "Cracklin' Rosie", "Cherry", "America", and "I'm a Believer". for us Manilow fans, it was a bit more reality but every now and then a song like "Copacabana" allowed us to escape to another world and forget the misery of a bad or lousy relationship. but, Manilow's songs spoke to me personally because i've had quite a few awful relationships with women and hearing a song like "Weekend in New England" hits home. the previous reviewers all made comments on the song selections for this CD. This one is full of Manilow's AC hits...five songs made the Top-10 on the Pop chart: "Could It Be Magic" hit #6, "Copacabana" hit #8, "I Write the Songs" hit #1, "Somewhere in the Night" hit #9, and "Weekend in New England" hit #10. Each of those Top-10 pop singles were bigger on the AC charts, that's one big reason why some of the songs may not be familiar to the public at large. "This One's For You", for example, hit #29 pop but flew to #1 AC. everyone knows "Copacabana" and it's #8 pop peak in 1978 belies it's massive popularity. It sold a million copies and remained #1 on the R&R AC chart for an incredible 5 weeks! prior to this, four other Manilow singles each sold a million or more copies. "Beautiful Music", "Jump Shout Boogie", and "All the Time" are album songs and not hit singles. "You're My Only Girl", his newly recorded song from 1989, closes out the CD. It's a wonderful song, showing that Manilow still had quite a bit of range in his voice...it follows the Award winning masterpiece "I Write the Songs" in this CD. i would've closed the CD with that song...and had the new song as track #9.

Great Collection...But You Have To Buy The Other 2 Volumes!

Barry Manilow had a hot chart streak between 1975-1983 and like the other 2 hit volumes, it has good, memorable songs: "Could This Be The Magic", "Copacabana", "Somewhere In The Night", and "Weekend In New England".

Two complaints: 1) Why are there only 10 songs when there is room for more? 2) You can't buy only this volume because it shows "an incomplete portrait of his artistic work" so you MUST buy volumes 1 & 3.

Before "Ultimate Manilow" was available, all three volumes was the best you can find (unless you bought the box set). Get "Ultimate Manilow" where you get twice as many songs in one disc.

The songs are good, but the packaging was poor: no notes, no pictures, just song credits.

Let's End The Confusion!

OK, let's end the confusion about these Greatest Hits CD's. The original 1978 Greatest Hits album was a two record set. The second Greatest Hits album was a single record released in 1983. Well, for some reason, in 1989, the powers that be at Arista decided to break up the first album into two separate CD's. They became what we now no Today as Greatest hits 1 & 2. This means that the original Greatest Hits Vol. 2 became Vol. 3. Why Arista couldn't just leave well enough alone is beyond me. Maybe more money in 3 CD's rather than just two? This is actually the second record of the original Greatest Hits Package. It also includes the bonus track 'Jenny. I just wish Arista would have left the original packaging of the CD's alone. It was fine the way it was. The first double album fit nicely on one CD. And for the songs? These are true Manilow classics. Say what you want about Barry's music. But the fact still remains that he can really write and sing songs that actually say something. And while you're at it, pick up volume 1 to make this set complete. Music doesn't always have to address the political issues of the day. Sometimes it's just meant to be fun!