Whether it’s Garth and Wayne singing Bohemian Rhapsody in a car, Robert de Niro in Jackie Brown rocking away to a strip tease to the Supreme’s Baby Love or fish faced Julia Roberts poncing down a New York high street to Roy Orbison’s Pretty Woman, this compilation has a selection of songs that everyone born in the last 50 years should be familiar with somehow or other.
Originally this was a two volume compilation (still available on Amazon)but over time volume 1 has been lost. Probably for the best as the “greatest” singles on the second volume were all a little too contemporaneous compared to those presented on volume 1. There was a spate of similar compilations after the millennium, Greatest This, Greatest That and who could forget the Absolute All Time Best of Super-dooper Mega Party Funtime Hoo-Har Music Ever Volume 3, all vying for the hard earned cash of the gullible. Of course, as with all compilations, there are some tracks I feel shouldn’t be there, and others that are conspicuous by their absence. Never the less, Greatest No.1 Singles is a nice “leave it on in the background while you do the cleaning” album.
I was never a fan of Tom Hank’s lumbering buffoon Forrest Gump. The film was a little too whimsical for my liking but I felt that the soundtrack was well researched and included a good few classic popular songs from the period of history in which the film is set.
I have a snooty contempt for the Beach Boys. Sure they’re a product of their time. That hazy clean living pseudo-America that only seemed to have happened in films or imaginations. But to me they have sinister overtones. That might just be me though.
There’s just something a little creepy about some of their songs. It makes me think of some tripped up psycho-hippie carving up bodies.I’m sure psychologists in the future will debate that statement for many years.