Compilation Album Review: "'88 Kix On"

Compilation: '88 Kix On
Released: 1988 – Polystar
Number of tracks: 18
Number one singles: 1 — "The Flame" by Cheap Trick
Other top ten singles: 5
Best track: "Groove" by Eurogliders
Hidden gem: "My Arms Keep Missing You" by Rick Astley


I was pleasantly surprised to find this one in a Forest Hill op shop, that's for sure – and only $2! Mainly because CD compilation albums from the 1980s are very rare when doing the op shop rounds. Not only that, but this thirty year old album was in very good condition. Let's fire it up, shall we?

So here we have eighteen songs from the first half of 1988. I wasn't following the charts back then, but the popularity of some of these has endured, while others are confined to the dustbin of pop. Of course, that's only my opinion. You may have fond memories of, say, Debbie Gibson's "Shake Your Love" – you may even have danced around your bedroom to it while singing into a hairbrush – but to me it's another late '80s pop song that sounds like the end credits music to a teen drama where some high school boy goes all the way with Stephanie Kaye.

Anyway, it's Cheap Trick, of all people, who provide the sole number 1 on this outing and it's firmly stowed away at track 13. This song is fairly forgettable, so let's take a look at the front cover. "Plus two bonus tracks", it says, but it doesn't tell you which ones they are. It does list 16 of the 18 artists featured, so by process of elimination, the bonus tracks are "Heaven Knows" by Robert Plant, and "You're Not Alone" by the Australian Olympians.

This latter song reached its chart peak of number 23 in its third week, and promptly dropped out of the chart the week after. Given that it was the Australian Olympians, and it charted in July 1988, I'm guessing it was a theme song for the Seoul Olympic Games. Ya think? You might say it was the "Amigos Para Siempre" of its day! But that would be silly.

The album credits list Rob Hirst of Midnight Oil and Angry Anderson as songwriters on "You're Not Alone", and australian-charts.com also cites the involvements of Jon English, Kate Ceberano, Daryl Braithwaite, Richard Wilkinson and Brian Mannix (among others). I was just thinking the song sounds very like the song from the late 1987 TV ad about the bicentennary, "Celebration Of A Nation" (you know the one, "Let's celebrate in eighty-eight"). And lo, as they say in old-fashioned stories read by old geezers: the two vocalists on that ad jingle, Rick Price (later a solo artist) and Keren Minshull (later of Euphoria), who both enjoyed chart success in 1992, also sing on this track! Oh boy.

"Underneath The Radar" by Underworld (are these the same people who did "Born Slippy" nearly a decade later?) is okay, but the way the guy enunciates "See y'laydah" really gets on my nerves for some reason. That's one of the more well-remembered tracks on here, along with opening track "Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car" by Billy Ocean, and "When Will I Be Famous?" by Bros which has some of the most irritating vocals I've ever heard on an '80s pop single, and that's saying something. How did those dolts even become famous?

"Boys" by Sabrina's breasts sounds a lot like "Tell It To My Heart" by Taylor Dayne (unfortunately they don't come one after another on the album, that would've been a neat joke). Taylor Dayne clearly is the better singer, but after three songs by her you tend to get a splitting headache.

It took me years to realize it, but there were some ace pop singles out in 1988! "I Want You Back" by Bananarama is one, but Eurogliders' "Groove" was almost too '80s for the '80s. And they were from Perth! How did I not know that?

Rating: 6/10