Various Artists - Pop Music: Modern Era 1976-1999

Category: Music

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Product Description

With the earliest of its cuts, Aerosmith's "Dream On," dating back more than a quarter of a century--a hit in 1976, it was first issued in '73--calling this double-CD volume of Sony Music's self-admiring Soundtrack for a Century series "The Modern Era" seems to be stretching it a little. "Dream On" is a great song, though, which is more than some might say of Des'ree's listlessly anthemic "You Gotta Be" or the endless (aren't they all?) Celine Dion ballad "Because I Loved You." But because of the formerly CBS Records corporation's massive sales and airplay presence over much of the period surveyed here, Modern does bring together some of the decades' signature moments, both good and bad. --Rickey Wright

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Customer Reviews

Review by Priscilla Young, 2010-02-10

I really love this album. I had it in my shopping cart for the longest time and finally purchased it for Christmas. It has great songs that I did not own. A good variety of artists and music. Highly recommend!

Review by RockinRobin411, 2009-05-21

The first part showed the early years and the development into what several people seem to label as "standard" music, and the second part showed that, and then the sudden transition into more modern music, the third part shows how wide a genre it became. Although they seem to group the songs with similar songs, I feel that this album still shows the several directions that pop music split up into.

This disc, however, still shows what makes pop music pop music. It's short, catchy, accessible, and usually heavily produced (usually in a good way). I think that they mainly picked out really good songs, and I feel that because of the many directions pop music split up into, it wasn't an easy task to show what pop music is and was.

This is probably my favorite of the three compilations. However, I would recommend that if you ever decide to really study the history of pop music, to listen to more than just this compilation and the other two parts.

Review by Lemas Mitchell, 2007-04-12

One problems is that a couple of the songs exist only in the castrated version (missing a verse here or a bridge there). One example is "Just The Way You Are" (Billy Joel). This is, however, well worth buying secondhand.

Review by Johnson Greene, 2000-07-18

I NEED TO GET IN THE MUSIC BUSINESS CAUSE A LOT OF GOOD MUSIC AREN'T IN THE RIGHT GREATEST HITS, COLLECTIONS AND ALL THE GOOD ONES ARE NEGLICTED WE ALL KNOW THIS SOMEONE NEEDS TO TAKE A STAND AND DO THE WHOLE WORLD A FAVOR JG IN AK JUST KEEPING IT REAL (PEACE)

Review by ron, 2000-06-13

i may not be an expert on the history of sony records, the modern era 23 years worth of music and all they have is this? They should have put out two volumes of the modern era, vol.1 with the classics like Aerosmith, ELO, Journey, etc. and vol.2 with Fiona Apple, New Kids on the Block, I'm sure Sony could have done better. I gave it 3 stars just for the classic groups. And the classics i do not mean Michael Bolton & Wham (Know what i mean?)