Greatest Hits Vol 2 review
Translation from Spanish:
Olivia Newton-John: Consumer music on her latest album
Christmas is the most anticipated time of year for record labels. This is when the most records are sold, and therefore, there is always a veritable avalanche of new releases and a more than clear promotional pressure to encourage the public to consume. The most anticipated albums, the most opportunistic compilations, and the multi-million dollar television campaigns usually burst onto the market with greater force a few weeks before these holidays with a marked consumerist accent. At Christmas, everything sells out, so you have to take advantage.
Based on these market premises, publishers, in a show of generosity, release the “hits” albums of their most prominent artists. On the national level, compilations by Víctor Manuel, Miguel Bosé, Camilo Sesto, and Plácido Domingo have appeared; and on the international level, couplets by Charles Aznavour, the Beatles, John Lennon, and Olivia Newton-John.
The eternally young girl from “GREASE” and “XANADU” didn’t have a new album ready, and her record label has put together one with previously recorded songs and two new tracks: “TIED UP” and “HEART ATTACK,” the latter currently charting in the US and Austria.
Her latest recording is a very well-crafted marketing ploy.
Using these two new songs as a promotional weapon, EMI is trying to sell us the old ones at an excessively high price: 900 pesetas.
A very calculated commercial ploy. “Olivia Newton-John’s “Greatest Hits,” or rather, the twenty songs that EMI has collected on this album, summarize, in a somewhat light hearted way, the blonde singer’s career.
Here are “If Not For You” and “Banks of the Ohio” from her early days (1971); “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and “I Honestly Love You” from her “country” period (1974); the unforgettable “You’re the One That I Want” and “Summer Nights” from the film “Grease” (1978); the cheesy “Xanadu” from the film of the same name (1980); and her most recent “Physical” from the album released last year.
Songs for all tastes on a consumer album that, by no means, are not worth what they try to charge us for it.