Various Artists: Like Omigod! The 80's Pop Culture Box : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Like its predecessor, Have a nice Decade: The '70s Pop Culture Box, this seven-CD set of Eighties music is replete with one-hit wonders but lacking in some of the era's defining guilty pleasures -- notably Bon Jovi and Poison. Like, Omigod! The '80s Pop Culture Box (Totally) begins where it should, with Devo's age-of-irony classic "Whip It" and the Buggles' prescient "Video Killed the Radio Star." After that, it skims the Top Forty foam -- for connoisseurs of kitsch, the likes of Taco's "Puttin' on the Ritz" and Peter Schilling's "Major Tom (Coming Home)" make Omigod a must-own. Those feeling slightly less nostalgic should consider whether they really need to hear Don "Miami Vice" Johnson's "Heartbeat" or Billy Crystal's "You Look Marvelous" ever again.

GREG KOT
(RS 905 - Sept. 19, 2002)