Customer Reviews
What have we done to deserve this?! - By: C. CECCONI, 16 Nov 2008 
A collection of classic tracks from the last 40 years as covered by many current rock & pop 'darlings'. Sounds great, right?!
Sadly, this fails to push any of the right buttons. You'll find a mixture of drab, straight, unimaginative takes on 90s pop/rock (Mutya's version of Fast Car, Editors version of Lullaby) & some messy, angry, kiddy-tantrum versions of 80s classics (Gossip do 'Careless Whisper', Pigeon Detectives do 'The Power of Love'). Murdered classics from the 70s & late 60s are alsoin abundance, with The Feeling, McFly & The Kaiser Chiefs all doing their worst.
If sounds like your bag, then go right ahead. Personally I'd rather listen to a pneumatic drill for two hours. Absolutely dire.
Oppurtunity missed the knocker - By: Mystaeli, 31 Mar 2008 Scarey to say but I have been around for just a bit longer than Radio 1 & boy have I suffered through the mainstream pap over the last 25 years. This album had soooo many options but like a dart player with the DT's it missed the board too many times. Despite the fact that I thought most of the 70's stunk as far a music went they faired far better than the 80's & 90's. Mr Peel died far too early & must be spinningin his grave to think this is the best representation of radio 1 over 40 years shame shame shame. The report card states some potential but far too lazy to achieve anything. Final question - did someone hide the key to the vaults?
Quite mixed results but definitely worth checking out - By: L. Green, 11 Mar 2008 
Barcode: 0600753025086
I was intrigued when Radio 1 first announced this project. Over a two week period they played four of the songs from this album each day to celebrate their 40th birthday & thus, there is one song for each year. Like others have said, sometimes the song choice is questionable when there were so many better songsin the year (2005 anyone?).
That said though, there's some real good stuff on here. The early Kaiser Chiefs, Robbie Williams, Franz Ferdinand/Girls Aloud tracks are charming while the Sugababes & Kylie's versions are sophisticated & classy updates of classics. On the whole, i think the more recent songs on the second disc work better. In fact, i'd even go as far to say that some of them aren't just good, but great.
Girls Aloud's version of Teenage Dirtbag is pop at its best while the Twang's Drinking In LA is hauntingly beautiful & Maximo Park's Like I Love You is awesome. Ironically, one of the songs i was most scared about hearing was Natasha Bedingfield's version of Madonna's Ray Of Light - probably one of my favourite songs of all time - is actually one of the best covers on here. It might not match the original but it's an extremely good attempt.
I think overall, those covers that stay most faithful to the originals are the best on here, the Klaxons & Keane being prime examples. The Keane version of Under Pressure especially is amazing, another true highlight of this album.
Of course, this album has a lot of faults too. Many of the covers are simply average & forgettable & many are outright bad. Prime examples is the awful Mika/Armand Van Helden dance version of the Police & the Streets version of Your Song is just a complete & utter joke (probably the worst one on here). Just Jack's Lovefool & Calvin Harris's Stillness In Time are pretty rubbish too.
And then of course there's the Hard-Fi version of Britney's Toxic - this had the potential to be amazing & there are elements of it which work but overall it again comes across as a jokey low-fi version, which is a real shame.
On the whole, the album is above average to good. Yes, there's a lot of duff tracks on here & people who aren't open to covers will despise this but i think for a project it makes for an interesting compilation & is worth buying for the tracks which work well.
All the other reviewers are muso miseries....this album is great fun - By: Snapdragon, 07 Mar 2008 How can people say that the bands haven't strayed very far from their own genres?? Hello?? Klaxons doing Blackstreet's 'No Diggity', Stereophonics doing Hot Chocolate's 'You Sexy Thing', The Streets doing Elton John's 'Your Song' - it seems quite a departure to me.
Ok, so some of the songs aren't as great, I could live without hearing KT Tunstall doing 'Let's Stick Together' again, but this album has some great moments. Shame everyone else seems to have lost their sense of humour!
Proof that the original is better. - By: Mr. R. J. Nunn, 21 Feb 2008 
Hear all your favourite songs from over the years watered down. Andin the case of The Streets covering Your Song (Murdered)!
