The 1980 almost-hit has held up really nicely. It introduced America to Neil Finn (yay!), and A&M released its parent album, True Colours with sparkly laser-etched vinyl. Yay indeed.
It first appeared on CD (in the US, anyway) on A&M's release of the True Colours album. To my ears, it never got any better than this - the '80s-era A&M album sounds superb. There are a few discs that use the same analog transfer as True Colours, but all have flaws:- the 5-CD promo set Best Of CMJ 1979-1989 (1989; sounds like it went through another analog stage, and isn't quite as crisp)
- Priority's Rock Of The '80s Vol. 1 (1990, absolute polarity inverted and clips at -3 dB on bottom half of waveform on L channel only)
- Sony Germany's 2-CD Pop And Wave Vol. 8 (1999, shortens the tail of the fade)
A&M's Best Of (1994) uses a new analog transfer and sounds quite nice, but has a little more high end than True Colours, which (to my ears) overdoes the hi-hat during the chorus of the song. EMI Virgin PolyGram UK's 2-CD Now The Millennium Series 1980 (1999) seems to use the same source tapes, but runs slower and clips quite a bit in the left channel.
Rhino's Just Can't Get Enough Vol. 2 (1994) uses yet another new analog transfer, which has even more high end than the other two, which is even more problematic. There are differently EQ'd digital clones on:- Time-Life's 2-CD Modern Rock Vol. 12 1980-1981 (2000)
- Time-Life's 2-CD Modern Rock Vol. 21 Club '80s (2001)
EMI Australia's 5-CD Eighties Complete Vol. 1 (1997) starts off VERY quiet (about 9 dB quieter than the others!), and gets VERY loud at the end. Plus, the left/right soundstage is WAY off throughout the song. In all my years of comparing masterings, I've never encountered goofiness like this. And it's on an Australian compilation, no less! Avoid.
Realm's cleverly-titled 3-CD Greatest Hits Of The '80s Vol. 3 (2002) is severely brickwalled at -4 dB. I assume that this is based on a recent remastering of True Colours. Avoid.
To sum up:- Good: Rhino's Just Can't Get Enough Vol. 2 (1994) or the two Time-Life discs
- Better: A&M's Best Of (1994)
- Best: A&M's '80s-era True Colours
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