Track Listing

1. The Stroke
2. In the Dark
3. My Kinda Lover
4. She's a Runner
5. Emotions in Motion
6. Everybody Wants You
7. Rock Me Tonite
8. All Night Long
9. Eye on You
10. Love Is the Hero
11. Don't Say You Love Me
12. She Goes Down
13. Everybody Wants You [live]
14. The Stroke [live]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5762 in Music
• Brand: Squier
• Released on: 2005-03-29
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Album Description
Billy Squier, Absolute Hits

Customer Reviews

More than just The Stroke
Billy Squire paid his dues before finally grabbing the brass ring. A pair of underlooked albums with Piper (both unavailable) before going it alone as a solo artist (The Tale of the Tape) and then exploding with his second album, Don't Say No. The big meaty guitars and catchy shout along of "The Stroke" made him ready to start filling the stadiums formally reserved for the likes of Foreigner or Queen.

Billy was also a tailor made MTV figure. Willowy good looks, bushy rockstar hair, tough-guy style with puppydog eyes, the videos soon became unavoidable. When they clicked, like "The Stroke" and "Emotions in Motion," they added to the star-power. But when they backfired, as they did in the universally derided "Rock Me Tonight," Billy suddenly found his momentum stopped like ramming the wall in a Mack Truck in overdrive. While there were still a few minor hits, Signs of Life was where the big success stopped.

The remaining tracks on this best of signal that record company malaise or just a changing of the times were more at fault than the quality of the music. Freddy Mercury's backing vocal on "Love Is The Hero" makes it a standout. "Don't Say You Love Me" barely missed the top 40 in 1989. By now, however, Robert Plant lite was being over-hauled by Nirvana and Kurt Cobain, and his co-contemporaries (think Def Leppard, who opened for Squire in their early career, and Queen, who were preparing their final bow with Innuendo) were suffering the same fate.

Thus this 12 song plus 2 live extras CD sums up Billy Squire quite well. His albums have begun to see re-issue of late, so you can still eat from the whole platters on some of these songs, but for the casual fan of "The Stroke," this does a service to American Arena Rock of the 80's.

Good grief -- where's "Lonely Is The Night"???
I second the earlier reviewer's complaint: "Lonely Is The Night" is one of Billy Squier's best and best-known songs, but once again it's inexplicably left out of a Billy Squier compilation.

Of course, the songs on this new collection are all good; but the collection itself is a real disappointment.

Buy this Squier
Even though I live in England I had to order this CD from those lovely folks at Amazon.com as Billy is not exactly a household name over here. In actual fact if I wasn't a massive Queen fan I wouldn't know him either as none of his classy rock songs are played on the radio over here. As the liner notes to the CD state Billy Squier not only toured with Queen but recorded with Freddie Mercury too. On the brilliant Love Is The Hero Freddie's distinctive background vocals lend support to the song perfectly.

Remastered in 2005, all the songs sound great and every one is a winner on this compilation. Although having two live songs added on to the end of an album can sometimes not merge well with the rest of the record, in this case they work well. Both well chosen songs as they are two of Billy's biggest Billboard hits. All an artist like Billy Squier needs is for one of his songs to appear in summer movie blockbuster and he'll be re-discovered by a new generation. Until then though I'd advise anyone reading this to buy this excellent compilation.