There were two edits of the Benson version ish'd on 45: the long 5:35 version, and a shorter edit at 3:29. Wonder if Davis had a "thing" about that particular number . . .
In the UK, meanwhile, this made it to #8 on the NME and Gallup "official" charts, and #9 in Melody Maker.
I feel like this song got cloned and done by a million lesser singers...Incredible vocal but not really my thing. Goes on and on and on, too. You keep thinking it's going to end.
Greatest Love of All And the #1 win streak of 1986 comes to an end. I just don’t care for this one much at all. The lyrics are actually pretty powerful and Whitney of course was a first rate vocal talent at this time, but for me, the performance is maudlin. A step up from “How Will I Know”, which I think Is fairly, especially in the lyrics department, but Ms Houston would improve for me by the first single of her second album. As an aside, I can still hear my sister’s friend’s off key rendition of this song in my head, and while completely incompetent, at least it makes me smile due to how bad it was. Can’t say the same thing about the actual Whitney recording.
Not one of my favourites from Whitney, but no-one can deny that solid gold vocal. Her voice was simply incredible and this song really illustrated how exemplary it was. The production was a little too Love Boatish for me, but that vocal. Wow! No-one could ever or would ever try to match it. The tone, the power, the control...amazing.
Oh, I can. I think it's bombastic. One of my least-favorite #1 hits of the entire decade (which is already my least-favorite decade to date).
I'd totally forgotten that Whitney Houston record, but now that I hear it, I recall it playing endlessly on our A/C radio station. It took intestinal fortitude to click on the link, as one of her later hits is one I've managed to intentionally avoid for all these years. But I'm a number of years too early yet.
Oh yeah...bombastic it certainly is and unapologetic about it. But the quality of that voice, bombast and all, is quite amazing.
"Greatest Love Of All" My main memory of this is of a girl singing this song in the "talent" portion of the local "Junior Miss" competition. I was in the audience and thought "wow, she must be a good singer to tackle this song." And she turned out to be horrible. My sister was also in this competition (she didn't sing; she did a dance) and my parents were out in the audience sitting right next to the girl who sang "Greatest Love of All," so they had to politely clap and "pretend" their daughter did a good job.
I find Whitney's version quite tame. I don't like the somewhat metered phrasing. That would be the other way around for me. I love the song/lyrics, but don't care for her vocal.
Greatest Love of All Iconic, but ultimately too syrupy and contrived for me to love it. I find it agreeable, which means I am not repulsed by it but wouldn't seek it out. It is well-performed, but I'm not in love with the arrangement. I enjoyed the reference to the song in the movie "School of Rock."
This one did it! After this song started becoming a hit, I finally bought the LP - and I'm happy my copy still had the original mixes on it. I'm usually a singles guy but I like just about every track on this album - except maybe one or two. Whoever was picking singles for this seemingly overlooked a couple of hits - Greatest Love of All was actually the B-side to You Give Good Love. Another song All At Once - which probably could have been a single in its own right - was the B-side to Saving All My Love For You. I also like Hold Me - but at the time didn't realize it was a previous single (Teddy Pendergrass in a duet with Whitney, which was released in the fall of 1984). I was just graduating college when this song was at the top and it finished in my personal top 10 for 1986. Oddly, I had no memory of the George Benson version at the time.
The Greatest Love Of All Everything about it is pretty over the top, lyrics, vocal, production and all. But it is sensibly over the top. The vocal is a powerhouse, and FM electric piano seldom sounded better. It's a hit. Not going to make my favorites list for sure, but it's no surprise it hit #1.
West End Girls : I was never a big Pet Shop Boys fan but "West End Girls" is a well constructed pop single. It looks forward while giving some glances to the recent past as well. On one hand it was pretty much the last stand for the type of synth pop that had been popular for the past few years. (Think "Don't You Want Me") but it also looks ahead, incorporating more dance-oriented elements as well. Neil Tennant's rap during the verses has a certain charm to it as well. It's low-key and fits the music perfectly. The Greatest Love Of All : Too overwrought for my tastes. Sorry.
West End Girls This song is a pretty good example of how out of touch I am with the critical consensus of songs from this era. I think this number is decent but unspectacular, and have never given more than a passing thought to the Pet Shop Boys in general (I've always thought that 'Pet Shop Boys' was one of the dorkiest group names of all time, by the way). Then I come here and discover it's considered the greatest #1 hit in UK history? Oh really, now? OK, I ain't gonna argue it (much ), but *cough cough* I Want to Hold Your Hand is on line 2. Or Hey Jude, or pretty much any Beatles or Stones or Bowie classic, or... you get the idea. I'd put [Name Redacted] above it too, although I'll freely admit to being a biased fan of Mr. Rotten MBE. Heck, I'd probably put Bowie's Laughing Gnome on par with it at least (I don't think that stinker got to #1, though, but it was a big hit... )(OK, maybe I'm kidding, but you gotta admit it's hilarious hearing Bowie break up laughing in that song). I will grant that, like a lot of the songs we've recently covered, it's several levels above the miserable run we had exiting 1985. But this sort of thing is not my scene-o-reenio.
I like the message of the song ("Greatest Love Of All", but not so much the song itself (no matter who sings it). The message of the song helped me get through some tough times I had in subsequent years.
Well, She Loves You was #3 in the list. And there are Bowie and Stones songs on there too. Pet Shop Boys are just thought of in a different way in the UK than in the US (and after all this is a UK list). Whereas in the US, they had a few hits and then pretty much disappeared, in the UK they have been part of the national consciousness for 35 years, so they have a different perspective on them. If synth based music isn't your bag, then I suppose it's easier to dismiss it as being somehow not as significant as classic rock stuff, but many people don't have that same view of things (at least anymore).
The Greatest Love of All I was standing in line at the student union to buy a newspaper in Spring of 1986 when this song came over the loudspeaker. My reaction was literally, 'What the Hell is this?' The guy behind me in line cracked up. Needless to say, it was not a positive reaction. Whitney had sort of skated under my radar before this song came out, but this was the one that birthed my longtime hatred of her music. It's got everything I can't stand about her; the bellicose vocal, the schmaltzy lyrics, the constant escalation of the song, and most of all, the seemingly endless runtime. And now I find out that they ripped off Gordon Lightfoot. Say it ain't so, Joe! Oh, and it was really, really popular, which meant you couldn't go into a shoe store, or an elevator, or a gas station in 1986 and not be exposed to it. Ye Gods, I'm having PTSD just remembering it. The School of Rock clip I think shows how the 'Children are our future' lyric has become a parodic landmark in pop culture. Not to be nitpicky, but what else might be the future if not the children? It gets the song off to such a shaky start that even if she followed it up with A Day in the Life I don't think she could recover. But somehow it morphs into a self-empowerment ballad? Wait, what happened to the kids? Yes, folks, the greatest love of all is self-love. Oh. My. God. Not love for mankind, or the children/future, or your country, or God, or another person. No, the GREATEST love is for yourself. What an 80s concept! Ptui on this nonsense! We can't go anywhere but up after this.
But given that this was originally done by George Benson in 1977, wouldn't this concept have emanated in that "Me" decade?
The song is awful. Whitney sings it okay, but the song is overwrought dreck. Just try reading the lyrics of this thing - I can’t get past “I believe the children are our future...” without getting ill. “How Will I Know” is soooooooooo much better.
