Although it doesn't hang together well musically, Entertainment Weekly: Greatest Hits 1989 is an entertaining, wide-ranging sampler of the state of Top 40 music at the dawn of the '90s, featuring 12 tracks in wildly disparate styles that all became big hits that year. There's pop-rap (Young MC's "Bust a Move," Tone Loc's "Funky Cold Medina"), rock balladry (Warrant's "Heaven," the Jeff Healey Band's "Angel Eyes"), MOR balladry (Richard Marx's "Right Here Waiting," Mike & the Mechanics' "The Living Years"), innovative dance hybrids (Fine Young Cannibals' "She Drives Me Crazy," Soul II Soul's "Back to Life," the Art of Noise's cover of Prince's "Kiss" featuring Tom Jones on lead vocals), teen idols (Martika's "Toy Soldiers," Michael Damian's "Rock On," and even goth-rock pioneers (Love and Rockets' "So Alive"). It only hangs together if you remember hearing these songs on Top 40 radio grouped alongside one another, but all the same, it goes a long way toward showing the eclecticism of that radio format during the '80s, a quality that all but disappeared following the alternative explosion. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide