My hopeful explanation for The Best of Night Ranger being part of Universal Music Group’s “20th Century Masters/The Millennium Collection” is that somebody at Universal inhaled too many fumes from the band’s excessive amounts of hair spray. OK, “Sister Christian” is one of the ‘80’s most enduring power ballads (like that’s a prize) and it was used to great effect in the film Boogie Nights, but please. The Millennium collection “features new ‘best of’ albums from the most significant music artists of the past century,” to quote Universal’s press release. I guess this album is for the posterity of future generations instead of the blatant excuse to cash in on the current (and bizarre) resurgence of ‘80s hair-metal music.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, let me say that I found myself turning up the volume (to the groans of my co-workers) on each successive listen to this CD. Sappy ballads like “When You Close Your Eyes,” or the aptly titled “Sentimental Street” go down like sticky-sweat ear candy that tastes oh so good. Just don’t listen to the words too closely because these songs have more clichés than Jacoby’s got Meyers. When Night Ranger tries to kick out the jams on “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me,” or “Rock in America,” it’s obvious that their forte was singing love songs to big-hair’d teenage girls. It’s only taken 10-plus years to forgive Night Ranger for recording the title song from the Michael J. Fox film The Secret of My Success, which is included right before the CD’s closing track, their disappointing last single “I Did It for Love.” And I thought they did it for the cash.

In the end, Night Ranger runs the gambit from semi-cheesy metal to really-cheesy metal. Oh! The guitar solos! Is that the ghost of Richie Sambora I hear? Maybe Night Ranger doesn’t belong on any one’s “Best of the Millennium” and I mean ANY ONE’S list, but heck, listening to this CD makes me sentimental for the days when over-mousse’d dudes that looked like ladies ruled the airwaves and you knew, like Sister Christian did, that “you’ll be all right tonight.”