We’ve take from our vault a lot versions of their mega-hit “Eye Of The Tiger” all of them never commercially released, such as Dave Bickler doing it acoustically, the Jimi Jamison version, an instrumental, etc.
Amongst these rarities there’s three tracks recorded with Irish shouter Robin McAuley (proposed to be Survivor’s lead singer), the only known recorded version of “Velocitized” (later done by Mecca), and various extended mixes (all performed by Survivor).
As a movie soundtrack collector, I love the “Burning Heart” & “Eye Of The Tiger” mixes only heard in the film Rocky IV, never released on any format and heavily edited from the DVD as source.
Of course are included here the exclusive songs only present into the Greatest Hits releases ‘Ultimate Survivor’ (2004) and ‘Greatest Hits 2’ (1993), and the track recorded for The Karate Kid soundtrack: “The Moment Of Truth”.
Speaking about the Greatest Hits exclusive tracks, in the spring of 1993 Peterik and Sullivan reunited with original lead singer Dave Bickler and started recording new songs, two of them, “Hungry Years” co-written by Bickler, and “You Know Who You Are”, were included into the re-vamped ‘Greatest Hits’ from 1993.
Both only appeared on that GH album.
And the 2004 compilation ‘Ultimate Survivor’ featured three interesting new cuts: the previously unreleased “Rebel Girl” (outtake from Survivor’s first self-titled album), “Rockin’ Into The Night” also originally discarded as the song was given to .38 Special (which made a hit with it), and “Summer Nights [Long Version]” different from the ‘Premonition’ vinyl LP.
01 – Eye Of The Tiger
(Rocky IV Movie Version)
02 – Rebel Girl (prev. unreleased)
(1st album outtake – from Ultimate Survivor 2004)
03 – Summer Nights (Full Length Version)
(from Ultimate Survivor 2004)
04 – Rockin’ Into The Night (prev. unreleased)
(from Ultimate Survivor 2004)
05 – Eye Of The Tiger
(Jimi Jamison Version)
06 – You Know Who You Are
(new track GH 2 – 1993)
07 – Hungry Years
(new track GH 2 – 1993)
08 – The Moment Of Truth
(Karate Kid soundtrack)
09 – Eye Of The Tiger (Instrumental)
10 – Burning Heart
(Ultraburn Version)
11 – I Can’t Hold Back
(Live in Tokyo 85 – bootleg)
12 – Eye Of The Tiger
(Dave Bickler Acoustic Version)
13 – One Step Ahead Of A Flame
(demo – Fire Makes Steel sessions)
14 – Velocitized
(only version recorded ever – Live)
15 – Reach
(demo – Robin McAuley vocals)
16 – Eye Of The Tiger
(demo – Robin McAuley vocals)
17 – Fire Makes Steel
(demo – Robin McAuley vocals)
18 – Burning Heart
(Rocky IV Instrumental Movie Version)
19 – Eye Of The Tiger
(Ultrasound Long 12 inch version – DJ vinyl only)
20 – Eye Of The Tiger
(Dave Bickler vocal trax)
Dave Bickler, Jimi Jamison, Robin McAuley – lead vocals
Jim Peterik – keyboards, guitar, vocals
Frankie Sullivan – guitars, vocals
Dennis Johnson, Stephan Ellis, Klem Hayes – bass
Marc Droubay, Gary Smith, Kyle Woodring – drums