The Magic of Boney M. – 20 Golden Hits is a greatest hits album by Euro-Caribbean group Boney M. issued in February 1980 which contained all their biggest hits up until that point, including non-album singles "Mary's Boy Child/Oh My Lord" and "Hooray! Hooray! It's A Holi-Holiday", key album tracks from Take The Heat Off Me, Love for Sale, Nightflight to Venus and Oceans of Fantasy as well as their most recent double A-side single release "I See A Boat On The River"/ "My Friend Jack". The album was packaged in a glittery golden gimmick cover, with the four strokes in the band's characteristic 'M' being cut out so that each showed one of the four members. The innersleeve featured two different photos and could be inserted either way to that effect. The Magic Of Boney M. - 20 Golden Hits was another major commercial success for the band, topping most of the European charts and becoming their third consecutive UK number one album. The cover version of The Smoke's 1967 hit "My Friend Jack" however proved to be less successful in the UK, peaking no higher than #57, at the time making it their lowest charting single since debut "Baby Do You Wanna Bump" in 1975.
Since most of the singles released by Boney M. between the years 1976 and 1980 had been double A-sides there was certainly enough material to make the first greatest hits compilation a double album. Nineteen of the twenty tracks on The Magic Of Boney M. had in fact been singles, the only exception being "Oceans of Fantasy". Instead producerFrank Farian went for a one disc release, which subsequently meant that due to the time limitations of the vinyl album format and the number of tracks included, most of the songs appeared in slightly edited form. These abbreviated versions would re-surface on a large number of hits compilations in the future while most of the original 7" mixes twenty five years later remain unreleased on CD.
A German Club Edition LP, entitled Greatest Hits Of Boney M. appeared in the same gimmick cover but featured only 16 songs - the same mixes as used on the commercial LP but in a different running order. The remaining 4 songs would be included on Children of Paradise - The Greatest Hits of Boney M. - Vol. 2 in June '81.
Track listing
Side A:
"Rivers of Babylon" - 3:59
* Edited version
"Daddy Cool" - 3:25
* Original album/single version
"Sunny" - 3:14
* Edited version
"Belfast" - 2:25
* Edited version
"El Lute" - 4:24
* Edited version
"No Woman, No Cry" - 2:58
* Edited version
"Rasputin" - 3:40
* Edited version
"Painter Man" - 3:10
* Original album version
"Ma Baker" - 3:44
* Edited version
"Gotta Go Home" - 3:45
* Oceans of Fantasy album edit
Side B:
"My Friend Jack" - 4:31
* Slightly edited 7" mix
"I See a Boat on the River" - 4:29
* 7" mix. N.B. 1992 CD edition: edited version - 3:03, taken from Fantastic Boney M.
