Customer Reviews

20th Century Masters: Millennium Collection

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

MCA continues to churn out new volumes in their Millennium series, and they continue to get it wrong. Instead of offering you more, they give you less. The Grass Roots had 14 hits in the Top 40 from 1966's "Where Were You When I needed You" through 1972's "The Runway." [Despite amazon.com's track listing, "Midnight Confessions" IS on this CD, but there is no "I Needed You."] Where this CD fails is that it omits their final two hits from 1972: "Glory Bound" and the aforementioned "The Runway." Why MCA released this collection to compete against 1996's All Time Greatest Hits (which MCA has not deleted) is a mystery. Not only that, All Time Greatest Hits includes all 14 hits plus "Lovin' Things" (#49) and "Come On And Say It" (#61). The hardcore fan can always spring for the 2-CD Rhino collection, but MCA's All Time Greatest Hits will serve the casual fan more than adequately. This Millennium release simply shortchanges the consumer.

Being a die-hard Grass Roots fan for as long as I can remember, I purchase every hits compilation that arrives on store shelves.... The Grass Roots had so many great songs, and this disk only scratches the surface.... too bad for US the fans..... not only is a wealth of great songs missing, I was very disappointed that in the liner notes, the record company completely failed to list Dennis Provisor, keyboards,vocals & probably the most prolific songwriter in the band.... they also failed to include any of his songs on the disk, "I Can Turn off the Rain" or "Walking Through the Country" just to mention a few.... If you LOVE the Grass Roots & can't live with out this CD, go ahead & buy it, but if your a Grass Roots beginner, let me recommend the 2 CD hits package released by Rhino Records.... it has it all.........

I feel this collection, supposedly a greatest hits collection, is not even close to being complete. Actually, there was a previous Grass Roots greatest hits collection released in 1996 that contained much more material. It included some minor hits along with the major ones. If you already have that collection, this one would be a waste of money. If you don't have that one, then it would be preferable to purchase the aforementioned 1996 collection or the two-disc Rhino collection. Both are a better value.

this grass roots cd is the first original i've come acoss in a few years. in the meantime i've happen to find in the now diminshing existence of record stores that carry music of this era the quickly extinction of availablity of titles that are seeked by people of our taste. this past week i bought the dvd of the grass roots entitled "the grass roots.. goldenlegends..new stero recordings by the orignal artists. well you know what age to a band means. the voice goes, so the tunes have to be played at a lower key than the original song, also the singer can't hold the note as long as he use to. so what you end up with is a sound that is close to the original in this case,but falls short of the original sound, the great vocals adjust to the lower key and therefore we lose the original sound. this is the best original recordings compiled and availabe to the public that i've encountered in many years and i find it satisfying that i finally found the orignal voices matched with the original sound matched with the original music. listen to the music!

The rap against the Grass Roots is that they were essentially a studio band, but that does not take away from the fact that they produced one of the quintessential songs of the Sixties in "Let's Live For Today (Sha-la-la-la-la-la)." The song only made it to #8 on the "Billboard" charts, but has always symbolized for me what Sixties music was all about. You could not point to a quintessential song by the Beatles since the changes from the early period to all the periods that followed showed such changes and growth, but "Let's Live For Today" captures a lot of Sixties musical sensibilities. Just do not ask me to defend my position in a well-reasoned musical argument because I am sure it will fall apart. But I do know that when the Grass Roots moved into the Seventies with their music the results are not as good as what they did in the previous decade. When I get to the point that a song by the Grass Roots no longer reminds me of "Let's Live For Today" then my argument is that they have gone too far in evolving as a group.

All of the dozen songs collected on "20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of the Grass Roots" cracked the "Billboard" Top 40, with the other pair of Top 10 hits being "Midnight Confession" (#5) and "Sooner or Later" (#9), a pair of songs that evidence the range of the type of songs the Grass Roots recorded. One of the interesting things about the Grass Roots is that you will find that where these songs ended up on the pop charts pretty much reflects how good they are. The best of the bunch after those three is "Wait a Million Years" (#15), and then there is a discernable drop off to "Things I Should Have Said" (#23), "Heaven Knows" (#24) and "Where Were You When I Needed You" (#28). For most listeners these twelve songs will include all of the Grass Roots songs they need to own and probably get to the point where they find songs to skip when they play the CD. In other words, owning this hits collection will make the vast majority of people happy with no need to go on to a larger hits collection.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to rock's version of the senior tour!" shouted Grass Roots frontman Rob Grill. He was met by a few hundred fans gathered at a Fort Myers' block party, backed by a group faceless yet competent as any drifting blades of the Grass Roots he fronted over the band's 38-year history. Grill limped and squinted and told stoner jokes and feted the audience's Vietnam veterans. All along, he sang the heart out of his group's fondly remembered hits, most found on this compact but effective 20th Century collectors' set.

The Grass Roots paralleled the ABC-Dunhill label they recorded for, following California quasi-protest folk-rock ("Where Were You When I Needed You," "Let's Live For Today") with energetic pop with R&B and bubblegum touches ("Midnight Confessions," "Heaven Knows," "Temptation Eyes"). The group charted an exceptional dozen hits between 1966-75 without dominating any year or era the way the Beatles did 1964 or the Monkees 1967. Instead, they fit nicely: "Sooner or Later" could as easily have floated through Greg Brady's speakers as as it did your transistor radio late in 1971.

These same songs ("Two Divided By Love" being a bit gimmicky) retain some of their freshness, and always provide a solid second set of hits to any oldies show or bill. (The Grass Roots wowed a younger crowd, including yours truly, awaiting the headliner Monkees on their celebrated 1986 reunion tour.) Most of all, they provide a nostalgic ride sweet and sturdy as Grill and his songs were that mild Fort Myers winter night on the midway. Recommended.

I enjoy the music of The Grass Roots but the audio quality is not up to par. The tracks are over compressed and poorly restored. "The Grass Roots All Time Greatest Hits" contains the same songs but sounds much better, especially "Temptation Eyes".

...The opening vocal travels from one channel to the other with a noticeable echo and fades out just before "two, three, four" and the chorus. The sound is overly bright and distracting. Sounds really weird to someone who owned their LP 30 years ago.

If you want to step back to the summers when the toughest decision
you had was when to get up in the morning.... This disc will take you there.
Blessed with tight harmony, clever orchestration, and lyrics to created for
young romance, this disc delivers. Everyone was in compaction with the Beatles during this era, and these folks stayed in that vein.
Sit back and enjoy!
Cathy
Bobby's Girl

Despite being lamentably short, this budget-line reissue provides some good of bang for your buck, this features a dozen tracks by one of the best of the late '60s AM radio groups, the sculptors of the ever-fab "Midnight Confessions," as well as several lesser-known gems. The liners notes sketch out the history of the Grass Roots (studio project gone Top Ten act; one set of musicians hired, then fired, then replaced, in order to put the show on the road...) The sordid past hardly matters to us now; the music on here is excellent. I was particularly pleased to see one of my favorite early album tracks, the bouncy, Neil Diamond-like "Things I Should Have Said", made it onto this collection. Fun stuff.... recommended, even if there are better, more satisfying Grass Roots best-ofs out there.