Customer Reviews

All the Best of

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It seems the exact contents of this 1988 release from Pair/The Special Music Company was re-released by Rhino in 1994 with a different cover and the title changed to "The Best Of ..." without the "All."

There are two pages of liner notes by Stephen Kaplan and Arthur Marko, and a special note from critic Richard Robinson who says: "Let's go back to the sunny afternoons, the time when we all believed in magic, and none of us had found out what it was like to try and tell a stranger about rock and roll. Then the world of music was post-Beatles but pre-rock revolution ... and New York City had something then to be proud of, THE LOVIN' SPOONFUL ... a slowly-melting innocence, the consciousness of one last good time before the rumbling thunder and black storm clouds that put out the best lit fire."

Of course, anyone who knows the group's music is aware that Younger Girl, Didn't Want To Have To Do It [the uncharted B-side to Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind], Lovin' You, and Let The Boy Rock & Roll, were not among their hit singles. In that regard, they could have been replaced by the following minor hits which would then have lived up to the CD's title: Full Measure [the flip of Nashville Cats and a # 87 in 1967]; Money [# 48] and Never Going Back [# 73] - both from 1968, and their final hit, Me About You, which reached # 91 in 1969.

My delight in finding this album was seeing four hard-to-find Lovin' Spoonful hits in one grouping: Rain On The Roof; Darling Be Home Soon; Six O'Clock; and She Is Still A Mystery.

When I put the headphones on, I tried to imagine watching the band, just as I did in Santa Barbara at the Earl Warren Showgrounds (The Leaves opened the show!), stinking of cattle ka-ka. James Newton Howard, the film composer, 16 at the time, might have been nearby. He later helped David Lee Roth cover "Coconut Grove" by playing all the instruments.

After the CD got rolling, all I could visualize was Cattle Ka-Ka. Here are some of the best pop/folk songs ever written, but mixed and mastered onto plastic by some cowpoke with a branding iron.. .Rhino should have listened to this first. What they have done to Zally and John's music is criminal, and far out-bludgeons the kind of treatment the Beatles early recordings got from Capitol USA.

I haven't ever been so upset about the quality of a recording.
Go elsewhere, people, but don't abandon the Spoonful in the process - it's not their fault !

first off the lovin spoonful on amazon are all just best of cds they have about 2 original albums that sell for about 7 bucks each. the only two good songs on here are do you belive in magic and summer in the city besides that though just 2 minute love songs that get incredibly annoying plus do these guys need ANOTHER greatest hits... This one is another one of those old hits cds that are out of print because no one buys the stuff plus the cds only 25 minutes(my version has 10 tracks) thats it...
2/5 stars