Customer Reviews

Best of Louie Louie 2

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This volume is even better than volume one. It contains some fabulous and inventive takes on the classic tune, without the "novelty" songs of the first volume. My favorite is the Angels and their very authentic recreation, including the false start after the guitar solo.

This was the second (and last) album of various versions of "Louie Louie" released by Rhino Records. This time around, there is only one novelty version recorded especially for the album (the first volume had three novelty versions). That would be the version sung in Russian by the fake Russian rock band Red Square. Every other version of the song was previously released, and they are more or less played seriously. It can get a bit tedious hearing the same song over and over again, which is probably why the CD limits itself to ten tracks. At least they found versions of the song played in several different styles; including pop-rock, latin jazz, girl group, surf, New Orleans jazz, British Invasion, jazz-rock and R&B. If "Louie Louie" is your favorite song, you need to get this CD.

Looking back over the track listing of both this and Volume 1, I like more of the tracks on Volume 2. Granted this one doesn't have Black Flag, but makes up for it with the Angels, The Kinks, Ike and Tina Turner, and Mongo Santamaria. There's also a novelty-synth remake by Tyme Code which incorporates other 3-chord songs such as "Hang on Sloopy" and "Wild Thing." For Louie purists this borders on blasphemy, but it's done with taste.

So, if you love Louie Louie, you'll love this album. If you don't, it will get really old, really fast.