17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fun Fun Fun, April 28, 2001
This review is from: Best Of Moog: Electronic Pop Hits From The 60's & 70's (Audio CD)
Although this compilation of vintage electronic music starts out as a fun and highly enjoyable listening experience, it begins to drag and becomes somewhat annoying towards the end. Perhaps it would have been better as a shorter album, omitting inferior tracks such as "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" by Gil Trythall (one too many electronic hoedowns), and both of Electrik Cokernut's unintelligent covers of pop songs ("Jeepster" & "Back Off Boogaloo"). The good songs are very good, e.g. "E.V.A." by Jean Jacques Perrey, which sounds like it could have been recorded yesterday, and "Bond St." by Enoch Light and the Light Brigade which, although it barely features any synthesizers, is a highly entertaining version of the Burt Bacharach tune. But many of the inferior tracks become a chore to sit through, especially when you begin to feel, "Haven't I heard this before?". Despite its flaws, I would still recommend this to anyone interested in the origins of modern electronic music, anyone who wants the song "Popcorn", or anyone who loves Disneyland ("Baroque Hoedown" is the theme song to.....now with an electronically enhanced voice...."Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade!").
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27 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Contrived and Forced Look at a Fascinating Genre, November 27, 2002
This review is from: Best Of Moog: Electronic Pop Hits From The 60's & 70's (Audio CD)
I suppose if you've never ever heard of a moog record this would be a decent place to start. My feeling from listening to the album is that it was compiled by an MTV VJ or turned about by the fad machine associated with MTV...
The person who stated that it was essentially a Jean-Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley copilation was absolutely correct. Thats what makes this record so bad...Perry and Kingsley were pioneers, but they made the bulk of their electronic music before the moog(on things like the Ondes-Martenot that you never hear of anymore)and a good portion of their music is more important because of their innovative use of tape-loops in pop music...not their use of the moog. Check out perrey and kingsley's "The In Sound from Way Out" to see what I mean.
Martin Denny is on here, god knows why...he made about one moog album, and it was alot of his most boring stuff. His records are still all over thrift stores, go dig if you're interested. Hugo Montenegro was great, and I believe his moog album is still in print, if not, its on ebay for not alot. Command Records has two of the best "greatest of" albums for this genre: Electronic Eclections with Dick Hyman(whom I consider to be tops for all around cheesiness) and Richard Hayward and Walter Sears who did a version of Girl From Ipanema that gives me chills every time. As far as contemporaries, check out the Moog Cookbook-Ye Olde Spaceband, and AIR-Moon Safari...from the 90s, and still a great example of moog related music.
In closing, if you're interested in this genre, more power too you, but this is a novelty collection for rich kids who'll go on to whatever gets fashionable next week. I'm not an expert but i've got a collection of a couple hundred records, you can find alot more interesting, higher quality examples of Moog Records.
email me if you'd like some title
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Just don't call it wacky..., November 10, 1999
This review is from: Best Of Moog: Electronic Pop Hits From The 60's & 70's (Audio CD)
If you have any love for the moog genre, or even just synth-rock in general, you simply have to hear this. Whether chuckling at Gil Tryhall's "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" and Armando Trovaidli's "I Apologize Mr Rossini," or grooving out to Fat Boy Slim's remix of "E.V.A." (or the original version, for that matter). This whole record feels like retro music from the future... all the whistles and squeaks, while having enough retro kitsch to elicit a smile. Also works well as a cutesy Y2K New Year's party album.
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