Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good, But All Mono, February 21, 2007
This 1996 collection of 25 of the Shangri-Las' hits, B-sides, and album tracks was originally released on the Mercury Chronicles label [Mercury 314-528 171-2], but for some unknown reason, all that's available now is this similarly-priced import. Note that this CD is 100% mono. Collectors might prefer the Varese compiliaton "The Girl Group Sound: 25 All-Time Greatest Hits from Red Bird Records," which has more stereo (and somewhat better sound quality), as well as the UK compilation "The Red Bird Story" from Charly Records.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Two-Year Blaze Of Glory, September 29, 2007
I have to go along with the reviewer who gve this 5 stars and akso assign the top rating allowable. OK, so it doesn't include stereo versions, but this is the way most of us remember the original Red Bird 45s, and as an added bonus, without the hiss and pop. It also provides all eleven hit singles they had between 1964's Remember (Walkin' In The Sand), # 5 Billboard Pop Hot 100 that summer, and mid-1966's Past, Present And Future, # 59 Hot 100, along with six B-sides.
The liner notes contain a complete discography of the contents along with four pages of background information written in 1996 by Don Charles, and some wonderful photographs of the group, including one showing Liz Weiss, the sister of lead singer Mary Weiss, who did not always appear with the group, either on record or in person.
These two students at Andrew Jackson High School in Queens, New York were joined by twins Mary Ann and Marge Ganser, and were singing semi-professionally when discovered by disc-jockey Babalu [Bob Lewis] who brought them to the attention of producer George "Shadow" Morton. And, for two glorious years, they combined to put out records which can only be described as theatrical in their intensity, easily rivaling Phil Spector's Wall of Sound.
When the Red Bird label folded its tent in 1966, the group also disbanded. Sadly, the Ganser twins are no longer with us, Mary Ann having died of encephalitis in 1971 and Marge from breast cancer in 1996 at age 48.
A marvelously complete collection by one of the so-called "Girl Groups" which you will enjoy from beginning to end.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Of the Girl Groups Ever, June 25, 2008
I discoverd the real Shangri-Las, the Shangri-Las beyond the main hit singles while watching the brilliant Stonewall movie, in which the main drag queen will evolve into pseudo music videos of the Shangri-Las songs, and I haven't turned back since. The Supremes may have had their stake on the pop side of brilliant 60s music, but there has never been another group of girls like Shangri-Las - sure we have Ronnie & The Ronettes, but even in all their glory, they didn't take the prospect of teenage love and turn into the most melodramatic horrendous tragedies like the Shangri-Las did.
Everyone knows the two huge hits "Remember (Walking In The Sand)" and "Leader Of The Pack" - two groundwork setting singles depicting love's endings in all their heartbroken ways including death. But the latter and its motorcycle seem to have fallen into the world of camp all these years later and that's too bad because when you hear it next to the other 24 songs on this set you realize how gripping the drama of the Shangri-Las really is.
Every song is a labor of heartbreak and death be it of love or actual people; in fact it may be fun to go through the tracks and tally up how many people actually die in these little pop gems. But of course the Las aren't all about death; there's a bit of fun to be had by all "Give Him A Great Big Kiss" is an awesome 60s single, "The Train From Kansas City", "The Dum Dum Ditty" and the uber appeal of "Sophisticated Boom Boom" are all examples of the pop hooks but it really is the other songs, the songs with the edge, that get me every time - probably my all time favorite ballad of all time "Never Again" - ("You'd better stop playing games/ I've told you once before; it'll hurt you more this time/ if you walk out that door/ you better think it over baby/ remember what I told you baby cause Never again will I love you this way)
I've been trying to get the balls to do a cover of this for years - the song has to be one of the first feminist ballads in the pop music field. The death of the poor leads in "Give Us Your Blessings" who were crying so hard when their parents rejected the blessing for their marriage, they crashed through the sign that said "Detour!", the rape and subsequent hell of the lead in the spoken "Past, Present & Future", the poor runaway in "I Can Never Go Home Anymore".
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See all 25 tracks on this disc
by The Shangri-Las 
