Customer Reviews

Buddy Holly - Greatest Hits

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This is a marvelous collection if you're only sampling Buddy Holly's music. It contains his greatest hits, but still omits some of his best music, so beware. Most people listening to Buddy's music for the first time can never stop at just one CD, so this will serve as a fine introduction to some of the best music you'll ever hear. Though these songs are all more than 40 years old, they wear well and are timeless.

Most casual rock fans can name only a few Holly tunes: That'll Be the Day and Peggy Sue, but there is so much more than that. This collection includes two of his most haunting, beautiful ballads, True Love Ways and Raining in My Heart. Listen to the innovative string arrangements on these tunes and you'll plainly know why Paul McCartney (who owns the Holly musical catalogue)adopted these arrangements ten years later as a Beatle.

Perhaps the best song on the album is the amazing It Doesn't Matter Anymore, about a love gone wrong. Again, the string arrangement is years ahead of its time and makes you ponder what might have been had Holly's life not ended so tragically and prematurely. He was a genuine innovator and talent. This compilation proves that.

Buddy Holly's "Greatest Hits" is an excellent collection. Holly is a true cultural icon, and this collection has great historical importance. But it's fine to momentarily forget about the legend and just enjoy the music. Four decades after these songs were recorded, they remain fresh and full of irrepressible life.

Holly is considered a rock and roll pioneer, but the musical palette on this CD also contains, to my ear at least, elements of country and big band style. Holly's talent is simply too expansive to pigeonhole.

Holly wrote or co-wrote many of the songs on this CD. He was a versatile and engaging vocalist. Superb on rousing fast-tempo songs, Holly is tender and haunting on a slow love song like "True Love Ways." And his "hiccupping" vocal effect on "Peggy Sue" is delightful.

It never ceases to amaze me that Holly was not yet 23 years old when he died in 1959, leaving behind an immortal musical legacy. But every time I play this wonderful CD, Buddy is alive to me.

I adore Buddy Holly and this has quickly become my favorite CD. I'm a 13 year old, so that should prove just how versatile this music is. The whole CD is just filled with timeless Buddy Holly classics that will never be left in the past. I's amazing to realize how much talent was in someone so young! The songs "Everday", "Heartbeat" "It's So Easy", "Not Fade Away", "Words Of Love", "True Love Ways", "Raining In My Heart" and of course "That'll Be the Day", "Oh Boy" and "Peggy Sue" are incredible! I highly recomend this CD to all Buddy Holly fans and even people who aren't cause I know you will become one! Remember, this is coming from a 13 year old! Even though Buddy is gone, his spirit and talent will live always and he will never be forgotten.

Buddy Holly,the name conjures up images of good times and great music.On February 3,1959,the world lost the greatest rock and roller it had ever known.But he still lives on through his music. There was an unbelievable amount of talent that was lost in that plane crash,but the one with the most talent was Buddy,Buddy's loss was felt the deepest by people all over the world.I am only 15 years old,I have tons of music to choose from that I could listen to from rock to pop since it is so popular these days,but I choose Buddy Holly.I choose Buddy because he was the greatest and still is.The world lost Buddy Holly on February 3,1959,but to present day he lives on through his music.I recommend this cd to fans of good music. Buddy Holly----GONE BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN.

There is almost no way to overstate what Buddy Holly meant to everything that followed him. For a guy who had barely three years to make it or break it, Holly delivered what Elvis couldn't, even if Elvis ended up the bigger star between them: Holly was as self contained as Elvis wasn't (even if you accept, properly, Elvis's singing style and song-bending as a kind of songwriting in its own right); he was just as tuned in to the blues as his contemporaries but leaned on the feeling more than the material (not for nothing did the Rolling Stones pick off "Not Fade Away" as their third single, and not for nothing did it kick them irrevocably into front-line status in 1964); and, his brash push toward producing as well as writing his own recordings kicked a door open through which would pour, in due course, the likes of the Beach Boys, the Four Seasons, and the Beatles (who were such fans of Holly that they not only liked his music but his band's name - the Crickets spurred them to pick out an insect name for themselves) - for all intent and purpose, the Four Seasons and the Beatles were as much co-producers of their signature records as were their listed producers. Any rock and roller in Holly's wake had him to thank for the opportunity to take deeper control of their music if they chose it; it would have been impossible, given the attitudes and ethics of earlier rock business generations, had not Coral Records let Holly have his head.

Holly's music itself wrote its own tickets to ride, of course - the Beach Boys had as much Buddy Holly as Chuck Berry in their classic surf rhythms; the Beatles' ballad style owed plenty to Holly's sensibilities with a ballad; and even the avant-legendary Velvet Underground (whose guiding force, Lou Reed, was a scratch rocker at heart) owed their signature scratch-and-roll doubletime raveups to "Peggy Sue". But Holly was also a daring theoretician for rock's embryonic era; it's only too easy to forget, when thinking of those years and the dominant rock motifs, that Holly had some pretty forward-looking orchestration ideas. In fact, he was champing at the bit to turn the recording studio into as much his instrument as his guitar (and he was - make no mistake - a top-flight guitarist), though his unexpected death killed forever the question of what he might actually have done once he got immersed totally into it. ("Everydays" only hints.)

Like Jimi Hendrix a few generations later, Holly has been the subject of interminable speculation on the might-have-done, to the point where what he DID done almost gets shoved to the side. But I did say "almost". Holly's one of the legitimate music phenomena of the 20th Century, in the sense that no one except perhaps a deaf person can say they haven't heard him at least once. More impressive could be that Holly, arguably, could well have been the first pure rock and roller about whom it could be said that he had universal appeal (Elvis required a stint in the Army, a near-thorough flattening of his music, and a near-irrevocable bowdlerising of his image, to achieve that) on his own terms: He really did (and does) appeal as much to a kid as to the kid's grandparents, even a take-no-prisoners beater like "Rave On" or "Oh Boy" or a rumbling, rolling "Peggy Sue". His ballads (they don't come better than the deceptive "True Love Ways," which actually doubles as the most genteel "deal with it!" declaration of forbidden love - Holly, recall, married a beauteous Latina in an era when Hispanics were probably considered barely better than blacks in much of white America - in 1950s rock) are beauteous without being saccharine, with a knowingness that belies his youth and a disarming simplicity that keeps them fresh over forty years after their creator's death.

The Crickets, give them credit, don't drop a beat between the rockers and the hard ballads; otherwise, Holly's use of session musicians has a deftness and a sensibility that anticipates the smarts with which Brian Wilson would work with the legendary Los Angeles "Wrecking Crew" in the mid-1960s. This collection is probably just the place you begin appreciating the depth of Holly's work. But it's as good as it gets for reminding us once and for all that we don't have to waste our time lamenting what might have been. Buddy Holly did more in three years than most of his contemporaries and his disciples alike have done in the forty one years since. Only his life was too short. His art was anything but.

While this compilation presents most of Buddy Holly's classics in pristine form, his most familiar song, "Peggy Sue" comes across as a washed-out mess, just as it has in ever reissue (both on vinyl and cd) in the last 25 years. Compare the song alongside the original 45, or any reissue album up to the mid-70s, and you will instantly realize how very wimpy it sounds now. The other obvious glitch is where they "fixed" Holly's other famous song, "That'll Be The Day"; the "repaired" version appears on EVERY reissue now, including "From The Original Master Tapes", which obviously the tracks are not unless they altered a priceless original recording. About two-thirds of the way through the song, in the line "so if we ever part", Holly pops the "P" in the word 'part' while singing into the microphone. It was always a charming glitch which MCA removed apparently thinking it was a flaw or editing problem, when in fact was a prime example of the human aspect that has always made this music so fascinating. And they have the nerve to claim that stuff like this comes from the original master tapes?

I can't stop listening to this CD. we all know and love Buddy's hits such as Peggy Sue, Oh Boy and That;ll Be The Day. But to really appreciate Buddy's range, versatility and sheer vocal talent you have to hear Think It Over, Fool's Paradise and Heartbeat. Rave on Buddy and don't ever Fade Away

I've been a Buddy Holly fan since he was alive, and if you can't afford "The Complete Buddy Holly" (which wasn't available on CD last time I checked, only vinyl and cassette) this is a wise choice. The CD "From the Master Tapes" is also good, and duplicates many of the selections here. This particular compilation will serve the needs of any casual fans quite well...if Buddy has any "casual" fans. Usually, if you like him enough to buy one album, you have been hooked enough to want more. As another reviewer has noted at length, Buddy's original releases were on different labels, some marketed as solo records in spite of the presence (uncredited) of The Crickets. If you like Buddy, get a copy of the biography "Rave On" or the British book "Remembering Buddy." It will help you understand why Decca, Coral and Brunswick all had a piece of his song catalogue at the same time, and why there are different versions of releases issued after his death in early l959 due to different producers being hired to "finish" and "commercially polish" some of the tapes he left us that had just his own voice and guitar. Back then, a pop or rock record without backing vocals or fuller instrumentation than just solo guitar was a rarity. Now we know better. Another recommended book is "The Day the Music Died." Thank goodness, the music lives on, and so, in a sense, does Buddy.

THE GOOD: Good quality recordings with no overdubs or re-records, all originals. An excellent value that contains most of Holly's Greatest hits.

THE BAD: Lots of "filler" tracks that don't belong on a "Greatest Hits" album. To make things worse, there are glaring omissions such as "Well..Alright" and "Peggy Sue Got Married". I'm sure that this is a marketing tactic to force you to buy several albums to get the real Greatest Hits. Some of the filler tracks are "I'm Looking For Someone To Love", "I'm Gonna Love You Too", "Fool's Paradise" and "Early In The Morning". By the way, this is not the original hit of "Early In The Morning". Holly had minor success with the song, but if you want the original, it was written and recorded by the Rinky Dinks (a.k.a. Bobby Darin).

Overall, I would recommend this album if you don't mind missing a few great songs. It's the best Holly album for the money.

The best Holly album is "Buddy Holly / The Crickets - 20 Golden Greats" (MCA 3040) Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be available on CD.

Buddy Holly was a genius. It's as simple as that. His creation of music was in a class by itself and his work remains nonpareil and will continue to delight many for time immemorial. These are timeless classics that you will never tire of hearing. I just love "Maybe Baby," "Think it Over" as well as his other recordings and to this day say that Buddy Holly could not do a bad song if he tried.

One cannot help but wonder had this humble genius from Lubbock had lived (he died in a plane crash in an Iowa corn field on February 3, 1959 along with Richie Valens and the Big Bopper), what songs we'd be enjoying in addition to these gems. It is possible that he might have joined Roy Orbison, et al. and George Harrison for the Traveling Wilburys. Buddy Holly raised the early Rock & Roll bar; his music influenced later musical juggernauts such as the Beatles. In 1965 the Beatles did "Words of Love" as a nod to this extremely gifted man. Buddy Holly, like a roller coaster set the wheels in motion for quite a musical ride!

It is interesting that former Beatle Paul McCartney owns Holly's music; you can hear some Holly influence in some of Paul's early Beatle compositions. The title "Raining in My Heart" echoes in John Lennon's 1963 blockbuster, "Please Please Me" with the lyric, "but you know there's always rain in my heart (in my heart)."

Don't just take our word for this. Get this collection and believe me, you will be so glad you did.