Customer Reviews

Dead! The Grim Reaper's Greatest Hits

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When I found this cd just days ago, I picked it up for 2 songs: "I Want My Baby Back" by Jimmy Cross and to once again own a copy of Jack Kittel's "Psycho".

The real psychodrama occured in the record store while I listened to the disc when I got to track #12, "Once You Understand" by Think. Suddenly it was 1972 & I was 12 again and hearing this tragic song of The Generation Gap playing over & over again from my sister's bedroom. I (literally) screamed aloud in the store, startling the guy at the listening station next to me.

I had completely forgotten about this wonderful/wretched li'l morality play in the vein of Diane & Art Linkletter's "We Love You, Call Collect". Parents yelling at kids, kids whining at parents, tragic death & remorse; it's all here, served up with a big dollop of nausea.

Buy this disc & help raise the standards of Listening Quality instead of racing to plunge to the bottom of the turd-barrel with everyone else & fighting over the loose change down there.

All your favorite tragedy songs on one nifty CD!!!--It should be noted that this disc has the only CD appearence of "Once You Understand" by Think,which was a Top 40 hit in both 1971 & 1974.As well as the 1965 classic "I Want My Baby Back" by Jimmy Cross--the death song to end all death songs!!!!

This first of a brief two-volume release from Ace of London which focuses on the dead and the dying has been done before, most notably by Varese-Sarabande in their September 2000 release Last Kiss: Songs Of Teen Tragedy, but it has never been done with Ace's usual detailed liner notes, discographies, and photos. And while seven of the tracks here (3, 6,10,11, 16, 19, and 21) were also in the Varese-Sarabande volume (a few others are in volume 2 of this set), and each was a hit, some huge some minor, Ace not only gives you 24 cuts to their 14 but has also dug a bit deeper into the dusty vaults to come up with a few that, while perhaps never hits for the artists concerned, are nevertheless sought after by certain collectors.

They also provide a few more of the genre that were hits, including some very hard to find in CD format. Readily obtainable in many other releases are the # 29 Hot 100 Give Us Your Blessings by The Shangri-Las in June 1965, Jan & Deans's spring 1964 # 8 Hot 100 Dead Man's Curve, and Bob Luman's fall 1960 # 7 Hot 100/# 9 Country parody, Let's Think About Living. Not readily available elsewhere are Condition Red, a # 46 Hot 100 in late 1968/early 1969 by the Memphis female trio The Goodees on the small Hip label (and sought after by collectors of The Girl Group Sound), Once You Understand by the studio group Think, put together by producers Lou Stallman and Bobby Susser and a # 23 Hot 100 in late 1971/early 1972 on the Laurie label, and a # 53 in April1974 when re-released by Big Tree under the billing Think (featuring Lou Stallman).

The rest, all non charters (at least in North America), will evoke memories only among fans of the individual artists, such as Terry by Twinkle, actually Lynn Annette Ripley of Surrey, England whose 1964 cut laments the death of a cycle-riding boyfriend, and memorable mainly for the involvement of Jimmy Page as a studio musician. Death Of An Angel was a 1955 release on Flip 45-306 by a group that started out as The Bel-Aires, then became the Vel-Aires, and ultimately wound up being billed as Donald Wood & The Velaires. While their version went nowhere, a cover by The Kingsmen (of Louie, Louie fame), hit # 42 Hot 100 in the fall of 1964.

A really creepy one is Psycho by Jack Kittel, a 1974 release which contains the lines "Seems I was holding a wrench, momma, And then my mind just walked away." Wee-ooo wee-ooo-wee-ooo.

As I mentioned above, with Ace you can always count on detailed background notes which will fill you in on the recording dates, label numbers, and information on each artist, and the sound is always excellent.

This is another of those Ace compilations that won't have wide appeal. They know that. But it is an interesting reflection on those few years where songs about young lovers dying were repleat on the airwaves. There are some great representatives of those songs here: I Want My baby Back, Death of an Angel, Teen Angel, & Last Kiss are just a few. There is also some pure crap. I was a DJ when some of these were released and I refused to play the absolutely horrible Once You Understand. How can an intrumental (without any death sound effects) qualify as a "death" song? Should have put something in where they placed The Death of a Surfer. On the whole, I'd say 70% of the songs are admirable inclusions. I've listened to it 3 times in the 20 days I've had it. Don't know how many more times that will happen but some obscurities like Psycho by Jack Kittel will make it on to a personalized compilation disc.