Customer Reviews

Flower Power Time Life 10 CD set

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As someone who was in his teens and twenties when these songs were released, they bring back memories of happy, carefree times before more adult responsibilities set in. I enjoy listening to about 75% of this collection, and considering the low cost per song (about 77 cents) this is a great buy. The liner notes for each of the five cases (2 discs per case) gives background not only about the songs but also about the societal changes that shaped many of these songs.

I do have a few complaints, though. The time length of each song is not listed, yet they found space for the artist, record label, and year published. In at least one case this omission is disturbing. Don McLean's American Pie fades away to an end at 4:09; the original recording was about 8:37. Call this one -- American Pie Lite. That alone makes this collection not one for purists.

It comes in a cardboard box that could use a clasp to keep the cover from flopping open, thus preventing one or more cases from falling out when stored upright.

As an avid 60's music fan, I highly recommend this collection as one of the best I've heard. For the most part, the 175 or so songs are those that you will not typically hear on "classic rock" radio. For example, there's no Hendrix, Doors, Rolling Stones or Beatles songs that are played over and over on classic rock stations today. I hadn't heard some of the songs in the collection for a very long time. It's like reliving an era to listen to this set. The excellent liner notes enhance this feeling. Also, the sound quality is superb. Buy this set for some thoroughly enjoyable listening and a memorable trip back to the 60's.

A wonderful collection of hippie music. A groovy trip back to the LOVE generation. From squiggly acid songs like "White Rabbit, Sunshine Superman, and In a Gadda Da Vida" to staight out love-in grooves like "I Got You Babe and What the World Needs Now is Love". Part of the pleasure in this collection is the wide range of counter culture music it embraces. Something for the groover/tripper/lover/rocker and all those who just love the wind in their long hair.

The "unofficial" goal back in the late 1960's was to break down social barriers and engage the straight laced public to open their mind to the possibility of putting love at the forefront of existence. Immerse yourself in the "official" sound of that time. Social consciousness through music was an innovative idea and there are many examples contained herein: "Mercy Mercy and Love Peace & Happiness" to name a few.

The two set Bonus CD takes you back to the heart of the 1967 San Francisco scene before it fell apart into a heroine ghetto.

FLOWER POWER is a well produced retrospect collection of 175 songs which emotionally transport you back to the vibrancy of being a hippie; complex, tender, psychedelic, exciting.....California dreamin, Born to be wild, Hair, Groovin, Blowin in the wind, Spirit in the sky, You really got me, In the year 2525, Hurdy gurty man, I feel free, etc.

Update march 28, 2011: it was a tough decision to put out $140 for a music collection. But it has proven to be a good decision. We have returned to this hippie music set over and over during these years. A fun trip back down memory lane. Oh sure there are plenty of songs we would have included. But in and of itself this is a worthy collection.
Update 02/01/2010: At first we were reluctant to purchase this big collection. Wow a 10 CD set. But we have enjoyed it over and over countless time during these years.

Both me and the wife saw the commercial for the "Time Life Flower Power " set and was laughing at the videos and remembering all the songs. I went online to see the full list and no doubt the set is packed with all the great songs of the 60's and a few early 70's as well.

I actually kept looking for a good deal here on Amazon and found one for a price to good to pass. Overall the sound is pretty good considering when this music was done in the analog days. There are some songs that the volume is a bit lower than most but it's only a few. You really don't hear many of these great songs anymore and you would be hard pressed to find so many in one collection like this.

I was looking forward to hearing this set. I thought it would recapture the flavour of the times. Unfortunately the audio quality leaves much to be desired and robs the music of the freshness it deserves.

Why can't the sound engineers and accountants get their act together? There must surely be a place for audio quality recordings that pass muster???

So a B+ for choice of material and a C- for dynamics and general sound quality.

I hate to be the one to throw cold bong water on the orgy of praise for this
set :-) But has anyone noticed that Jethro Tull, Chicago, The Tempations, The Moody Blues, Carly Simon, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Elton John and the Beach Boys never recorded any song that belongs in this set??? Does anyone care? I mean, we're spending lots on this...By the way, the artists mentioned above are all great, and the songs from them would have been great additions to Time-Life's "pop memories of the 60's" set. That set also suffers from even more weak material, so why not cull these types of songs from the "Flower" set, include them in the "Pop Memories" set and pack the Flower Power with the good hippie stuff? (If you can't tell by now, I feel strongly about this, lol).

But Time Life tanked big-time on that task. T/L, you can not tell me that with just a little more consideration, you could not have come up with enough flower-power-hippie music to pack this collection with nothing but songs which are true to the theme of this set. It seems a bit thoughtless.

I'm sorry. I do like this collection but there is just NO excuse for these poor selections. Plus they cut some of the songs--cut out part of the solo on "Sunshine Superman", hacked off the end of "Sky Pilot" etc. That's wrong. No way should consumers have to put up with that for the price. Also, the box it comes in is not so great. Hard to remove the discs and no clasp to hold it closed.

Time Life, take the best 45 or so songs from your extended 18-disc Flower Power set, cut out the ones that don't belong here and produce a super-strong 12-disc set. It's really pretty simple. The music is there. Profuse in it's plentitude and just waiting to be treated with the respect it deserves. I mean just throw in more Janis Joplin, Country Joe, Tommy James or anything hippie-themed. This is extremely lazy work, Time-Life. What could be easier?

So, I would not pay anywhere near full price for this. However, to be fair, the majority of these songs are great. I'd say four out of every five do belong here. So if you can pick this up for way less, I'd recommend it.

This music and the times that spawned it mean a lot to me. They came sort of close but seem not to have tried to really nail it...bummer dude!!!

Paid [$] for 10 cd's which I consider "about average" - not really a great deal, but I thought if they were all re-done ("digitally re-mastered" is what I believe the infomercial stated), they would sound great.PROBLEM - From one song to the next, there is significant change in VOLUME; one song will be loud, the next you can barely hear, the next one loud again.
There are alot of great songs from this era that were not on the cd's & MANY filler songs I had never even heard of. Others were not by the original artists! Why waste the space?-
The T.V. ad is VERY misleading! From this entire collection, I only found 71 songs that I liked from the late 60s to early 70s. That means instead of spending [$](+tax +s/h) for the entire collection, I could have purchase my favorite songs, on-line, for less[...]AND I wouldn't have to listen to FILLER music of less popluar flip-side songs.

I expected much better from Time-Life!

Many of the songs are not the most popular songs of the featured groups. Some groups who you would expect to be featured arn't in the collection at all such as the Beatles. Many of the songs are not from the group that made the song famous.

I got this CD set for my Husband's birthday. He loves it! He was there in the L.A. & Hollywood of the 60's and then to Vietnam on our Navy's river boats. He lived it all.
In his own words, This music brought back memories that are so powerful to a Vietnam Vet. I know the Flower Generation loved it as they sent their message of Love through the music and created the era with this music as it's spokesman. It also helped the guys who had to be in South East Asia to have something to hang on to. They listened to the music on the radio and the tapes of the day as it brought them back home for a little while. Some of the songs still have that special meaning of "shipmates" long gone now but it has the power to bring back wonderful memories that still make his throat tight.
No matter if you were a Hippie or a 19 year old sailor patroling the Rung Sat in a patrol boat, this music has it all for people who lived through those turbulent times in America's history. It's worth twice the price! Thanks Time Life.

'Flower Power: the Music of the Love Generation' is a must-have collection of 60s-70s tunes.

This 10-CD, 175 song collection encompasses a wide variety of songs, from Donovan, to Jefferson Airplane, to Tommy James & the Shondells, to Mott the Hoople, to The Kinks, to Janis Joplin, and countless others.

There are 5 CDs, each named for the songs on the disc (i.e. 'Time of the Season', 'Groovin''). It's difficult to accurately describe this collection in a review beccause of the wide range of artists and songs, so I can only describe this as follows: good music.

As a teenager, I was not alive in the sixties, or the seventies, and not even the bulk of the eighties, but I can say that this is the best collection of music I've ever listened to.