Customer Reviews

Growin Up Too Fast: Girl Group Anthology

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is my all time favorite Oldies CD. The two songs by Ginny Arnell alone are worth the price of the set. This quality recording does not waste your money on songs everyone has heard too many times before. Nor is it a collection of obscure songs that ought to remain obscure-this is a collection of forgotten gems that deserve rediscovering.
Another great find in this collection are a couple of songs sung by Kenni Woods, a.k.a. Kendra Spotswood, a.k.a. Sandi Sheldon who recorded with The Four Buddies, The Pacettes, Jack & Jill, The Vonettes and The Fantastic Vantastics. Kendra's voice ranks right up there with the beautiful timbre of Karen Carpenter and Marilyn McCoo.
Not everything on here is great but most of it is. And if it isn't that wonderful it was intentionally included to illustrate something. This set teaches as well as entertains. If you have any interest at all in the music of the early sixties you should give this album a listen, and if you are into the Girl Group era than this album is essential.
Hey Dianne, you were wrong. We did indeed grow up too fast, but a least we have memories. See you on Glenwood Avenue!

First the bad news: I was disappointed that only two tracks out of the fifty are in true stereo. I have never heard of about half of these songs so I don't know whether some of these were ever recorded/released in true stereo. However, I know for a fact that many of these songs were released in stereo. Example, all five Leslie Gore songs on the CD set are in mono. This is inexcusable. Leslie Gore re-issues have easily been available in stereo for over thirty years. The same goes for many others songs on this CD set. If stereo is not important to you, then of course this is not bad news.

Good news: There is some rare stuff on this CD set that you would have trouble finding anywhere else. "Please Don't Talk To The Lifeguard" by Diane Ray is very rare and it is one of the two songs in true stereo. I have never heard this song re-issued domestically since it was released in 1963. This is a favorite of mine. I have only heard it re-issued on a ! couple of imports that sounded horrible. However, the sound quality here for this song is good enough to have come from the master tape. Also, "442 Glenwood Avenue" (mono) is also a rare find, as are the other Pixies Three songs. I will assume many of the other songs are rare since I have never heard them before. The only other song in true stereo is "Can't He Take A Hint?"

This 2-CD set full of girl group classics and oddities is, quite simply, one of the best and most enjoyable girl group comps out there. A sweet cross-slice of a particular brand of American teen culture... If you don't have it in you to spring the big bucks for the all those fetishistic European imports, but still want something that'll make you crank the volume and turn up the treble, this is about as good a collection as you could ask for. Plus it's got Ginny Arnell's super-dooper backlash anthem, "Dumb Head", a deliciously sexist novelty tune which is worth the price of admission alone. Highly recommended.

I was amazed while listening to this CD to discover my OWN MOTHER on it!:) My mom is the Gigi Parker of Gigi Parker And The Lonelies. Who were the Lonelies? Try the now Four Seasons!:) What a great collection:) GO MOM!:)

While this compilation is restricted to masters owned by the Polygram family, that family includes the 60s output of MGM, Mercury, Smash and Philips, all of which produced some wonderful girl group recordings. Song selection is first-rate, as are the liner notes. Kudos to the producers for sticking with the mono mixes wherever possible; stereo was strictly an afterthought during the period covered in this compilation and the mono mixes almost invariably sound better - fuller, louder, with stronger midrange and bass response. Great job!

This intriguing, inconsistent collection focuses on the "girl group" sound which dominated the early, pre-Beatle 1960s. Its images are of white boots, bouffant hairdos, New Yawk accents, singing melodramatic or nonsensical choruses in songs about chasing or crying after boys. Thanks to "Happy Days" and "Grease," this epitomizes how most see the era 40 years later.

But Mercury/Polygram Records focused here on its own label family (MGM, Phillips), rather than lease genre classics from the Chiffons, Crystals, or groups whose producers (Phil Spector, George Goldner) are feted in Don Charles' liner notes. But some names better known for later work (Quincy Jones, Bob Crewe, Nick Venet) are well-represented.

In the end, you get some sterling singles: the Angels' "My Boyfriend's Back," (no room for "Till"?) "Leader of the Pack," Leslie Gore's "Maybe I Know," Dusty Springfield's "I Only Want To Be With You," the Royalettes' magical, original "It's Gonna Take A Miracle."

But you also get an inordinate amount of mid-chart and failed singles, most out of print for the better part of 30 years. You get four tunes from the Pixies Three, who imitate Spector's and the Orlons' hits of the era. You get mid-chart minor singles by the Paris Sisters (whose "I Love How You Love Me" is missed here), Diane Renay and Connie Francis, along with B-sides like Leslie Gore's "Wonder Boy." To say it all sounds campy now tells but half the story. It was campy then, too.

Crewe, who produced the great strong of 60s Four Seasons' singles, states in Charles' liner notes, "Girl group music is a call back to times that were less troubled...there's a youthful frivolity here that's legitimate." Indeed, even amid the sugar frosted flakes dominating "Growing Up Too Fast," enough of these tough-talking or hopelessly devoted classics gather beloved rock and roll history from among its discards. Recommended, but check the more substantial Girl Group collection series on Rhino, featuring the Shirelles, Dixie Cups and other girl group standards.

While there have been lots of girl-group collections that have come and gone in the CD reissue market, it is unusual to see one of the major labels take on this type of product. Here, Polygram, with its monstrous family of labels' vaults to extract from, has put together a two-disc, 50-track collection of girl-group sounds unlike many of the others seen in the market.

Only half of the included tracks actually made it into the top-100. The other half represents minor charting sides, failed singles and b-sides. Even among the hits, making the mix more interesting is the inclusion of lesser hits by the big-name artists - Lesley Gore's "Look Of Love", the Angels' "Wow Wow Wee" and Diane Renay's "Kiss Me Sailor" - to name a few. Even more welcome is the appearance of hits seldom, if ever, found elsewhere represented by the likes of the Secrets' "The Boy Next Door", the Pixies Three's "Cold Cold Winter" and "442 Glenwood Avenue" and two of the most underappreciated soul sides - the Teddy Randazzo-produced (of Little Anthony and the Imperials "Goin' Out Of My Head" fame) Royalettes' "I Want To Meet Him" and "It's Gonna Take A Miracle". With all this going for it, this collection should have been a spectacular accomplishment. Somewhat puzzlingly, the producers opted to go with the mono versions of all the tracks except for two that appear in stereo.

Beyond that apparent dichotomy, this is a superb piece and should be the target of anyone interested in the music of the era. A 32-page booklet accompanies the discs with lots of pics and background on the artists and tracks included. In spite of the odd mix of stereo and mono versions here and the repertoire being limited to the albeit diverse but Polygram family-only sides, this collection represents a phenomenal tour through the girl-group genre so much a part of the music of the early 60's. Definitely high on the list of essential pieces for fans of the genre.

There are as many Girl Group complilations as there are tattered bobby sox, mohair swirled strung class rings, faded Polaroid prom pix, stuffed in the Hope Chest memory of every girl of a certain age.

This collection has some easy to get hits, like "My Boyfriend's Back" and "Leader of the Pack", but is probably not going to bring forth memories, unless she was a devoted 45 collector of obscure labels and wanted confirmation that boys were awful, and it was all her fault.

This complilation has hard to find 45s from the spectrum of classic period Girl Group era. They all have the enthusiam and underlying ache and pissed off that the best of the era snuck in. It may be hard to imagine a song, "Dumbhead" or "Please Don't Talk to the Lifeguard" but there we were.

This also has the rare 45 by Whyte Boots "Nightmare", the cat fight that even the Shangri-Las might have thought twice about.

Fun as Rock and Roll history and important as cultural snapshot of early '60's.

Dear Polygram, this appears to be out of print. Why don't you just re-release it so I don't have to get it used or thru the noze.....months later I found it used at a great price. Hands down may be the best girl group comp ever. It still needs to be brought back in print, so one star still!!!!