Customer Reviews

Hot Ones

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I was very disappointed in this recording. From what I understand the Standells reluctantly recorded this LP of cover tunes under pressure from their label. The problem is that the songs are almost note for note carbon copies of the originals. There is no originality here. There is no unique Standell's sound that characterized songs like "Dirty Water" and "Sometimes Good Guys Don't wear White". My question is, "Why bother?". If I wanted to hear these songs at all I'd go find the originals.

Anyway, if you want to listen to the Standells buy a "Best of" and enjoy!

There was a time when record company executives - not the recording artists - thought an album of covers was a sure thing. They were relatively inexpensive to produce and were in fact popular with the younger teen, especially young girls. Since the artists weren't going to see any writer's royalties, it's a sure thing they weren't too excited by the idea. [The Beau Brummell's were made to do the same thing and it really hurt their career].
The Standells are a strong enough rock outfit to make this covers collection a fun listen. Lil' Red Riding Hood and in particular Summer in the City stand out. This CD also benefits from 7 bonus tracks like Misty Lane and the Standells' Love Theme.
This is more than just for Standell completist; it's a good time listen of where it was at.

The fact that the Standells chose for their third album to release a collection of cover versions of contemporary hits, was hardly a wise strategic move for their future career. After two solid albums, consisting mainly of new original material and among those several great tunes, it seems something of a setback for the group to release a cover version album.

The group never got their big break-through, but did optain a top twenty place with the single "Dirty Water". All this said, what we have is a solid, though not particularly innovative, collection of cover versions of contemporary hits. The raw Standells sound is present on most tracks, and in a few cases, Standells versions have probably aged more gracefully than the originals.

The Standells version of "Lil Red Riding Hood" works really excellent.
Otherwise you have look at the bonus tracks to find something really exciting.

'"Misty Lane" on a par with the group's best recordings, and classic garage rock.

Producer Ed Cobb, has written two Mersybeat-inspired ballads "You Were the One" and "Ten O'Clock Scholar", where especially the latter is quite charming, but probably not something you would expect from a group like the Standells. The same can probably be said for "School Girl" that stylistically could have fit well into the team last album "Try It", which was strange mixture of various styles anyway.

"When I Was a Cowboy" and "Do not Tell Me What to Do" are two unpretentious cuts, the first has a certain charm, while the latter is just tiresome.

No doubt that this album is Standells' least interesting, but not without good moments.

Originally released in 1966,it was their follow-up to the 'Dirty Water' album(see my review).While I admit it is NO where near as good as 'Dirty...','Hot Ones' is a so-so CD reissue full of mostly the Standells performing covers,from you guessed it,1966.Tracks that I thought were 'okay' include Donovan's "Sunshine Superman",Lovin' Spoonful's "Summer In The City",the Beatle's "Eleanor Rigby" and the Trogg's "Wild Thing".Very little originality here,but hey...plenty of records are like that.You know?For big-time Standells fans,like myself.

This is a rather limp cd of the band who often forced to record songs it didn't want. That was a ugly fact of the idiotic record companies back then. Here play some soul boys. ALthough the standells made great soul songs too.
they were a garage protopunk band in their hearts and this one was just a huge mistake. They made them record other bands hits. Only a dork of a executive could have ordered this one. Still it's all decent versions of other bands materials. But it's for standells fans only , who can enjoy these average versons of other bands hits. NOn completists forget this one and go to 'try it' or 'dirty water' etc. The sound is good and the extra tracks are ok. But still noone put the 'peppermint beatle' on any cd yet. oh well. Or that rarities album either.

This was the worst of the Standells four albums. It consisted of covers of recent hits, plus their own hit "Dirty Water". ("Dirty Water" was left off of this CD, because it's already on the Dirty Water album.) The covers are ok, but not as good as the original hit versions. The CD adds seven bonus tracks. None of the bonus tracks are "classic" Standells songs. The closest to it would be "When I Was a Cowboy", which was released as a single under the name "The Sllednats", which is "Standells" spelled backwards. Most of the other bonus tracks are unremarkable previously unreleased songs. The most interesting one of these is probably "Standells' Love Theme", which is an 11 minute instrumental. This CD will really only be of interest to Standells fans who want to own all their albums.