Customer Reviews

The Ronettes: Ultimate Collection; Greatest Hits

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I am going to make this short and sweet. I have all of the Ronettes' stuff...the mono, the stereo, the cassettes, the CD's, the records, the cheap, the expensive, the super-expensive. But dollar for dollar, this is the first CD I would buy if someone asked me and said they could only afford one CD. The posters on here do not lie. The sound? Remastered excellence. The selection? Do you get all 36 of the Ronettes' ever-recorded tracks? No. But you get most of the good stuff, and all the great stuff. Buy without hesitation.

The ronettes ultimate collection,is a super collection of their greatest hits,and,some of their lessor known hits...All tracks are in true stereo,unlike,the horrible back to mono us releases..The sound is fantastic...This album is a must have for your cd collection... I would like to see an ultimate phil collection re-released in real stereo,like the original LP'S.They sound wonderful...Now i highly recommend this cd 5 star rated.Thank You..Stewart L.

Forget the Abkco label stuff, here are the fabulous Ronettes singing 29 great songs, with all but a handful in TRUE STEREO. Any stereo mixes of early Phil Spector "Wall of Sound" recordings are exceedingly rare, but on this collection you are in for a treat as such classics as "Be My Baby", "Baby I Love You" and "Walking In The Rain" unfold on on a wide STEREO soundstage, taking your breath away like those narrow, tinny and very busy (transistor radio) sounding versions NEVER could. A few, like "I Can Hear Music", aren't available in stereo, but at least they're included here. And three of their Christmas classics also appear here in wide stereo! All other Ronettes collections will be either mono or remakes; again, THIS is the real deal, the original hits, mostly all in stereo. A bargain at any price, this will make you want to throw your mono Abkco CD's in the trash.

Dr. Pagano is right. But don't take our word for it. Just a simple
a/b comparison with the same cuts on the new Phil Spector Retrospective
(excellent) not only reveal these versions to have been remastered into oblivion but that a layer of echo has been added, all apparently to make a more "modern" sound. Yech!!! See for yourself. I wish I could recommend this since a few of the tracks I really like here are not available elsewhere that I know of, but this is not the one!

There are not many CD releases to find with Phil Spector's The Ronettes. This collection contains 28 tracks, of which 23 are Spector productions, the other five come from the group's 1962 pre-Spector album.

According to the very cheap looking cover, the songs are digitally remastered, and most tracks sounds clearer than on the 1992 abkco release "The Best of Ronettes". Some tracks do sound somewhat metallic, and in some cases, there is outright distortion - for instance on "Lovers". You can have your doubts whether the people behind the remastering have had had access to the original master tapes. You would expect that the sound presentation could have been better and the general impression of the CD is that of a bootleg, with its very cheap one-sheet cover; badly printed with lots of factual errors on the songwriting credits.

Most tracks sound however do sound acceptable, and the songs are indeed in many cases brilliant.

The band's second album, "Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes" is represented in its entirety, and it actually could appear a little like a greatest hits album with tracks like "Be My Baby," "Walking in the Rain," "You Baby" and "Baby I Love You" - all great songs that really deserve a better presentation.

Inexplicably, the group had difficulty in maintaining the popularity achieved by the two big hits "Be My Baby" and "Baby I Love You" in 1963. Despite several excellent single releases during 1964-66, the group's singles never again reached the top 20. "The Best Part of Breaking Up," "Walking in the Rain," "Is This What I Get For Loving You Baby," "Here I Sit," "Keep On Dancing" and "I Can Hear Music" all sound sound like sure hit-songs.

This release contains the majority of what the group recorded with Spector, and it is definitely worth a listen. After a recording break of 2-3 years in 1969 the group released their last single, "You Came, You Saw, You Conquer". The song is missing on this release, but in turn, the fine B-side "Oh, I Love You" is included - in reality a much better track.

The music is written is by well-known songwriters / songwriting pairs such as Barry-Greenwich; Mann-Weil, Goffin-King; Crewe-Knight and Harry Nisson. Spector has in most cases also been given songwriting credits.

An excellent release, as long as nothing better is to be found, but the real "Ultimate Ronettes Collection" has not yet been released.

I strongly agree with D. Pagano and Mr. Landes' comments entirely. Listening via 'phones makes for an unpleasant experience, an imbalanced stereo sound with an intrusive, erratic, extraneous "popping/bumping" sound mainly thru' right-hand channel (from scratched vinyl?) and high-end hiss to-boot "Digitally Remastered and Noise Cedarized" Claims the insert! I don't think so! This WON'T be going on my i-Pod. POOR SHOW "MARGINAL RECORDS"

The best Ronettes compilation out there that I could find; odd that it (and other Ronettes recordings) are not more widely available on CD or via download - probably a Phil-Spector-owns-the-masters-and-is-crazy issue, I assume. All you will ever need unless you are a Ronettes completist.

Very happy with this cd as it contains some little played hits that really did not sell that well. The real Ronettes lovers will must enjoy these and the half hearted ones will say what are these tunes!! They should not buy it then!!

All Ronettes fans are familiar with the track listings and the group here, but the "stereo" sound is transferred from vinyl and in some cases is very tinny sounding. In addition some of the tracks,most notably "Best Part of Breakin' Up" are OBVIOUSLY SPEEDED UP. How the bootleggers could do this without thinking a Ronettes fan would not notice is beyond me. I mean I have nothing against bootleggers but if you're gonna do it, do it right.

I have been looking for the Ronettes hits for sometime. Could not find any place in the different music sites for it. Found it on Amazon for $173. That was just out of the question. This DVD is just first rate. I will agree with some of the other reviews that it does have a reverb in it which was not in their original songs. With that being said if you are look for the Ronettes hits you WILL NOT be disappointed. I just love this CD and have been asked by many friends to borrow it. The borrow will not happen they will have to get their own copy.