Ultimate

Coasters | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Warner Bros / Wea
• ASIN: B000002LV2
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #284,341 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Little Egypt

2. Shoppin' for Clothes

3. Searchin'

4. Charlie Brown

5. Down in Mexico

6. Girls! Girls! Girls!

7. Yakety Yak

8. Run Red Run

9. Poison Ivy

10. Young Blood

11. That Is Rock & Roll

12. Along Came Jones

13. Three Cool Cats

14. Riot in Cell Block #9

15. The Shadow Knows

16. I Must Be Dreamin'

17. Smokey Joe's Cafe

18. Framed

19. Bad Blood

20. The Idol With the Golden Head

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Baby, that is rock and roll, November 2, 2004

By 

Johnny Heering "trivia buff" (Bethel, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ultimate (Audio CD)

This CD features 20 great songs by the Coasters. But this CD was created in the very early days of digital technology, so the sound is not the best. It's okay, but there are later Coasters CDs with better sound quality. I would recommend 50 Coastin' Classics over this one, but if you want a Coasters CD with less songs on it, this is a decent one to get.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice budget sampler, May 28, 2005

By 

M. McM "AOTT-TMF" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ultimate (Audio CD)

I respectfully disagree with the previous review, this is the best sounding Coasters disc you can get. "Yakety Yak," "Young Blood," and "That Is Rock & Roll" could sound better, but the remaining tracks sound just fine. Later CD's issued by Rhino have an unneeded treble boost and are a pretty harsh and thin in comparison. This was actually the first CD ever issued on the Coasters, yet the sound holds up after all these years.

This is a nice sampler, covering most of their major singles. There are a few rarities here, including genuine stereo mixes of "Bad Blood," "Little Egypt," "Run, Red, Run," and "Girls, Girls, Girls Part I" (this is the only place to find "Girls, Girls, Girls Part I" on CD - Rhino's 50 COASTIN' CLASSICS uses "Part II"). There is little artwork, but all the tracks have been annotated with songwriting and personnel credits, as well as recording dates.

Unfortunately, this CD is out-of-print, but these were budget CD's, and many were pressed, so it's not hard to find. $30+ is WAY to steep, you shouldn't have to pay more than $12 at most (and that's after taxes + shipping).

This is not the definitive collection, but it's a nice place to start, and if you're not a huge Coasters fan, it may be all you need.

4.0 out of 5 stars Yakety Yak!, December 9, 2008

By 

Gary Peterson (San Diego, California USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Ultimate (Audio CD)

Whatever happened to the Coasters? I haven't heard any of their music played over the airwaves for at least the last two decades. Evidently, they're one of the early rock 'n' roll acts to fade into the music archives and history books.

In the late 50s and early 60s Coasters' music seemed to be everywhere. They graced both the R 'n' R and R&B charts with song after song. It was hard to find a juke box without a few Coasters' songs on it. Every pop radio station seemed to play their music. And they had some great songs, too. Who would ever forget Charlie Brown, Yakety Yak, Poison Ivy, Along Came Jones, or Smokey Joe's Cafe? Well, almost all of their songs were written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Lieber and Stroller also produced the records and even acted as musicians, arrangers and vocalists on the recordings. The four vocalists who fronted as the Coasters were variable from time to time. Actually, the Coasters were not really an authentic R & B act, but were a Lieber/Stoller concoction that supplied R & B/R 'n' R music to a hungry audience. Well, that's OK. There were a lot of groups like that in early Rock 'n' Roll. What about the Monkees? In any case, the music was upbeat and enjoyable. It was fun listening and could be very humorous in places.

"The Ultimate Coasters" is a CD which brings much of the Coasters back to your stereo and can provide fun listening. Anyone wanting a library of early Rock 'n' Roll should have this disc as a component. It has most, but not all, of the essential Coaster recordings and the reproduction is of good quality. Of course, the recording is out of print but a good quantity of used discs are available. I find that listening to the whole CD, song after song, is just too much to bear, but I enjoy the individual songs. I like to put early Rock 'n' Roll programs together and play them on shuffle mode on my iPod. What could be more characteristic of an early Rock 'n' Roll mix than the Coasters?

Gary Peterson