Customer Reviews

Very Best of

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Commodores' songs don't get played much today on UK radio. Even easy-listening stations play 'Easy' and 'Three Times a Lady' only rarely. But why? As this remastered collection makes clear, the Commodores wrote many fantastic songs.

In the UK, the Commodores were one of those bands you knew nothing about. Their outstanding song catalogue was all you needed to know. And then Lionel Richie left to go solo. So we now knew one fact about the Commodores -- they were the band that Richie used to be in. Sadly, once Richie had left, the band lost much of their momentum.

Apart from the exclusion of 'Heroes', this CD contains all my Commodores' favourites:

- 'Easy', the track which will always remind me of my first minibus vacation across the USA in 1977.

- 'Still', which to my ears is essentially 'Three Times a Lady' re-worked and improved.

- 'Lady', on which the Commodores take on the disco influences of Earth, Wind & Fire and Kool and the Gang.

- 'Flying High', 'Just to be Close to You' and my all-time favourite, 'Zoom', which simply soars.

The sticker on my copy of this CD says "20 Original Recordings featuring LIONEL RICHIE". This is not strictly true, as Richie had left by the time four of the 20 tracks were recorded. But who cares? There are so many glorious songs here that I just can't be persuaded to take this disc out of the my car CD player.

This is the very best single-disc Commodores collection on the market today. It has every one of their Top 40 hits except "Slippery When Wet" in high-quality remastered sound. With 20 tracks and over 75 minutes of music, it simply can't be beat. The Commodores produced an amazing body of work in their heyday in the late '70s and early '80s. Listening to this CD just drives home how great they really were. If you're looking for a good summary of their best stuff, this is definitely the CD to get. If you want a little something more, you might want to seek out either the 1995 or 2001 2-disc "Anthology" sets as an alternative.

This Highlights The Depth&All Around Greatness of The Commodores.So Many Great Songs that have a Timeless Impact&Quality About them.The Band has Many Great Talented Musicians&The Production is very Strong.A Must Have.

Long before he was famous for being Nicole Richie's dad, and before his hugely successful solo career, Lionel Richie was the frontman for seventies/eighties Soul band Commodores.

They were known for funky songs like "Too hot ta trot" (featured in the disco movie "Thank God it's friday"), "Brick house" (with its yelled Hooouse!!! refrain), fusion jams like "Machine gun", Latin-tinged numbers like "Zoo (The human zoo)", and beautiful silky smooth ballads like the Country tinged "Easy", "Three times a lady" (US #1), "Still" (US #1 and the forerunner to the mega smash "Endless love"), "Oh no", "Sail on", "Wonderland", and my favourite "Flying high" to mention a few.

All are represented on this 20 track greatest hits, as are a few songs the band recorded after Lionel's departure; the droning top 10 smash "Nightshift" (tribute to Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye), the Pop/R&B "Janet", and the Rock-tinged "Animal instinct" with Walter Orange and J.D. Nicholas on lead vocals.

The group were excellent musicians, and their harmonies were stupendously good ("Flying high" for example). Shame a few of my favourites like "Why you wanna try me" and "Heroes" were left off, but still, this gives a great overview of one of the most talented and hardworking bands of the Seventies.

I ordered this for a special lady friend of mine for Valentines day I believe. It has a score of excellent songs; much more than most albums that have only 1-3 really good ones.

I'm a big fan of the Commodores and have been waiting for a terrific best of. This is NOT it. Now of the songs are here in their full length album versions. This is a prime example as to why I stay away from greatest Hits CDs. Sure, the edited versions were the "hits", but what about the people who haven't heard the full length song. Your best bet is to buy Ultimate Collection or 20th Century Masters. it has full length versions with the exception of Brick House. The full 6:12 version has yet to be included anywhere.

As a fan of the songs more than the group itself, I highly recommend this CD. All the biggies they made from the late 1970's through the mid 1980's are here - the period that Lionel & Co. hit their stride. Though the hits (mostly) dried up when he went solo, a few good cuts came from that period too (like "Nightshift"). Worth the money!

I've been in several Top-40 and R&B bands and at some point you have to play "Brick House" or "Nightshift". This CD is a R&B standards requirement. Plus, these guys were on the charts long before Brick House became such a smash. They do have pedigree.

this new way of reviewing is very time cunsuming and irritating.
the product and seller are outstanding but amazon's review set up
is a borish time waster!!!!

I'm very sorry for all the enthusiastic fans that have written other reviews, but I don't like this CD. I must admit that the only reason that I bought it was to have an original copy of "Machine gun", which in my opinion is the best funky instrumental song of all times. So, 6 stars for "Machine gun". Most of the rest is poor stuff, especially when Lionel Richie takes the lead... I don't like any of his ballads (except "Easy", perhaps). Two or three other songs (for instance "Brick house") are groovy, but none as good as "Machine gun". I guess there must be some really fun Commodores album out there, but not this one...