Customer Reviews

Voices in Modern/Funny How Time Slips Away

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This CD includes the first Four Freshmen Capitol LP, the wonderful "Voices in Modern," which made a generation of us sit up and take notice in the 1950s. And it also includes one of the group's last Capitol efforts, "Funny How Time Slips Away," which shows why Capitol let the Four Freshmen slip away from its label. All 12 of the "Voices" songs by Bob Flanigan, Don and Ross Barbour and Ken Errair were memorable. Despite the presence of "Graduation Day" and "Charade" and the great voices of Flanigan, Ross Barbour and Ken Albers, "Funny" contains a number of very forgettable tunes. Fortunately, the current Four Freshmen group, which has none of the original members, is closer to the original sound and concept than the offerings on the second half of this CD. If you don't have "Voices in Modern" on CD, get this and skip through the "Funny" part. "Mood Indigo," "It Happened Once Before," "After You," "It's a Blue World" and the other songs are well worth the price. But if you do have the "Voices" songs in this format, you can pass up this product. You'd be better off buying a CD by the new Four Freshmen or, better yet, seeing them when they come to your part of the world.

"Voices in Modern" was their first major album and "Funny" the last from their best period. They sound great on both, but you can hear how much they refined things over the years by listening to "Funny" immediately after "Voices". You can also clearly hear how audio production values changed in that time frame. My only gripe is that the last song on "Funny" is mysteriously absent from the CD.