[.ca] Greatest Hits

From Amazon.com:
It may have been a crass marketing assemblage of this U.K. group's successes up until their second-chance 1972 hit, "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother"; but this also contains some of the greatest pop songs to be found under one chronologically fudged roof. Singer Allan Clarke was one of the most versatile vocalists of the British Invasion, able to pull off cute pop vignettes ("Bus Stop"), whoop it up like the original rockabilly ("Long Cool Woman"), lament majestically ("King Midas in Reverse"), and add distinctive blues colorings to the band's R & B covers ("Just One Look"). All in all, the Hollies were pretty good album artists, but Greatest Hits is what you really need. Clarke's boyhood chum Graham Nash adds faultless harmonies, guitarist Tony Hicks contributes sparkling fills, and the unheralded Bobby Elliott is on the skins. Pure pop manna, bad sequencing be damned. --Don Harrison

Buyer Beware! This CD is lacking certain Hollies tracks:
The Hollies were probably a second-tier band in the British Invasion of the 1960s, falling in the same category as The Seekers, Gerry And The Pacemakers, and The Animals. The top-tier should go to The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks and The Yardbirds. That should not take away from the fact the Hollies were responsible for some very good and memorable songs during their existence. Their pop melodies led to comparisons to The Beatles, albeit with nowhere near the successive of the Fab Four. Some of these songs should be familiar today, even to those who haven't paid attention to the Hollies before. For example, Just One Look was used in an advertisement for a soft drink company (Pepsi I think). He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother is another familiar song. The problem with this compilation is it omits songs like The Air That I Breathe and Jennifer Eccles. I know the Remastered Version of this title has The Air That I Breathe included, however there is also another problem with this recording. Like The Who's Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy, this CD was made from the original tape. The hisses and other abnormalities made certain songs (Just One Look for example) very difficult to listen to. While this disc contains gems, I have to deduct one star for what it lacks in terms of Hollies tracks, and another star for the inconsistent sound quality. However, not all songs sound that bad on this disc. Bus Stop, for example sounds fairly good. My advice is for Hollies fans, and those who are curious about their music is to avoid this disc and go for the Remastered version of this title or a more comprehensive Hollies compilation. My suggestion would be to go for the 1978 version of their Greatest Hits, which contains 20 tracks, including Jennifer Eccles. This 20 track compilation is called 20 Golden Greats, and Amazon.com does stock this title in their inventory, so you should be able to get a copy. I guess I got what I paid for when I bought this disc, but I plan to buy at least one more album by this group...

two bands, two bands, two bands in one...:
It took a while for The Hollies to evolve in the 1960's, but once they did the change was as dramatic as the metamorphosis of The Beatles from 'Beatles '65' to 'Rubber Soul', or Bob Dylan going electric. The most productive era for the band was 1966-1967 when they logged 8 of the 12 chartmakers chronicled here. 1968 and 1969 found the band without a Top-40 single, and their sound changed noticably with the departure of Graham Nash in 1969. Terry Sylvester, formerly of The Swinging Blue Jeans was added to the lineup and took over lead vocals from longtime crooner Allan Clarke. After Nash's departure, the band logged 4 more hits, but the sound is radically different. If the title on the CD didn't still say 'The Hollies Greatest Hits' , you might be convinced you were listening to two different bands. The original lineup included Clarke and Nash, whose vocals form the centerpiece of every noteworthy Hollies song from the 1960's. Tony Hicks added an occasional decent guitar riff, but instrumentation is by and large not what attracts people to the work of The Hollies. This collection reaches back to 1964 to snatch their first big hit, a UK number two rendition of 'Just One Look'... yes, the same 'Just One Look' that Doris Day took to number 10 on the Billboard charts in 1963, and that was covered by Linda Ronstadt in 1979. All 3 versions are consumable in their own way, The Hollies' being by far the most up-tempo. The Hollies took off for real on the US charts in 1966 with 'Look Through Any Window' (#32 in January), 'Bus Stop' (#5 in August), and 'Stop, Stop, Stop' (#7 in November). 1967 was their banner year, featuring 'On a Carousel' (#11 in April), 'Pay You Back With Interest' (#28 in June), 'Carrie Anne' (#9 in July), and 'King Midas In Reverse' (#18 on the UK charts in September). In most cases the charts adequately reveal the quality of each song, though in retrospect it is hard to imagine why 'Stop, Stop, Stop' was apparently so much more appealing to listeners than 'Look Through Any Window'. The latter has become a standard on Golden Oldies radio, while the former rarely receives airtime. 'Bus Stop' seems overplayed, while 'Carrie Anne' and 'On a Carousel' always prompt me to crank up the volume. The revised incarnation of The Hollies produced their first hit (topping out at number 7) in February of 1970, the reknown 'He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother'. Unlike the Double Bubble of earlier chartmakers, 'He Ain't Heavy..." is rich in orchestration and is laden with social consciousness, a prerequisite for many compositions of the era. Another stunning transformation produced a Billboard number two hit in July of 1972, a song featuring the most memorable guitar hook the band ever produced, 'Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)'. The most recent hit included on this compilation was the follow up to 'Long Cool Woman...", 'Long Dark Road' which, despite reaching only number 26 in December of 1972, is a strong composition many listeners will harken back to. The true hits are rounded out by one further composition, another release from 1967, 'Dear Eloise', which finished its rise on Billboard at number 50. Many 'Greatest Hits' compilations include one or two songs that makes you wonder "why, why is this here?", and 'Dear Eloise' fills this niche for 'The Hollies Greatest Hits'. While the running time would have been truncated, the consistency of the CD would have benefitted had 'Dear Eloise' and 'King Midas In Reverse' been edited. This CD is strong on nostalgia. For anyone who indulged in Top-40 AM radio in the 1960's, songs such as 'Bus Stop' and 'Carrie Anne' are indelibly etched into your brain cells. Each and every listen released a cocktail of endorphins, because these songs were light, bouncy fare that lifted the weight of the day from your shoulders. Surely they did little to change the course of your life, yet they just as surely whitecapped your immediate disposition. The nice thing is that they haven't lost that magic.

good, but not complete:
This collection concentrates on U.S. hits only, and even then misses 'Jennifer Eccles' and 'Pay You Back With Interest' (as well as 'The Air That I Breathe,' which came out after this package was originally put together). In their earliest years the Hollies had a whole slew of hits in England that were never released here; these too of course are missing. For the best overall selection on one cd, try "20 Golden Greats."

The Hollies' Greatest (radio edit) Hits:
I was let down to hear "Long Dark Road" is the shorter radio edit. And what a bad edit it is! What could the people at Epic have been thinking? Fortunately, I found the long version on a music sharing network.

Nice CD:
It's a nice CD, that covers a wide sample of their work. It's a perfect gift for a person that isn't a fan of Hollies, but like this music.

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