The Lovin' Spoonful Greatest Hits is a compilation album by the folk-rock band the Lovin' Spoonful. Released in 2000 on Buddha Records, the compilation marked the first digital remaster of the band's material taken from the original multi-track master tapes, which had been rediscovered after having been lost for decades. The album contains every Top 40 hit single enjoyed by the band in the United States including its only chart-topper, "Summer in the City." The original recordings were produced by Erik Jacobsen, and originally released on Kama Sutra Records.
| The Lovin' Spoonful Greatest Hits | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Compilation album by | ||||
| Released | February 22, 2000 | |||
| Recorded | 1965–1968 | |||
| Genre | Folk rock | |||
| Length | 67:28 | |||
| Label | Buddha | |||
| Producer |
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| The Lovin' Spoonful chronology | ||||
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Release and reception
edit| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |  [1] |
| MSN Music (Consumer Guide) | A−[2] |
After the Lovin' Spoonful's dissolution in 1968,[3] many of the band's original multi-track master tapes were lost.[4][5] The band's earliest CD reissues were instead made from the best available stereo masters,[5] leaving the material sounding substandard when compared to reissues of other 1960s music.[6] After rediscovering the first-generation master-tapes, Buddha Records issued Greatest Hits as the first digital remaster of the band's material.[1][7]
Greatest Hits was released on February 22, 2000.[8] The compilation features 26 tracks,[1] including the Lovin' Spoonful's first seven singles, all of which reached the U.S. Top Ten upon initial release.[2] In his review of the album for AllMusic, Hal Horowitz described its sound as possessing "a crispness and definition previously unheard", and he counted it as the band's most essential one-disc compilation.[1] The critic Robert Christgau described it as a slight improvement on the band's 1990 compilation Anthology, and he added that there are only a few weak tracks in the selection which "slow down its historical mission of evoking the balmy upsurge to the Summer of Love like no other body of music".[2]
Track listing
editAll tracks are written by John Sebastian and produced by Erik Jacobsen, except as noted.
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References
edit- ^ a b c d Horowitz, Hal. "Greatest Hits [Buddha]". AllMusic. Archived from the original on May 14, 2023. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
- ^ a b c Christgau, Robert (March 29, 2013). "The Lovin' Spoonful". MSN Music. Retrieved September 15, 2023.
- ^ Miles 2009, p. 232.
- ^ Rucker 1996, p. 423: "Many of the masters for Spoonful recordings have long been destroyed, which makes more reissues unlikely."
- ^ a b Anon. (1995). Do You Believe in Magic / Hums (Liner notes). The Lovin' Spoonful. Kama Sutra, Replay. 75517 49500 2.
Digitally remastered from the best available stereo master tapes. Unfortunately, all efforts to locate the multitrack session tapes over the years have been unsuccessful.
- ^ Ruhlmann, William. " Do You Believe in Magic/Hums". AllMusic. Archived from the original on February 27, 2023. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
- ^ Anon. (2000). Greatest Hits (Liner notes). The Lovin' Spoonful. Buddha. 74465 99716 2.
... digitally remastered for the first time from the long lost first generation master tapes.
- ^ Marine, Craig (February 21, 2000). "Playlist". San Francisco Examiner. pp. B-2, B-9 – via Newspapers.com.
The record, due out on Feb. 22 ...
Sources
edit- Miles, Barry (2009). The British Invasion. New York City: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. ISBN 978-1-4027-6976-4 – via Google Books.
- Rucker, Leland (1996). "Lovin' Spoonful / John Sebastian". In Graff, Gary (ed.). MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide. Detroit, Michigan: Visible Ink Press. pp. 422–423. ISBN 0-7876-1037-2.