Tracks : 01-wasure-enu kimi 02-let's live for today 03-kamisama onegai 04-namida wo egao ni 05-the legend of emerald 06-bokutachi no tenshi 07-okasan 08-himitsu no aikotoba 09-junai 10-namida no ato ni hohoemi wo 11-ame yo furanai de 12-hitoripotchi 13-kaeranakatta ken 14-shizukana arashi 15-everybody needs somebody 16-world without you 17-the end of love 18-shout of young blood 19-fukkatsu 20-ore no mono wa nani mo nai 21-dekirukai? dekirukai? 22-ai no soso 23-wakamono yo ai wo wasureruna 24-riyunaki hanko
Hoh
boy. Apparently, in the 60's Japan followed America's example with
regard to releasing singles; whereas the British concept of a "single"
tended to be a non-album track packaged with a B-side, in America
singles were often part of an album.
Consequently, The Tempters
"Singles Collection" is, without a doubt, essentially a "greatest hits"
collection, but a startlingly comprehensive one; generous portions of
their four major albums are sampled, to both good ends (you get TONS of
music here) and bad .... But if you're coming here from the GS I Love
You Too compilation, be advised that this is a *great* purchase.
Because
the Tempters were, for a brief period, an excellent little band. If
anything, if one wants to consider the graph of popularity and talent,
they were the Beatles of Japan, being almost as popular as pre-fab
groups like The Tigers but also being startlingly more talented
instrumentally, vocally, and (most importantly) with regard to their
homebrew songwriting talent. The band could swing easily from pumping
out Zombiesque pop numbers to Bee Gees styled orchestrated excess (as
their second album 5-1=0 shows...you get quite a bit of that here,
also). Indeed, their only real misfire was the "In Memphis" album, but
as that's essentially a Kenichi Hasigawa solo album, it's hard to count
that against 'em.
Is this compilation perfect? Not exactly.
While many of the tracks it doesn't sample from the first album make
sense (most of the covers, while excellent, probably weren't quite
single material), the lack of the startlingly good "All Day I Call Your
Name" is a big downside. Two, while it's nice to have the rare single
version of "Ame Yo Furanaide" on CD finally, the fact that it shows up
here only means that, irritatingly, the disc is a necessity and not
just a good introduction to the group. Thirdly, Teichiku's remastering
leaves quite a bit to be desired, and the overuse of no-noise here is
just as bad as on the standard catalogue discs.
In summary,
though, if one has a passing interest at all in pursuing the Japanese
GS period, this is a great purchase with which to begin. ~Customer Review
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