Seals & Crofts - Greatest Hits

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This Audio CD Music was reviewed on 4-Nov-2008.

Seals & Crofts - Greatest Hits Reference Music. Classifications : General Pop Styles Music Singer-Songwriters Pop Styles Music Soft Rock Pop Styles Music CD Album CD Format (binding) Refinements Music Imports Import (location_browse-bin) Refinements Music .

Related topics: General. Pop. Styles. Music. Singer-Songwriters. Pop. Styles. Music. Soft Rock. Pop.

1) Audio CD Music Seals & Crofts - Greatest Hits by . Seals & Crofts were an early 1970s outfit that gave us some beautiful songs. The essence of their sound is elegant vocal harmony. The style veers from folkie soft rock to funky blue-eyed soul in the vein of Hall and Oates. Now and then the lyrics can be downright trite and twee, but the melodies make up for that deficiency. I doubt that every track on this album was really a hit: the only songs that made the charts were Summer Breeze, Hummingbird, East Of Ginger Trees, Diamond Girl, We May Never Pass This Way Again and I´ll Play For You.

When I Meet Them is a nice singalong number of hippy optimism with a hint of country, whilst Diamond Girl with its tempo variation provides the first example of their gorgeous harmonies and catchy hooks. Hummingbird is a tender and subdued ditty with a spiritual undertone, and East Of Ginger Trees has appealing instrumental passages and eventually rousing vocals, after the first few verses where the vocals bring James Taylor to mind.

Another of my favourites is I´ll Play For You, a melodious pop ditty with gripping vocals. Ruby Jean And Billy Lee is a sensitive ballad with lovely piano, whilst King Of Nothing is a charming uptempo number. Then comes the highlight of the album and Seals And Crofts´ finest achievement: the magnificent Summer Breeze. With its evocative poetic lyrics, impeccable vocals and exquisite arrangement, this song is a most enchanting gem.

This duo is considered part of the early 1970s singer-songwriter artists, on the sweeter side. And it is true that some of the sentiments in their lyrics sound very dated, even silly. But there is an undeniable charm in their music. Summer Breeze is a piece of magic that is worth the price of the album, although it is not a complete collection of their best music.

Classic Soft Rock: Summer Breeze 2-cd Set!¤

2) Audio CD Music Seals & Crofts - Greatest Hits by . This CD is a reissue of the original 1975 vinyl album. Therein lies the problem. Seals and Crofts crafted excellent lyrics and music in superb style that showed in song after song. Their catalog of "best of" or "greatest" is larger than the 10 songs from the 1975 collection, including at least 3 top 40 songs released after this compilation. Even though there are numerous 70s artists that have various definitive collections, Jim Seals and Dash Crofts seem to have been overlooked.

The songs on this collection are a good representation of Seals and Crofts up to 1975, though there are several other good songs from this era that could be included on a new collection. Until a nearly full CD collection appears with closer to 80 minutes of music, this 40 minute collection is the closest you can achieve to an overview of Seals and Crofts. For artists underrepresented by their compilations I usually recommend the individual CDs. Unfortunately most of Seals and Crofts´ albums are not readily available.

Seals and Crofts were a very good team, and crafted well-written, beautiful music. The music on this collection gets 5 stars. Given we are in the CD era, the lack of a more comprehensive collection gets 2 stars, but I´ll keep the rating for the CD at 4 stars because Seals and Crofts should not be penalized for the inadequacy of the only available Seals and Crofts collection.
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3) Audio CD Music Seals & Crofts - Greatest Hits by . Seals & Crofts have it all, great harmony, great talent on numerous musical instruments and great song writing! It´s too bad the people who could make it better with more great hits that came later have failed to do do. Where´s ´Get Closer´, ´My Fair Share´, ´You´re The Love´, and others? K-TEL´s Collection had more but not on CD. Unless you can collect individual albums or cassettes to compile your own ´Best of´, this will have to do until the powers that be realize the demand for more!!!!!!
Enjoy!¤

4) Audio CD Music Seals & Crofts - Greatest Hits by . This is likely the most under-appreciated of the groups populating the popular music scene in the late sixties and early seventies. Like another fringe duo, Brewer and Shipley, whose evocative lyrics and memorable arrangements (which are largely unavailable today, especially their terrific "Shake Off The Demon" album) propelled them into the spotlight with its like "One Toke Over The Line" and "Tarkio Road", Brewer and Shipley were never taken as seriously as the content of their music deserved. Much of what they write and sing is organized around their religious beliefs, and this is easy to discover in most of what they say in the songs populating this greatest hits album. Their problem seemed to be that they encased a lot of meaningful lyrics into a very sweet and light sound that critics mistook for lightweight material, and they consequently scoffed at them.

Yet their fame and popularity endures, and is deserved for a group who dominated the charts with "Diamond Girl", "Hummingbird", "I´ll Play For You", and "We May Never Pass This Way Again", all chart-toppers and mainly from a single album, "Summer Breeze". Of course, "Summer Breeze" itself was a number one hit, and is till a perennial favorite for FM play. Do yourself a favor and read the lyrics as you listen along, though, and you will discover what sweet, loving, and compassionate human beings these two erstwhile escapees from the deep poverty of the rural South really are. If you listen you just can´t miss it. My personal favorites here are "Ruby Jean and Billie Lee" (their wives´ names), and of course, "I´ll Play For You". Let them play for you too, real soon. Add this wonderful compilation to your collection, and then enjoy it!¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 2-Dec-2008, 4943674126026, GDB-8

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