Sweet Talkin' Girls: The Best of the Chiffons

by

The Chiffons

Edit

I have only a couple of things to add. I second the notion that at last we have "What Am I Gonna Do With You (Hey Baby)" on CD...which is simply the most beautiful girl group record ever made. Bar none...it's that good.

And I'm not an expert on sound matters; I'll leave that to others. But no one has yet pointed out two very serious errors on this set that have to do not with sound quality, but with missing tracks. Both "Down Down Down" and "Thumbs Down" have ALL of the backing harmonies stripped away, leaving only Judy Craig's lead vocal. (The latter, in fact, may be an alternate take of the song, as the version on the original stereo LP has both Judy's lead and the backing harmonies all on one track, panned hard left, with all instruments on the right.)

It's hard to imagine how something this boneheaded could have been allowed to pass. As bad as it is, don't let it dissuade you from buying this set. The Chiffons' harmonies were miles ahead of any other girl groups, and they had a warm and wonderful lead vocalist in Judy Craig, and a very effective second lead vocalist for selected tracks in Sylvia.

Some of the finest girl group music ever is right here....don't miss it.

The Chiffons are surely one of the great overlooked girl groups. Their harmonious sounds are the things music lover's dreams are made of. This CD set is the first of its kind to actually offer TWO discs and 50 tracks spread out between them. It is, unfortunately, a victim of rather poor mastering, making some of the tracks sound fuzzy and not as good as on previous collections. For fans (like myself) who hoped this to be the definitive collection, it's a bit of a disappointment.

The good news about this set, is that it brings some rare tracks to CD for the first time. The girls' immaculate 1964 single, "What Am I Gonna Do With You (Hey Baby)" is finally here on disc, as is their last Laurie single, the lovely "Love Me Like You're Gonna Lose Me". BOTH of these are essential Chiffons listening, and it's hard to believe neither has seen a CD release before. Also on here are select B-sides as well as some tracks from their very rare, and superb B.T. Puppy album, "My Secret Love". Oddly, some of the tracks from that album which could have fit on the disc are not here, including their great original version of "It Hurts to Be Sixteen", later recorded by Andrea Carroll and Barbara Chandler.

With all these rare gems, why is this set such a bummer? The mastering is pitiful, that's why. Listening to these tracks on headphones, it's clear that many of them came from old vinyl (presumably due to the master tapes no longer being available). While that would be understandable, the mastering of those MONO tracks for this disc is bizarre, with much of the music coming out of one speaker, while the other emits mostly hiss. Why they couldn't (or simply didn't) phase these tracks to mono properly, is beyond me, and it just comes across as very careless and sloppy mastering. Stranger still, is that such well known (and easier to find) tracks, like "He's So Fine", sound muddy as well. Surely there are enough good copies of that around, they could have done better.

Despite all these things, I am glad to have some of these tracks on CD, though for the price, the packaging (with very skimpy liner notes) and especially the sound, could have been much better. To date, my favorite Chiffons collection on CD is the Greatest Recordings single disc, released by ACE in the early 90s. Sadly it is out of print now, but is worth finding. While all the tracks on that set are also on this one, I think the liner notes and sound on that earlier set, far surpass this one. Here's hoping that another, better set is out there in the future. The Chiffons legacy is certainly deserving of such.