 "golden nuggets shining brightly !!!" | 2008-06-28 |
| - Reviewed By ma1963 |
Nuggets: A Classic Collection From the Psychedelic Sixties has quite a few killer classics on it and if you like psychedelic music from the awesome `60s this CD is made just for you! The sound is excellent and the artwork is very nicely done. There is a good diversity of artists on this disc, too.
The CD starts with The Standells doing their awesome hit entitled "Dirty water." "Dirty Water" has a catchy melody and you won't forget this tune anytime soon if you haven't heard it already! "Dirty Water" just doesn't start the album; it's also a highlight of this CD. Great! The guitar work is excellent as The Standells sing and play this one up right! The Count Five also do their "Psychotic Reaction;" this classic golden nugget shines bright with some great percussion and guitar work--how about that musical interlude jam session? Even if it is comparatively brief, the interlude is still excellent rock music. The Easybeats also do a fantastic hit, "Friday On My Mind." "Friday On My Mind" has great harmonizing and it's always been one of my favorite hits from back in the day.
The Five Americans do "I See The Light" with lots of positive energy; and the electric guitar is perfect for this tune! Listen also for The Syndicate Of Sound doing their hit "Little Girl." "Little Girl" is instantly recognizable for us people who like their `60s rock. It has a fine psychedelic rock flavor to it and The Syndicate Of Sound never misses a beat, either! "Little Girl" is another major highlight of this album. The Monkees follow with "Pleasant Valley Sunday;" this tune sounds really fine and it fits in well with the other tracks on this CD.
"Laugh, Laugh" by The Beau Brummels has a great melody that I always enjoyed; and when I hear this song I cannot help but smile. Sure, the lyrics may not be the happiest; but it's a great song and it's very well arranged. "Laugh, Laugh" really has a great flavor to it and the harmonica is used very well. There's also The Troggs doing their huge hit called "Wild Thing;" they handle the complicated tempo and key changes like pros!
The Monkees do "Valleri" with all their might--and just one listen proves it! "Valleri" is an underappreciated number if you ask me. I really like the catchy melody of "Valleri" and if you like this type of music you're going to love this tune. "Just A Little" shows The Beau Brummels back again with another hit of theirs; "Just A Little" is very beautiful and this rock ballad impresses me.
The Seeds sing and play "Can't Seem To Make You Mine" with heart and soul; and the CD ends nicely with The Amboy Dukes performing "Journey To The Center Of The Mind." This psychedelic rock tune makes the perfect ending for this album--and there's great harmonizing, too!
Overall, Nuggets: A Classic Collection From the Psychedelic Sixties has a lot to like on it! I highly recommend this album for people who like psychedelic rock from the `60s and people who enjoy music from The British Invasion will enjoy this album, too.
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 "An excellent garage rock sampler" | 2007-07-22 |
| - Reviewed By mr105601 |
This is one of several albums (LPs, CDs, and Box Sets alike) to bear the title of "Nuggets." Specifically, it's the first entry in a three part series, originally released by Rhino Records in the mid-80s. The series was intended to be a companion to Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968, a double LP released by Elektra Records in 1972. Rhino would go on to release a four-disc box set of the same title (which is probably the most famous member of the Nuggets family) in the mid 90s. The box set included all of the tracks from the 1972 LP.
The purpose of Nuggets (the LP, the series, and the box set) was to reissue undeservedly little-known, forgotten, or just plain obscure rock 'n' roll tunes from the mid '60s, and this is achieved with remarkable success. In fact, the box set (especially the 27 tracks that made up the original LP) is pretty much essential listening for anyone who even remotely cares about rock music. The kind of music found on a Nuggets album is wild, exuberant, and (usually) brilliant, a pocket-sized summation of just why rock 'n' roll is so great. Although not as stunnignly good as the box set, this disc is also an excellent listen for several reasons.
For one thing, it has 12 tracks in common with the box set (and 6 with the original LP), making it an excellent introduction to the Nuggets sound for someone who doesn't want to shell out the cash for a four disc set. They're also stunning songs in their own right: The Standells' "Dirty Water" is a strutting slice of bluesy proto-punk with a mean little guitar lick and some snarling vocals, while The Chocolate Watchband's "Let's Talk About Girls" threatens to outdo the bloody mindedness and raw sexuality of the 'Stones. The Count Five's "Psychotic Reaction" is a ridiculously catchy two-chord smasher that brilliantly apes the Yardbirds (and sets the template for hundreds of other garage bands to follow), while the Seeds sound brilliantly bizarre on "Pushin' Too Hard" and "Can't Seem To Make You Mine." The Amboy Dukes bridge the gap between psychedelia and hard rock on "Journey To the Center of the Mind" (which features a young Ted Nugent slaughtering his guitar!), and the Knickerbockers craft the ultimate Beatles soundalike with "Lies." Of the six tracks that aren't on the box set, the Easybeats' "Friday On My Mind" and the Troggs' ubiquitous classic "Wild Thing" are strong highlights.
Still, this isn't a perfect disc. Since you really should have the box set in your collection, twelve of these tracks are redundant. Also, the inclusion of two songs by the Monkees ("Valleri" and "Pleasant Valley Sunday") is a little odd, as those songs are widely available elsewhere. They're not bad songs, though. A lot of these songs don't really measure up to the standards set by the box set- the 6 songs that don't overlap with the set (yes, even "Wild Thing" and "Friday On My Mind") pale in comparison to the other 12, and drag down the pleasure factor by a bit. They're not terrible songs, of course, just not quite as good as the others.
Still, for someone just getting accquainted with the world of Nuggets, this is an excellent first purchase. Just remember to come back for more! |
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| "Great late-60s music!" | 2007-07-05 |
| - Reviewed By beatles0223 |
One hit wonders? Sure (for the most part). Great music? You bet!
I have always been drawn to the music of the 1960s, particularly the late-1960s, and the three "Nuggets" CDs really whetted my appetite for more of the same.
While The Beatles, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, and others ruled the charts with hit after hit, the groups featured here were majority one-hit wonders, "garage bands," call it whatever you want, but it's those one-hit wonders that people love and fondly associate with this time period (I know I do with stuff from the 1990s, so I can relate to the nostalgic feelings from "dinosaurs" here).
As one listens to the tracks, you can feel the youthful energy of the times, the protest against all the so-called norms, and of young people wanting to find their own way in life as opposed to having it predetermined for them. Other songs are about drugs (oh me, oh my!) and so what? That doesn't make them any less enjoyable.
I listen to this CD from start to finish everytime and enjoy every song, but "Open My Eyes" by The Nazz and "Journey to the Center of the Mind" by The Amboy Dukes are two great tunes that keep me jamming. I find that the more I listen to it, the more I appreciate some tunes I didn't pay enough attention to the first six hundred times around.
It's wise to buy all three "Nuggets" CDs as opposed to buying just the compilation. You'd be cheating yourself out of some great music if you did. - Donna Di Giacomo |
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| "A fantastic intro to the Nuggets universe." | 2007-04-01 |
| - Reviewed By thisisntreallymyname |
The first volume of Rhino's stellar Nuggets series, this disc contains some of the finest pseudo-obscure rock and roll ever to be cut in the 60s. The disc includes a mixture of classics that appeared on the original 1972 Nuggets LP (such as The Standells' snarling garage rocker "Dirty Water," the Count Five's rip-friggin' Yardbirds knockoff "Psychotic Reaction," and the Knickerbockers' "Lies," which a-l-m-o-s-t beats the Beatles at their own game), as well as a few masterpieces that would eventually appear on Rhino's box set re-release (The Beau Brummels wonderfully muted folk-rocker "Laugh Laugh," The Amboy Dukes' proto-metallic psychedelic guitar extraviganza "Journey To The Center of the Mind," and The Seeds' weird, wonderful post-doo wop garage punker "Can't Seem To Make You Mine," for example). On top of that, you get some fantastic garage-punkers from The Easybeats (just listen to the awesome "Friday on my Mind"), as well as The Troggs' mind-bender "Wild Thing." The compilers have also made the odd choice of including two tracks by the Monkees- not exactly an obscure band. Thankfully, the two songs aren't the cliched choices, and they're both fantastic pop tunes.
All in all, Nuggets is a superb, and compared the price of the box set, economical introduction to the world of overlooked 60s rock n roll. If you've had the pleasure of hearing this type of music, pick this record up right now! |
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| "A prize for boomers... and maybe their kids." | 2006-06-30 |
| - Reviewed By foldingkayaks |
Psychadelic? I don't think I'd call most of the tunes on this album psychdelic, save perhaps the great Nazz "Open My Eyes" and the Dukes' "Journey to the Center of Your Mind.". But almost every tune here brings back great memories of my childhood, listening to amazing the new music that was coming in the wake of the great British invasion bands.
When we think of 60s music, we tend to think of the real monsters of that time, like The Beatles, Cream, Hendrix, the Doors, and so forth, but most of what we listened to was more like what you'd find on this album- great pop tunes recoded by bands with just one or two hits. Listening to this collection will bring back great memories for the over 50 crowd, and show the kids today just how much the current wave of pop owes to those who were performing back when grampa and grandma were tooling around in a VW Microbus. |
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| "Bright Fringe of the British Invasion" | 2006-02-06 |
| - Reviewed By borthwick_hall |
| -You don't have to believe that any of the songs on this well-chosen collection is "a pop classic easily surpassing anything by the Beatles" (as the feverish CD notes by Greg Shaw state) to enjoy the energy and, at times, quirkiness of the music. The comparison to the Beatles is apt because many of the groups here were touted as either "the next Beatles" (The Easybeats) or "the American answer to the Beatles" (The Beau Brummels, The Monkees). The rest of the groups were "the next Rolling Stones" or "the American answer to The Rolling Stones." The rush to get through the door that those two bands blew open resulted in music that was by turns imitative of, suggestive of, or hinting-at-while-trying-something-a-bit-different-than what the forerunners did. It hardly mattered that the forerunners had moved on to more adventurous music. This CD captures the optimism of young musicians who saw that some guitars and a drum set when applied enthusiastically backing tight (and not-so-tight) harmonies might just conquer the world, or at least that month's Billboard charts. When listening to the sometimes raw and awkward expressions of these groups (the proto-slick Monkees excepted) it helps to have been too young to vote when this music was first released, but is apparently not a requirement. Cue up this CD and don't sit back to enjoy it -- get up and move. |
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| "60s garage rock rocks!" | 2005-07-14 |
| - Reviewed By hoatzin57 |
| i brought this album from barnes and nobles just to see what it sounded like, since im a big fan of the 60s. i love this album! the original versions of the garage rock classics. i especially like the songs I see the light and why pick on me, which i never even heard of before i got the album. another great rhino compilation! |
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| "Most of the Nuggets You Need" | 2005-06-26 |
| - Reviewed By danlektro |
If you believe rock and roll should be fun to listen to, rather than an obligation or a chore, you owe it to yourself to listen to this CD.
Rhino Records has a lot of different single CDs and boxed sets that carry the "Nuggets" title. Way back in the early 1970s, the "Nuggets" anthology was intended to collect songs recorded by the great mid-1960s American garage bands. This collection casts the net a bit wider, including songs by British Invasion protopunks like the Troggs, the underrated Aussie band the Easybeats, and the Monkees. All these songs were recorded by bands that simply didn't have very long recording lives, and the lion's share are one-hit wonders.
This is also one of the greatest rock and roll CDs of all time.
Bands like the Standells, the Count Five and the Chocolate Watchband may have tried their best to imitate the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds, but ended up with a uniquely teenaged American identity of their own. Listening to this CD will take you back to a time before magazines like Rolling Stone existed, when no one in his right mind expected a rock star to have a serious opinion about politics, and when music was FUN rather than pretentious. All the songs here are short and performed passionately, no matter how primitive the musicians' abilities by today's standards. "Lies," for example, is probably the best Beatles knockoff ever recorded because the Knickerbockers were clearly having the times of their lives pretending to be the Fab Four (even if they couldn't follow up with anything even remotely as good). In a sense, this is punk rock before its time, but these are punks that didn't want to change the world. They only wanted to play rock and roll music. And, luckily, there were enough small, local labels out there that this music could not only be recorded but be local hits.
If you're tired of the bloated, formulaic, plodding music that passes for mainstream rock today, "Nuggets" provides the perfect antidote. There are several other volumes available, including boxed sets, but most of the cream of the crop are collected right here. |
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| "great album!" | 2005-03-24 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3UN6WX5RRO2AG |
| this album is terrific. it has all of the songs in their original versions from the 1960s. my favorites include lies, lets talk about girls, i see the light, and why pick on me. This is also a great album for a 60s acid rock fan. |
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| "Groovy Stuff" | 2004-08-26 |
| - Reviewed By aerostonefloyd |
| If you want some of the great one hit wonder garage rock classics from the psychedelic 60's at a reasonable price on one CD than this is the place to go. These songs are lost gems. Lo-fi psychedelic magic is just waiting to envelope you! If you like 60's rock, than this is a great buy. |
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