The Queens-based Shangri-Las brought sex, tragedy and the darker side of teenage love to a nation still reeling from the death of JFK, bored with Bobby Darin and just beginning to discover long hair in Liverpool.
The group's "Best Of" features lead vocalist Mary Weiss laying waste to the "look, don't touch!" sexual repression of the era on 25 heart-wrenching, echo-laden, drama-filled odes to bad boys, forbidden love, quivering anticipation, loss of virginity, teenage pregnancy, dead lovers and furtive meetings with leather-jacketed guys who were, "good/bad - but not evil." Among the brilliantly maudlin, end-of-the-world songs included are: "Remember (Walkin' In The Sand)," "Leader Of The Pack," "I Can Never Go Home Anymore," "Dressed In Black" and "Never Again."
Not quite as successful and more doo-wop based than The Shangri-Las, New Jersey's Angels are best remembered for 1961s "'Till" and their 1963 hits, "My Boyfriend's Back" and "I Adore Him."
Limited to the songs their producers (which included future Go Go's svengali Richard Gottehrer) provided, the group occasionally found themselves saddled with novelty tunes like "The Guy With The Black Eye," "Little Beatle Boy" and "Wow Wow Wee! (He's The Boy For Me)"; Top 10 sound-alikes such as "I Adore Him" and "(He Is) The Kissing Kind" and hilariously-titled trash like "My Boyfriend's Woody." Despite the miss-fires, at least half of these 25 tracks are keepers.
Although the bulk of her chart-toppers came in 1963-64, the 52-song Lesley Gore retrospective includes songs waxed through 1969 and features the New Jersey singer's distinctive, albeit slight, lisp prominently on several rare B-sides, four unreleased tunes, nine never-before-on-an-album tracks, two-or-three obvious Supremes rejects, a weak version of "Wedding Bell Blues" and classic hits such as "It's My Party," "Judy's Turn To Cry," "She's A Fool," "You Don't Own Me," "Maybe I Know" and "California Nights."
The cream of Mercury's reissue series, however, is the 50-song Growin' Up Too Fast: The Girl Group Anthology.
Just as the success of the Beatles, Elvis and Pearl Jam spawned imitators of dubious talent and intent, the girl group craze of the early-'60s begat its own unique brand of imitation cheese.
While the set includes hits from major acts such as The Shangri-Las, Connie Francis, Dusty Springfield and The Angels - it's one-hit wonders from long-forgotten artists like Kenni Woods and Diane Renay, no-hit wonders from The Paris Sisters, The Sham-Ettes, Ginny Arnell and The Bobbi-Pins and the truly horrible, occasionally hilarious attempts to cash in from The Secrets, The Nu-Luvs, Sadina, Diane Ray, The Pixies Three and The Whyte Boots that make the record an essential addition to any collection.
