Customer Reviews

Nuggets Psychedelic Era 65-68

5 star:		(68)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Nuggets was originally released in 1972 as a double album. It celebrated the garage rock music of the mid 60's with future Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye providing dead-on liner notes. The band's featured on the album laid the blueprint for such bands as The New York Dolls, The Stooges and Patti Smith as well as the punk movement. The songs are no nonsense, crazed out rockers with some psychedelia and dance tracks thrown in. Rhino Records has done an amazing job expanding the original double album into a four cd set. Some of the songs like The Kingsmen "Louie, Louie", Sam The Sham & Pharaoh's "Wooly Bully", The Outsiders' "Time Wont Let Me", The Human Beinz propulsive "Nobody But Me", The Musical Explosion's "Little Bit O' Soul", The Count Five's "Psychotic Reaction", The Castaways' "Liar, Liar" were all top ten hits with The Strawberry Alarm Clock's "Incense & Peppermint" going all the way to number one. For the most part, the collection is made up of obscure songs that were minor national hits and regional hits around the country. Songs like The Cryan Shames' searing "Sugar & Spice", The Barbarians' earnest "Moulty", The Lollipop Shoppe's pulsating "You Must Be A Witch", The Sonics' "Strychnine", Kim Fowley's spooky "The Trip", Rare Breed's (who became American Breed and scored a top ten hit with Bend Me, Shape Me) r&b flavored "Beg, Borrow & Steal", Richard & The Young Lions' stellar "Open Up Your Door", The Bees' buzzing "Voices Green & Purple" and The Palace Guards' bubble gummy "Falling Sugar" are all basically unknowns. But they all show an immense amount of heart and soul and the classic three chords and a dream philosophy of most bands out there. Some well known bands show up with some lesser known hits like The Turtles, Captain Beefheart and Paul Revere & The Raiders whose "Just Like Me" is an absolute rave-up. Some famous artists appear in their first or lesser known groups like Todd Rundgren with The Nazz on "Open Our Eyes, Ted Nugent on two songs from The Amboy Dukes, ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons with The 13th Floor Elevators and Creedence Clearwater Revival shows up under their original moniker, The Golliwogs, with the chooglin "Fight Fire". Other great songs include some semi-famous tracks like the frat rock classics "Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love" by The Swinging Medallions and The Premiers "Farmer John", The Standells' "Dirty Water", The Strangeloves "I Want Candy" which Bow Wow Wow would turn into a new wave staple, Love's influential "7 And 7 Is" and the Tex-ex stylings of The Hombres' "Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out)". Nuggets is an essential collection for any fan of rock to have in their collection.

I have never written a review about any item I have purchased before, but I just received my Nuggets box set and I LOVE it! You get four CDs of great music, a fantastic booklet with artwork, photos and information about each track, and a beautiful box to hold it all. I have been a fan of the psychedelic era since the 60s, so I already new a lot of these songs (my favorite being Psychotic Reaction by The Count Five), but I have now discovered some great songs that I hadn't heard before like Primitive by The Groupies and The Mojo Men's She's My Baby. Yes, I know there are a few obvious omissions, but there is enough great music here to keep you dancing all day long. I put off buying this box set for years, because of the price, but it honestly is worth every penny. If you're a fan of this music, buy Nuggets! It is a PERFECT box set.

Collecting the complete Lenny Kaye NUGGETS double-LP set that has gone down in the history books and adding 3 more CD's chockful of garage/punk/psychedelic classics you've never heard of, the NUGGETS boxed set is better than essential. It's QUINTESSENTIAL, the end-all meet-all of all 60s garage compilations.

Hardcore collectors will champion the PEBBLES and BACK TO THE GRAVE series as a better representation of the genre by unearthing rarer than rare singles, but the NUGGETS set is far more accessible and covers everything from Beatles-wannabes to guitar-slammin' pre-punk to trippy folk-rock to rhythmic vocal showcases. I won't bother pointing out all the highlights, as each disc is a non-stop smorgasbord of excellent music. Only a handful of songs could have easily been left out ("Louie Louie" by The Kingsmen and "Wooly Bully" by Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs are a little too obvious, and "At the River's Edge" by The New Colony Six is awful), and if the music wasn't enough, you get a thoroughly researched book packed with essays and track-by-track history on each song, including personnel and record info!

If you don't have this one yet, what are you waiting for?! Shame on you for hesitating this long!!

The original Nuggets double album is THE most influencial rock album in history.It has been lovingly recreated on the first disc of this set. If anything, the other discs are even stronger.The artwork and historical care that has gone into the info book in this package sets the standard for all who shall follow.If you are a young person who has drifted towards classic rock because of how bad the current scene is, this will demonstrate to you just how correct you are.You will still be listening to this set when you are eighty years old.Knock Knock by the Humane Society and Primitive by the Groupies are almost worth the price by themselves.And let us not forget the Voices Green and Purple.
Some of these were hits. And some of these go to auction when the originals are sold among collectors. It is a nice mix between the two.
As with everything however, this set is not perfect. The info booklet has an incredibly fragile binding and it will come apart on you in short order if you are not aware of it.Rhino should of hard bound it like a owners manual for a car.A small oversight that in no way diminishes that the fact that you MUST own this if you have any interest in Rock's history.

I NEVER, EVER in my whole life felt moved to write to a record company thanking them for the time and effort it took to pull a fabulous collection together for our entertainment's sake. But when I purchased my Nuggets box set in 1999, I was compelled to do just that. Five years later, I still can't find the words to adequately sum up my love of this set. I had already been familiar with alot of the songs thanks to Rhino's Nuggets album series of the '80's, and the fact that I'm the 9th of 11 kids. See, back in the mid sixties, I had older brothers and sisters who were buying records and going to dances on Saturday nights. My oldest brother had a set of drums in the Attic where I used to practice "Little Girl" by Syndicate of Sound while the rest of the kids were at school. (I was only 4 at the time) But I knew some of these songs because of the way they used to sell records in the 60's. You could buy a bundle of 10 used (juke boxes) 45's wrapped in cellophane at the local 5 & 10 for a dollar. You could only see the labels of the records on each end which meant that eight of them were pot luck. Since the records were always like new, this is how my older siblings would buy them, and we had TONS of them!
This set reminded me of EXACTLY how it was to buy based on only what you know and take a chance on the rest. And just like then, the investment paid off IN SPADES! This collection defies description. It's fantastic, stupendous, awesome, phenomenal and so much more! I'll NEVER tire of this set! I hope it stays in print forever!

OK, it helps to have been around in the '60s; that way you have a context to the tunes you get here, and most likely memories attached to at least some of them. Unlike some reviewers who say The Five Americans, Shadows of Knight, Cryan Shames, Swinging Medallions, the Castaways, The Leaves, Standells, etc, etc can't compare to the Beatles; artistically that's obviously true, but if you were a Top 40 music lover from the day, how can you NOT get into at least some of these, well, "nuggets?" You don't hear them all the time on the radio, which is a good thing all by itself, and really, lots of those garage-rock tracks are catchy (and deep down inside, you agree). Disc 4 is weaker than the others (although it does have "Louie Louie", which is NOT a song about getting lucky), the only drawback to this collection. Ignore those who proclaim that lesser-refined bands with less commercial success, like those you find on compilations like this, are not worth the time or money, but like I said, you'll appreciate "Nuggets" more if you were around in the late 1960s. Which, I guess, makes me a geezer. So be it.

I loved the "Loud & Fast" collection and have been listening to "No Thanks" over and over again ever since it's been released . Since I'm also a huge fan of what is actually known as Garage Rock , i.e. bands such as The Strokes , The Libertines or The White Stripes , I could have never imagine I'd be disapointed by those Nuggets .

The problem is actually quite simple : 80% of the songs collected here are forgetable and amateurish ; 10% could have barely been Stones or Beatles b-sides ; and 10% are huge hits , but you already own half of them .

Let us be honnest for a second : those songs were all meant to hit the mainstream radio , but they suck so much they just couldn't make it . If you love those songs because you think they are "interesting" , you get it all wrong . They were all written by young teenagers with no talent at all ; Those kids had never heard anything else but what was on the radio and could only ape the Stones to make something good . I wanted to burn a CD with my favorite Nuggets on it , but couldn't even fill more than 30 minutes of music . I thought it was not worth wasting a CD and sold the boxset the following day .

In my humble opinion however , everyone should take a look at those Nuggets to see what music was like in the 60s beside The Stones , The Beatles , The Byrds , The Doors , Cream etc etc ...
I would have actually been really excited to get this box as a birthday or christmas present . But if you can't borrow it to a friend , avoid buying it . It's really not worth it .

For those boomers who were in college in the '60s and partied their way to graduation, you'll recognize many of the tracks from radio play of the day, garage band covers, and fraternity house record players. The great party songs are here.

Who can forget the catchy tunes "Louie, Louie", "Double Shot of My Baby's Love", "Nobody But Me", "Time Won't Let Me", "Talk, Talk", and "Pushin' Too Hard".

If you are looking for the 'Stones, Creedence, Doors, and the other mainstream acts of the day, they are not here. What is here is American rock music from the hard working, one or two hit wonders of the day. The heart and soul of the creative process starting in a garage and making it big for a year or two is what has been captured here.

As others have noted in their reviews, there are about 20-25 must have hits from this collection. While extracting my favorite 22 songs from this collection and buring to a single CD, I discovered the track index is off by one at the start of the second disk. Select the song BEFORE the one you want on disks 2 to 4 and straighten out labels on your copy.

Wonderful.

Perfect Time Capsule of the American 60's rock scene. Let's hope that Rhino puts out another collection. Would have loved to have seen Bobby Fuller's "I Fought The Law" in this set, although I don't know if that is garage rock. This set is a breath of fresh air compared to close minded "Classic Rock" radio stations that play the same songs over and over. Throw away your radio and put on Nuggets!

....but maybe if it was like this all the time, we wouldn't appreciate it as much. Garage spirit stands in stark contrast to lazy established groups like U2 & REM, in that they are spontaneous, passionate, and make little sense, as long as they got a good beat. I noticed a couple hooks that showed up in major 60s groups like the Doors, they didn't just steal from the Kinks!

This was mentioned in another review, but it's disappointing that "96 Tears" isn't included, along with "Black is Black" and "I Aint Talkin". Otherwise, this is a very invigorating set.

I can only hope they come out with Nuggets III because garage rock is still out there. I remember listening to a college radio station and they played songs like "Go Go Boots" by a group called Risky Shift. I looked all over and couldn't find them anywhere. This song came out in the early 90s. Hopefully the disc hunters at Rhino can dig these lost gems out. My ears will be waiting.