If You Loved It Once,
You'll Love It A Twentieth Time

by Will 'The Cranky Music Man' Golightly

There was damn near nothing happening last week, being a holiday and all, so we’ll just take a quick overview of the few noteworthy releases announced recently. Since the major reason for last week’s news blackout was the celebration of our super duper country’s birthday, we’ll start with that most American of musical genres: no, not jazz—doo-wop.

The invaluable Rhino Records is one of the only reissue label that gets major space on the record store racks. The reason is that they sell a little bit of sugar with the medicine; they dress up the archival material in kitsch and nostalgia. I understand that they need to sell records to survive, and they do an excellent balancing act. For each repackaging of the same ten disco songs, there’s a fine Desmond Dekker ("Israelites") compilation, or a collection of Billy Bragg B-sides.

One of their crown jewels is the doo-wop box series. Several Years ago, they put out The Doo-Wop Box: 101 Vocal Group Gems. It is as strong as a four disc box has any right to be. Later they unleashed The Doo-Wop Box II on the world; it took some liberties but is still a necessary purchase for anyone interested in popular music before the Beatles.

Perhaps they’ve reached the end of the line, however. This August Rhino will release The Doo-Wop Box III, but what I hear about it does not inspire confidence. Favorite doo-wop songs picked by Keith Richards, Quincy Jones, George Carlin (!), and others does not a box set make. And they say it will include "modern doo-wop", ´ la Boyz II Men. Okay, Rhino isn’t perfect (Gary Glitter’s greatest hits, anyone?). But they deserve all the success in the world.

Doo-wop is a fascinating segment of the Fifties music scene, but the biggest turning point in pop music was just around the corner: the Beatles. For all their embarrassing solo albums, super-groups, and political causes, the post-breakup handling of the Beatles legacy has been excellent. Up until the last few years, one could say spotless, even. Remove any thought of the useless Anthology series, gimmicky reissue of "The White Album" and Yellow Submarine, and especially the "Free As A Bird" debacle. What you have left is a sensible issuing of the original British l.p.s on crisp sounding compact disc, one "best-of" overview on two discs (the "Red" and "Blue" albums), and two compilations of non-album singles and other tracks (Past Masters one and two).

For the albums released before Sgt. Pepper’s, the Beatles’ U.S. label (Capitol) was able to mix and match tracks and singles, so that they could have extra albums to release (and sell). For example, by shaving songs off Rubber Soul and Revolver, Capitol could get another album in between the two, called ‘Yesterday’…And Today, featuring the infamous "butcher" cover. So the back catalogue needed some cleaning up.

The bad news is that a Beatles best-of album is slated to come out in November. I haven’t seen a track listing yet, but it will almost certainly be portions of the "Red" and "Blue" collections. This is the final straw. I implore anyone reading this to avoid the album like the plague. And go buy the first Doo-wop Box. It’s good for you.