Product Description

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Media Type: CD
Artist: STYLISTICS
Title: BEST OF STYLISTICS
Street Release Date: 01/01/1987
Domestic
Genre: SOUL/R & B

Track Listing

1. You Make Me Feel Brand New
2. Betcha by Golly, Wow
3. Rockin' Roll Baby
4. Break Up to Make Up
5. You're a Big Girl Now
6. I'm Stone in Love With You
7. Heavy Fallin' Out
8. Let's Put It All Together
9. You Are Everything
10. People Make the World Go Round

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3449 in Music
• Brand: STYLISTICS
• Released on: 2009-02-10
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .19 pounds

Amazon.com
This is an early collection that gathers the group's hits up to 1975. While they continued to make the charts (albeit sporadically) for another decade, the Stylistics' golden years had drawn to a close by the time this record hit the stands, so almost all of their key tracks are here. Best of the Stylistics Vol. 2 and All-Time Classics cover different bases, while Greatest Love Hits is a theme compilation with some overlap. Yet another compilation, Very Best of the Stylistics, largely has the same material as the Best of... package. For an exhaustive selection of the group's best work, you'll have to go to the original albums. Top picks: The Stylistics, Round 2, and Let's Put It All Together. --Gavin McNett

Customer Reviews

Strokes of brilliance.
Wow! They sure don't make music like this anymore. The Stylistics were an incredible group, and they released some of the most romantic (and heartbreaking) songs ever recorded. "You Make Me Feel Brand New" is one of those slow jams that can make even the hardest of hearts believe in love, while "You Are Everything" still sounds gorgeous after all these years. My only gripe? "Stop, Look, and Listen to Your Heart" is not on this collection, but that's a small inconvenience when you consider the other brilliant tracks that ARE here. Fans of the old school won't need my recommendation to get this disc, and younger listeners should definitely pick this one up.

Stylistics Best of A Philly Feather For Group, Songwriter
"The Best of The Stylistics" is another Philadelphia feather for legendary producer Thom Bell and his songwriting partner, the late Linda Creed. Like DeBergerac to Roxanne in literature, Bell and Creed could have asked for no warmer, more precise voice than Stylistics lead singer Russell Thompkins, Jr. singing some of their (and the 70s') most romantic urban poetry.

Bell's soaring melodies and lush arrangements met Creed's words (and Thompkins' voice) head on. You hear the painful chance meeting that wasn't in "You Are Everything," the synthesized winter chill starting "People Make The World Go Round," the soul daydreaming in "I'm Stone In Love With You," the dramatic, expansive introduction to Airrion Love's gentle first verse on "You Make Me Feel Brand New." None of this was new to fans of romantic harmony music the previous 30 years; in other hands it might well have been considered schmaltzy and too pop. But the Stylistics and their collaborators updated the ingredients to the lives they led, and town (Philadelphia) they lived and worked in. That explains the music's timelessness, even to Prince's tribute cover of "Betcha By Golly Wow."

This collection misses an important hit, "Stop, Look, Listen," and the group needs a career-spanning compilation. Even so, this early "Best of The Stylistics" chronicles more than the best of one classic soul group. It ranks among the best of a time, a city, and a legendary musical team, and is recommended for fans of each.

Quality Never Goes Out Of Style
Certain soul groups are so smooth and beautiful to the ear that they reach way inside to a pleasure center that doesn't get tickled any other way. The Delfoncis come to mind, and so do the Stylistics. Both groups came from Philly, and both were backed by producer Thom Bell who relied on lyrics from Linda Creed. Both featured soaring falsettos, in the case of the Stylistics it was Russell Thompkins who led the way. While ultimately the Stylistics did not have the staying power the Delphonics would enjoy, their highs were just as high and they left us with some pop standards that will never go out of style.

As long as there is romance, there will be reason enough to put on the Stylistics, and this CD delivers the "must-have" cuts in one neat package. Their anthem, People Make The World Go Round, sounds as fresh, sweet, and relevant today as when it was released. Betcha By Golly, Wow says what every lover wants to say and every lover wants to hear. Break Up To Make Up is bittersweet stuff, stinging with truth. You Are Everything is another ballad of crystalline beauty, as is Let's Put It All Together. Even the second-best songs on this disc were big hits in their day; this is a highly select offering. Everybody likes to rock out and everybody likes to Wang Chung, but if there's a part of you that resonates with the gentle vulnerability of love offered up like a flower, you will find that this music wraps you like a warm coat in winter and a welcome breeze in summer. Betcha by golly, wow, you're the one that I've been waiting for.