Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Splish Splash - Bobby Darin
2. Dream Lover - Bobby Darin
3. Stupid Cupid - Connie Francis
4. Oh! Carol - Neil Sedaka
5. Stairway to Heaven - Neil Sedaka
6. Breaking Up Is Hard to Do - Neil Sedaka
7. Where the Boys Are - Connie Francis
8. Calendar Girl - Neil Sedaka
9. Everybody's Somebody's Fool - Connie Francis
10. Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen - Neil Sedaka
11. Who Put the Bomp (In the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp) - Barry Mann
12. Hushabye - The Mystics
13. Teenager in Love - Dion & the Belmonts
14. Turn Me Loose
15. I Love How You Love Me - The Paris Sisters
16. Halfway to Paradise - Tony Orlando
17. Take Good Care of My Baby - Bobby Vee
18. Run to Him - Bobby Vee
19. Bless You - Tony Orlando
20. Will You Love Me Tomorrow - The Shirelles

Disc 2:

1. Spanish Harlem - Ben E. King
2. Stand by Me - Ben E. King
3. On Broadway - The Drifters
4. Up on the Roof - The Drifters
5. Only in America - Jay & the Americans
6. Every Breath I Take - Gene Pitney
7. What's a Matter Baby (Is It Hurting You) - Timi Yuro
8. Foolish Little Girl - The Shirelles
9. Don't Ever Change - The Crickets
10. Crying in the Rain - The Everly Brothers
11. I Can't Stay Mad at You - Skeeter Davis
12. Hey Girl - Freddie Scott
13. Oh No, Not My Baby - Maxine Brown
14. Patches - Dickey Lee
15. My Dad - Paul Peterson
16. Her Royal Majesty - Darren, James
17. Rumors - Johnny Crawford
18. It Hurts to Be in Love - Gene Pitney

Disc 3:

1. Kind of Boy You Can't Forget - The Raindrops
2. Do Wah Diddy Diddy - Manfred Mann, Manfred Mann
3. When the Boy's Happy (The Girl's Happy Too) - The Four Pennies
4. It Might as Well Rain Until September - Carole King
5. Loco-Motion - Little Eva
6. Chains - The Cookies
7. Keep Your Hands off My Baby - Little Eva
8. Don't Say Nothin' Bad (About My Baby) - The Cookies
9. I'm into Something Good - Earl-Jean
10. Johnny Loves Me - Shelley Fabares
11. My One and Only, Jimmy Boy - The Girlfriends
12. He Don't Love Me - Shelley Fabares
13. Please Don't Wake Me - The Cinderellas
14. I Never Dreamed - The Cookies
15. One Fine Day - The Chiffons
16. Needles and Pins - Jackie DeShannon
17. Chico's Girl - The Girls

Disc 4:

1. Hanky Panky - Tommy James & the Shondells
2. Chapel of Love - The Dixie Cups
3. I Wanna Love Him So Bad - The Jelly Beans
4. I Wonder - The Butterflys
5. Maybe I Know - Lesley Gore
6. Yes I Will (I'll Be True to You) - The Hollies
7. He's in Town - The Tokens
8. I'm Gonna Be Strong - Gene Pitney
9. Magic Town - The Vogues
10. You Baby - Linda Scott
11. Boy from New York City - The Ad Libs, The Ad Libs
12. New York's a Lonely Town - The Trade Winds
13. One You Can't Have - The Honeys
14. Look of Love - Lesley Gore
15. Out in the Streets - The Shangri-Las
16. Kicks - Paul Revere & the Raiders
17. Hungry - Paul Revere & the Raiders
18. (You're My) Soul and Inspiration - The Righteous Brothers
19. Leader of the Pack - The Shangri-Las

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #87929 in Music
• Released on: 1993-10-25
• Number of discs: 4
• Format: Box set

Customer Reviews

Must-Have Collection For Sixties Music Lovers!
This collection is a well-put together selection (based upon a special TV series) of great '60s tunes, with valuable liner notes and photos. If you haven't seen the documentary, "The Hitmakers," the liner notes will tell you the story, supplemented by these classic songs. If you have seen the documentary, then just sit back and enjoy the tunes all over again...

Original Price - Buy It Now - USED? Your Call
At the original IN PRINT price, it's an amazing box set of an amazing time - to think of how cool it would've been to be there in a building to watch your scribblings become tunes and then become hit records right before your eyes - and to be there with fellow writers (not to mention the singers) - those days are definitely over.

If you're just starting out and you love the late 50's & early 1960's shimmering pop wall of sound (along with Phil Spector), this is an amazing 4-CD set with over 80 of the greatest pop rock tracks of all time - again staggering that these all came out of that time, era and literally - one building - definitely get this CD.

If you already have an extensive CD collection of that time, you might want to review the tracks to make sure you're not duplicating them. This set does NOT contain any demos or alt takes.

Or if you find the USED print a bit steep, here are some things to keep in mind. If you're a real big fan, you're probably better off piecing together the greatest hits packages of: Neil Sedaka, Connie Francis, The Drifters, Chiffons, Shirelles, The Righteous Brothers, Shangrai-La's etc ... since their tracks in this box are just sprinkled throughout and not complete (except for maybe Neil Sedaka's early stuff) or you'll pretty much sweep through and collect virtually all the tracks with a handful of hits of the 50's and 60's compilations. You'd be hard pressed not to swing a compilation CD of that era and get Little Eva or Ben E. King, etc ... as for the sound quality, the more recent greatest hits releases match or beat the sound quality of this box set. The only exception are the Sedaka tracks they sound better here than my NEIL SEDAKA'S ALL TIME GREATEST HITS CD but mine might be an older compilation anyway.

The only relatively rare tracks are from the Cookies or the Girlfriends and frankly, they are pretty much minor league stuff and really more for competitsts - but then I don't really need to talk you into this box set. So, really, 100% of the best tracks are all available elsewhere and also the best artists are not complete here so you'll probably want to buy their greatest hots or anthology set of that particular artist anyway.

This is not to be dismissive of the Brill Sound box set, it's a great sampling and a great set but perhaps not at the USED price as it stands now - at its original price, there's no question you should click BUY IT NOW.

Transcendent
You are buying an extremely complete retrospective of the so-called Brill Building Sound that addresses the output of a number of writing collectives. These writers/producers all worked at one time or another within yards of each other in Manhattan. In a coincidence that would be laughable in a novel or movie, many of them grew up in the same area of Brooklyn.

The songs they wrote in this synergistic/antagonistic environment were invariably hits for a stable of artists associated with them. But, so fundamentally good were the lyrics, arrangements and ambiance that the songs were a key component of The British Invasion bands' repertoires and are often still covered. 'Live at the BBC' has several of these songs - including 'Don't Ever Change,' orginally done by The Crickets and Little Eva's 'Keep Your Hands Off My Baby' - being played live by The Beatles. And, speaking of Little Eva - fabulously mentioned as Goffin and King's babysitter who was given another song to sing ('The Locomotion') subsequently covered by Grand Funk Railroad.

I would also argue that the process used in creating these three minute expositions on being a teenager in the early 1960s also served as the model for other production families. Berry Gordy - whether by serendipity or deliberate calculation - followed the same model of a coterie of superb writers, musicians and producers that generated material for an equally talented set of performers. This pattern also appears almost due south of Detroit with the marvelous pieces created by the Stax/Volt label. An last but certainly not least, were the efforts of someone who functioned in the background at the Brill Building but nevertheless took excellent notes. The output of Phil Spector is best appreciated and comparable with this set on the 'Back to Mono' boxset.

After all the praises given to the songwriters, the musicians, the producers and the performers, there is still one more thing of almost inestimable value in this collection. You are - in point of fact - buying entry into another world; one where ambiguity does not exist. Instead you find yourself in a universe where love, trust, sincerity, loyalty, honesty and scores of other virtues are given and received and experienced in naïve purity. In these songs, in these "three minute operettas," as I believe Spector called them is found a truth about life and love and all that is important.

Yeah, I know that world wasn't real then any more than it is now. As we first heard these profoundly beautiful songs the world was moving ever more rapidly towards Vietnam; the killing fields of Cambodia; repeated genocides in Europe, Asia and Africa; AIDS; regional famine and the near total destruction of politics as anything more than something akin to what the money lenders were doing in The Temple when Jesus came upon them.

So - perhaps as self-delusion, but more as relief and succor - listen to what is arguably one of the best compendiums produced. Understand too, that part of its transcendence is that while a compendium, its value is enhanced by the diversity of the genres contained within these four CDs.