Righteous Brothers: Gold

With 48 tracks spanning two CDs, this latest collection of the Righteous Brothers' hits is absolutely necessary... the only place you can get all their chart hits at once, and the first 2-CD remastering job since 1990!

The "Gold" series from the Universal Music Group's multitude of boughten labels has been a godsend in many ways, providing excellent 2-CD compilations for important artists who've had too many hits for a single disc. (Not everyone, after all, wants to spring for a multidisc box set.) With the Righteous Brothers, however, it's even more of a service than usual -- last year's Abcko-released "Retrospective 1963-1974" was the first comp released on the Bros. since 1990, and it had to sum up that wildly diverse decade of hits in twenty tracks.

Now, however, we have two CDs that cover everything from their debut as a frat-rock act ('63's "Little Latin Lupe Lu") right through to their pure pop comeback with the 1974 tribute novelty "Rock And Roll Heaven." Of course, all the big Spectorian and pseudo-Spectorian hits you love are here -- "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," "Unchained Melody," "Ebb Tide," "Just Once In My Life," "(You're My) Soul And Inspiration" -- but they're sandwiched between a generous helping of early R&B cuts, half a dozen late-Sixties solo efforts each from Bobby and Bill, and their very last chart entries like "Give It To The People" and "Dream On." With the absence of any domestic box sets from the group still in print, and given the remastered glory of these songs (some of the most sonically complex recordings in all of pop music), the modestly-titled "Gold" becomes the righteous Righteous Brothers collection for any but the most casual fan.