Track Listing

1. I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)
2. Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever
3. Reach Out, I'll Be There
4. Bernadette
5. Walk Away Renee
6. Yesterday S Dreams
7. Do What You Gotta Do
8. It's All In The Game
9. Still Water (Love)
10. A Simple Game
11. Mac Arthur Park
12. Cherish
13. River Deep Mountain High - Four Tops, The Supremes
14. Helpless
15. Ask The Lonely
16. Climb Ev'ry Mountain
17. I Got A Feeling
18. Just Seven Numbers (Can Straighten Out My Life)
19. In These Changing Times
20. For Once In My Life

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43358 in Music
• Released on: 1999-08-02
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 67 minutes

Customer Reviews

The Four Tops British Motown hits
This is a great Four Tops Motown collection. At the time of writing, it is available at a very low price.

Most of the biggies are here, 'Reach Out...', 'Cant Help Myself' and my own fave 'Walk Away Renee'. The only big hits missing as far as I can tell are their hit version of 'If I Were A Carpenter', and 'Standing In The Shadows Of Love'.

This collection contains some British favorites, which are often missing from American albums. 'Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever' in 1966 was the first ever Motown record to chart higher in the UK than the US(pop). How is that for an obscure statistic? Also here is 'Do What You Gotta Do' a Jimmy Webb song that was a medium sized hit for the tops here in 1970. 'Simple Game' was a huge hit for them in Britain in 1971. It was produced here by The Moody Blues,and gave them a bit of a boost when their American chart life was in the doldrums.

Most of their early hits were written and produced by Motowns top team of Brian and Eddie Holland and Lamont Dozier. After H-D-H left Motown in 1968, The Four Tops were one of the acts who struggled a bit to find good material. All was not lost, as Frank Wilson came up with 'Still Water' for them and their duet with The Supremes 'River Deep Mountain High' did well in the US where Ike & Tina Turner's stunning original version had flopped!

Album tracks 'Helpless' and 'I Got A Feeling' are great H-D-H stompers, which became singles for Kim Weston and Barbara Randolph respectively.

'In These Changing Times' has one of the wierdest intros to be found anywhere.

This is great music at a bargain price. If you weren't around then, let it be a great introduction to one of Motown's most successful acts. If (like me!) you were around, let Levi Stubbs' soulfull vocals and the tight rhythm tracks take you on a nostalgic ride.

Neither of the existing reviews are for this cd.
First off, Four Tops are one of the best groups and all music fans should go out and get their Holland-Dozier-Holland era songs. But anything after that period (1968) is rarely up to this quality. If you want the best of the Four Tops- get the Motown 2-for-1's; For Tops/Second Album, and On Top/Reach Out. They are £4.99 each on Amazon- original recordings of a group in their prime, with one of the most prolific songwriting teams of all time, and with the legendary funk brothers in support. That's £10 for 47 tracks.

What fans should be aware of is that material before and after the recordings on these albums is inferior- in the vocals, the songwriting and in the session musicians. So why anyone would want to spend £6.99 for 24 tracks on themselves, knowing full well that they are missing out on many classics, is beyond me.

But even more worrying is the actual recordings. I only became aware of the Entertain Me label after seeing a 10-cd box set for Ike and Tina Turner in Zavvi. After much research it turned out that these were inferior recordings, with little mastering, and several repeat tracks. Entertain Me still do not have any website, and nearly all of their releases are live recordings, so the fact that there is no information about these releases is worrying. Purchasers should be aware that this company is not a subsidiary of Motown UK, it is not the Spectrum label (which used to release budget releases of Motown artists) and it is not from the US Motown label or its Hip-O-Select specialist label. This means that the chances of these being authentic Four Tops Motown recordings are remote- these will most likely be re-recordings done years after initial release. It is a shame- and many fans will buy these unaware of this. And be dissapointed, maybe even be put off ever buying a four tops compilation ever again. Word of advice- go for the original albums, they are certainly worth it, they are great value, and they work much better than any other compilations.

one of motowns finest groups
AS I SIT HERE REVIEWING THIS C.D I`M TAKEN BACK TO THE LATE 60`s. WHEN MY FRIENDS AND MYSELF USED TO GO TO ALL THE CONCERTS THE FOUR TOPS GAVE EACH TIME THEY VISITED THE U.K. THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL, THE LONDON SOUTHBANK AND THE FINSBERRY PARK THEATRE. THERE PERFORMANCES WERE JUST MAGIC.THERE CLOTHES,THERE DANCE STEP ROUTINE,THERE PERFECT SOULFUL HARMONY AND OF CAUSE THERE MUSIC. THE AUDIENCE WAS SPELL BOUND.SOME OF THE AUDIENCE WOULD GET UP OUT OF THERE SEATS AND DANCE IN THE ISLE,AND AFTER WE WOULD SING THERE SONGS ALL THE WAY HOME. THIS C.D BRINGS IT ALL BACK. FROM "REACH OUT I`LL BE THERE" AND "MACARTHUR PARK" TOO "IN THESE CHANGING TIMES" ALL THERE HITS ARE HERE BRINGING BACK THE MAGIC.AS I WRIGHT THIS(1st Aug 07)I UNDERSTAND THAT `LEVI STUBS` THERE SINGER IS UNWELL AND MAY NOT SING ANYMORE.FOR ME,HE MADE THE FOUR TOPS SOUND.IF YOU HAVEN`T GOT A FOUR TOPS ALBUM IN YOUR COLLECTION GET THIS ONE.YOU WON`T BE DISAPPOINTED,AND AT THE PRICE AMAZON HAVE SET THIS AT IT`S A MUST.