Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Da Doo Ron Ron - Crystals
2. Be My Baby - The Ronettes
3. He's Sure The Boy I Love - The Crystals
4. He's A Rebel - Crystals
5. Uptown - The Crystals
6. There's No Other Like My Baby - The Crystals
7. A Fine, Fine Boy - Darlene Love
8. Zip A Dee Doo Dah - Bob B Soxx & The Blue Jeans
9. Why Do Lovers Break Each Others Hearts - Bob B Soxx & The Blue Jeans
10. Best Part Of Breakin' Up - The Ronettes
11. Not Too Young To Get Married - Bob B Soxx & The Blue Jeans
12. (Today I Met) The Boy I'm Gonna Marry - Darlene Love
13. Wait Til My Bobby Gets Home - Darlene Love
14. Baby I Love You - The Ronettes
15. Then He Kissed Me - Crystals
16. Do I Love You? - The Ronettes
17. Walking In The Rain - The Ronettes
18. Born To Be Together - The Ronettes
19. You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' - Righteous Brothers
20. Unchained Melody - Righteous Brothers
21. River Deep Mountain High - Ike & Tina Turner
22. Spanish Harlem - Phil Spector

Disc 2:

1. White Christmas - Darlene Love
2. Frosty The Snowman - The Ronettes
3. The Bells Of St Mary - Bob B Soxx & The Blue Jeans
4. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town - The Crystals
5. Sleigh Ride - The Ronettes
6. Marshmallow World - Darlene Love
7. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus - The Ronettes
8. Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer - The Crystals
9. Winter Wonderland - Darlene Love
10. Parade Of The Wooden Soldiers - The Crystals
11. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Darlene Love
12. Here Comes Santa Claus - Bob B Soxx & The Blue Jeans
13. Silent Night - Phil Spector & Artists

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9032 in Music
• Released on: 2006-12-04
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Box set
• Running time: 94 minutes

Customer Reviews

Not "definitive", but probably the best value Spector compilation of all time
This release gives you, at a bargain price, most of the Spector masterpieces that the average person would want. In the days of vinyl, I had the Christmas album and a "best of the rest" with a very similar listing to the second CD of this set. In the absence of such a collection on CD, a few years ago I bought the "Back to Mono" box set, which is more of a "definitive" collection, and priced accordingly. If this double set had been available then, I would have bought it instead.

Buy while it's still on the catalogue. Bargain Spector compilations like this don't appear very often. You can, of course, buy the Christmas album on its own at any time, for not much less (and sometimes a bit more) than the price of this set.

Essential
There's been millions of words written about the Spector productions and that's not counting the reviews.
Originally the Charistmas Gift LP was a flop in the States and most of the copies were returned to the warehouses then discovered in the 80s when the vinyl was going for silly money.Ha! Ha! Ha!
Phil Spector was a master copyist using everybody elses idea to make his mark in the music business.
Which is a plus factor in my opinion as I love copycats.
His original source for launching himself into the music business was the Aquatones-the first white doowoppers to use a girl lead.Ironically they have lasted longer than him and are now the New Aquatones after Lyn Nixon passed away and a new girl took her place who sounds just like her.
Anyway this led to the Teddy Bears and once they'd run their course Phil copied the Fleetwoods for the Spectors 3.
The first Crystals single was modelled on the Chantels but Phil was lucky with He's a Rebel when Vikki Carr's superior original was stolen by the man when it was a demo.Fortunately Vikki's original topped the charts in Australia.
On this CD is at least one rareity-Spanish Harlem-here we have Phil as a singer who clearly needs lessons from Fabian

Double CD of glorious pop and festive joy
Phil Spector the oh so slightly unhinged producer is credited with pioneering the wall of sound approach to making music, which is where this collection gets its name from. That basically means that Spector threw as much as possible into the mix. Thundering percussion, strings with more layers than an armadillo on a firing range, harmonies so glutinous they would put a class of five year old off sweets for weeks, and Spector was never a believer of less is more. Indeed it's fair to say he was a believer of more is more then some more should be chucked on top in case the original more wasn't enough.
However this is no easy thing to do and make it sound as wondrous a much of the material on here does. It could be a dicophonous disaster but Spector knew what he was doing and what's more he had the songs and the artists to pull it off. This is pop music so gaudily effervescent, so giddily emphatic that it makes even the lushest of contemporary music -Girls Aloud at their capricious best say- sound like Bonnie Prince Billy. Next to Spectors corpulent beauties virtually everything else is reduced to a size zero non-entity.
T o hear The Ronettes peerlessly perform "Baby I Love You" or "Be My Baby" is to hear pop at its zenith -so melodious and sonically impelling that you could be stood in the middle of a minefield, foot hovering over potential oblivion, and still become caught up in the song. The same goes for The Crystals "Then He Kissed Me" while "River Deep, Mountain High" is one of the most staggering moments of halcyon pop ...well ever. Tina Turner may have gone on to be a lumbering embarrassment but here she is incendiary. I love "You've Lost That Lovin Feeling" as well which is ironic because the other Righteous Brothers track here is the now hideously over-exposed "Unchained Melody" which has been reduced via karaoke ciphers to something I have lost that lovin feeling for.
The second CD is re-issue of the 1963 Christmas album which for many people is the definitive Christmas album and they are right, because for two weeks out of fifty two this is the most evocative festive celebration on the planet. This album along with "The Fairytale Of New York " , "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" and "Snow" by the Cocteau Twins is the spirit and magic of the consumer madness that Christmas has become aurally restored to something approximating it's original spirit.
Curiously the previously un- released song here, "Silent Night" is sung by Spector with only an acoustic guitar as backing. Proof that even this flawed genius needed to drop that wall of sound every once in a while.