The Best Of Volume 2 – HERMAN’S HERMITS****

This Door Swings Both Ways/Listen People/Bus Stop/Story Of My Life/Little Boy Sad/A Must To Avoid/Dandy/Hold On/Leaning On A Lamp Post/For Your Love/Take Love Give Love

A second hit collection from melodic pop group Herman's Hermits covering the period 1965-66. After three years of enormous success in the States their popularity there now began to fade. (US:20)

"OK, so it isn't as sophisticated as The Beatles and there isn't any deep meaning, and the lyrics are pretty corny too, but this is great feel good music and wonderful nostalgia if you grew up in the 60s. Peter Noone has the perfect pop/bubble gum voice, the arrangements are simple but they work, and isn't the reason we listen to music just to feel good? For what it is, it is very, very good."

"Herman's Hermits weren't exactly high art or anything but they were one of the most charming pop acts of the 1960s. A few of the songs, like Dandy, are too lightweight for their own good, but the best songs are some of the sweetest little numbers you'll hear out of that era."

"Sure, Peter Noone was a safe teenybopper idol and the Hermits frequently weren't used in the studio. But what a great string of lightweight pop singles they left behind in the wake of the British Invasion."

"I suppose they were considered a teenybop band and therefore weren't taken as seriously as some of their contemporaries, but time has been kind to their music - compared to a lot of today's chart stuff, this is a classic, timeless sound."

"Herman's Hermits actually predated The Monkees - both had a lead singer from Manchester who'd been in Coronation Street. This was always good time music, sheer high school pop at a time both before and after Rubber Soul, and the dawning of rock as an alternative to pop."

"Let's just put it straight - an enjoyable set of well structured and well produced tunes that should be the essential carrier of top of the pops to anyone."

"Listen People was one of the better soft-rock pieces of the decade, and had genuine dramatic feeling, with great lyrics, melody and arrangements to match."