A Volume Two Needed
A search in Music under the heading Ultimate Collection will garner you thousands of hits, and even searching in Album Title will result in quite a few, ranging from Benny Hill and George Formby to 10cc and The Who, and just about everyone in between. Even Motown uses Ultimate Collection on a number of their CDs, but the best of the lot where they are concerned is this series, each with 25 tracks and similar cover art by David Irvin, and involving Diana Ross & The Supremes, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, The Marvelettes, Martha (Reeves) & The Vandellas, Jr. Walker & The All Stars, Gladys Knight & The Pips, and Mary Wells.
From 1964 to 1988 The Four Tops put 52 selections onto the Billboard R&B charts, had 29 cross over to the Billboard Pop Hot 100, and another seven register on the Adult Contemporary charts. In this collection you get 22 of those hits plus the B-sides Sad Souvenirs [b/o I Can't Help Myself], I Got A Feeling [b/o Bernadette], and If You Don't Want My Love [b/o You Keep Running Away].
Unless there's to be a volume 2, like another reviewer I too would have preferred to see the inclusion of If I Were A Carpenter [# 17 R&B/# 20 Hot 100 in 1968], Don't Let Him Take Your Love From Me [# 25 R&B/# 45 Hot 100 in 1969], and Just Seven Numbers (Can Straighten Out My Life], which hit # 9 R&B/# 40 Hot 100 in early 1971, as opposed to those B-sides.
If there is to be a volume 2 hopefully they will include those along with the following: River Deep-Mountain High [# 7 R&B/# 14 Hot 100 in 1970 with The Supremes]; You Gotta Have Love In Your Heart [# 41 R&B/# 55 Hot 100 in 1971, again with The Supremes]; In These Changing Times [# 28 R&B/# 70 Hot 100 in 1971]; MacArthur Park (Part II) [# 27 R&B/# 38 Hot 100 in 1971]; and from 1983 when they returned to Motown [after recording for Dunhill/ABC, ABC, Casablanca, and RSO], I Just Can't Walk Away which made it to # 18 AC/# 36 R&B/# 71 Hot 100 that November.
Two other singles they might wish to include [assuming they can get permission] are Ain't That Love and Indestructible. The former had been recorded originally for Columbia way back in 1960 without success, but re-released by that label in 1965 to take advantage of their rising Motown popularity. It could only manage a # 93 Hot 100 around the same time as It's The Same Old Song was climbing to # 2 R&B/# 5 Hot 100 for Motown. Indestructible was released on Arista in 1988 and reached # 20 Adult Contemporary/# 35 Hot 100, and # 57 R&B, and was used by NBC-TV for the 1988 Summer Olympics.
In the meantime, this is as good as any Four Tops compilations you are ever going to find, including five pages of comprehensive liner notes by Stu Hackel, a NYC-based writer for The Village Voice, New York Times, and Sports Illustrated. There is also a complete discography of the contents and some nice photographs of the group
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