The Young Rascals
(Collectors’ Choice)The Young Rascals
Collections (Collectors’ Choice)The Young Rascals
Groovin’ (Collectors’ Choice)The Rascals
Once Upon a Dream (Collectors’ Choice)The Rascals
Freedom Suite (Collectors’ Choice)The Rascals
See (Collectors’ Choice)The Rascals
Search and Nearness (Collectors’ Choice)When it comes to the Rascals, there’s much to be said for underachievement. While the New York-born band produced an enviable batch of blue-eyed soul classics, their misguided, Sgt. Pepper-fueled ambition to make the Great American Album ultimately destroyed them. Heard in retrospect, the Rascals’ seven Atlantic Records albums follow a creative arc that peaks on 1967’s Groovin’. After rocketing up the charts with “Good Lovin’,” it took the then-Young Rascals time to pen an LP’s worth of material. Their debut is an unremarkable collection of 1960s bar-band standards with just one self-penned song. Collections unveils the budding songcraft of organist/vocalist Felix Cavaliere and vocalist Eddie Brigati with irresistible AM-radio soul stompers “Lonely Too Long” and “Love Is a Beautiful Thing.” Guitarist Gene Cornish turns in lovely ballad “No Love to Give.” This set the stage for Groovin’, an underheralded classic in a year of great albums. Besides the title track’s Martin Denny-flavored R&B, the Rascals presage the coming jazz-rock axiom with “A Girl Like You” and deliver credible garage rock with “Find Somebody.” Then there’s “How Can I Be Sure,” which scores on the strength of Brigati’s hauntingly powerful lead vocal and an improbable but effective waltz structure in the chorus. 1968’s Once Upon a Dream was a thinly veiled bid for critical importance, but only “It’s Wonderful” and “I’m Gonna Love You” really stand out. The double-album Freedom Suite featured monster hit “People Got to Be Free,” but the LP overreaches even further with monotonous instrumentals, including a 13-minute drum solo. The band’s final Atlantic albums, See and Search and Nearness, are contractual obligations that groove without spark. Collectors’ Choice presents the first four albums in both stereo and mono, but the final three are bare-bones reissues only a die-hard completist could appreciate.
(The Young Rascals, Once Upon a Dream, Freedom Suite) 
(Collections)
(Groovin’)
(Search and Nearness, See)
This article appears in December 14 • 2007.
