★★★★★
The Coasters were the class clowns of '50s rock & roll. But they were also highly accomplished singers, and as masterminded by songwriter-producers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, hits like "Searchin'," "Yakety Yak" and "Along Came Jones" were so tight, they crackled. This completist box is too much of a good thing?all of the disc-four rarities have superior original mixes...
- www.blender.com
2010-08-22
★★★★★
They were great comedians, but they were also the most musically accomplished vocal group of the '50s. Their ensemble precision cuts the Moonglows, even the Clovers, obviating the need for a takeover guy like Frankie Lymon or James Brown. Credit tenor Carl Gardner, baritone Billy Guy, and bass men Dub Jones and Bobby Nunn, but grant authorship to Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, control freaks among Atlantic's mere perfectionists--Stoller used to write King Curtis's sax breaks, for God's sake...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Alone among the great '50s vocal groups, the Coasters didn't sing protosoul--didn't invest pop sentiment with spiritual transport. Instead, Leiber & Stoller crafted teen mini-sagas that exploited the cartoonish edge of Carl Gardner's sharp tenor and Bobby Nunn's (later Dub Jones's) broad bass. Yet performance--which for Leiber & Stoller also signified production--can carry the music when the composition isn't at its familiar peak of idiomatic brilliance...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10