First of all,
Capitol's 2007 collection
Greatest Hooks is not the long-awaited collection that finally brings together the best of their early
CBS/
Columbia recordings and their latter-day
Capitol hits. As its label affiliation should make clear, it concentrates heavily on the
Capitol recordings, when
Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show morphed into
Dr. Hook and got slicker, poppier and eventually, a bit smarmier as they devoted themselves to mildly tongue-in-cheek
disco and leisure suit
ballads. This, of course, mirrors their rise on the
Billboard charts since that first handful of albums had a couple of big hits --
"Sylvia's Mother" and
"The Cover of the Rolling Stone," which both reached the Top Ten -- but they charted more consistently when on
Capitol, reaching the Top Ten again with a cover of
Sam Cooke's
"Only Sixteen," "Sharing the Night Together," "When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman" and
"Sexy Eyes" and getting close with
"A Little Bit More," "Better Love Next Time" and
"Baby Makes Her Blue Jeans Talk." All of the above, including
"Sylvia's Mother" and
"Rolling Stone," are featured on the 20-track
Greatest Hooks, which also includes one more
Columbia-era track (
"Carry Me, Carrie") but spends most of the time in the late '70s, when the group left behind the dirty, filthy hippie vibe and
Shel Silverstein songs that characterized their first five years of existence. This extends to how their
Capitol debut
Bankrupt is only represented by the singles
"Only Sixteen" and
"The Millionaire," while the terrific
Silverstein songs
"I Got Stoned and I Missed It" and
"Everybody's Makin' It Big But Me" are left behind. But if you really want to hear that side of the band, you should turn to
Raven's superb 2003 comp
I Got Stoned and I Missed It: The Best from Shel Silverstein 1971-1979, which has some overlap with this
Greatest Hooks collection but captures that essence better than
Columbia's best current CD comp
The Essential Dr. Hook and functions as a good companion to this otherwise excellent comp, which expertly tells the story of the band's hit-making years. Not all the songs are as good as the aforementioned big hits -- some of the
ballads can get a little slow and syrupy, some of the songs are a little silly -- but it's all enjoyable
soft rock, with a few hidden highlights like the modest
Bankrupt hit
"The Millionaire," the sweetly lazy
"Sleepin' Late," the ridiculous
"You Make My Pants Wanna Get Up and Dance" and the slick as satin
"Girls Can Get It," which actually functions as a kind of a manifesto for this incarnation of the group. Twenty tracks may be a bit much for those who just want to hear the hits but for those love the smooth
soft rock sounds of late-'70s
Dr. Hook, this is the best portrait of that era yet assembled. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine