All-Time Greatest Hits (CD - 2004)

Compilation producer: Harry Weinger.

Recorded between 1956 & 1967. Includes liner notes by Fred Bronson.

While this single-disc distillation of the Platters' biggest hits is superb, it's almost identical to Rhino's 1998 comp Enchanted: The Best of the Platters, except that the Rhino disc actually has everything here plus three additional tracks. None of those three extra songs are among the group's more familiar numbers, though, so in all honesty All-Time Greatest Hits will be just as sufficient for most fans. It has all 15 of their first Top Forty hits, an astonishing run that went from 1955's "Only You (And You Alone)" through 1960's "Harbor Lights," and adds the more modern soul-pop successes they landed in 1966 and 1967 with "With This Ring" and "I Love You 1000 Times." It's some of the finest, and certainly the most successful, pop-doo wop crossover music ever made, though Mercury's two-CD, 50-track The Magic Touch: An Anthology is the preferred compilation for more serious enthusiasts. ~ Richie Unterberger minimize