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Dean Martin Greatest Hits King of Cool

Dean Martin - Dean Martin Greatest Hits King of Cool Audio CD

A fair review of the Dean Martin "Dean Martin Greatest Hits King of Cool" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Dean Martin reviews here, or go back to the Dean Martin tabs.

Band: Dean Martin
Title: Dean Martin Greatest Hits King of Cool
Rating:

Release Date: 1998-06-02
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You 2: Volare 3: In the Chapel in the Moonlight 4: Memories Are Made of This 5: Houston 6: Powder Your Face With Sunshine (Smile! Smile! Smile!) 7: Door Is Still Open to My Heart 8: That's Amore 9: Somewhere There's a Someone 10: Ain't That a Kick in the Head 11: In The Misty Moonlight 12: You Belong to Me 13: Innamorata [Sweetheart] 14: I Will 15: Return to Me 16: Everybody Loves Somebody

A superb collection from a beloved artist who's stood the test of time!
This collection is evenly divided between his Capitol and Reprise hits. My only beef is that 16 songs are too few. (The Capitol recordings were produced by Lee Gillette. Jimmy Bowen produced the Reprise cuts. He later got Dean back in the studio twice during the 80s. ) We get some fantastic recordings that remain enjoyable. There are songs partially in Italian. I particularly enjoyed his work in country music. "Houston" has become a family favorite. "In The Misty Moonlight" was written by Cindy Walker. She also wrote hits for Eddy Arnold (a favorite of Dean's), Jim Reeves, and many others. She's a member of the Country Music Hall Of Fame. Note that Dean was one of Elvis' favorite singers The liner notes are very good. I would have liked more information on the recordings, such as dates, musicians, and background singers. Jimmy Bowen used Glen Campbell on Dean's recordings. Later, Glen and Dean appeared on each other's shows. This album is well worth the listen. Just don't stop here! Keep going to hear more of Dean's fantastic voice.

You Can Do Better

King of Cool is ok, I guess, but nothing really separates this "Best Of" from the Pack. Like Elvis and Sinatra, there's simply too many Dean Martin compilations out there - making for a difficult task of separating the wheat from the chaffe. Frankly, the recently-released "Dino: The Essential Dean Martin" looks a lot more promising. 30 songs - almost double the number of tracks on King of Cool - for under $14. Or, buy it from a seller on Amazon for even less. You can't go wrong.

As for King of Cool - it doesn't even appear to be in production anymore. Not a major loss.

Sure Miss Dean Martin!
Maybe they'll grow up to appreciate what we lost when Dean Martin passed from our midst. Treat your children to real music.

Italian Love Songs
Their music lifts our spirits and brings back so many memories. Dean Martin and Frank Sanatra were the greatest Italian music artists ever! I love their music and my father who is almost 80, adores them. You don't have to be Italian to appreciate their music. I feel that all their songs are relaxing as well as beautiful.

This STEREO Remix is TERRIBLE. Hold out for a Mono remaster.
Honestly the whole Rat Pack (aka alcoholics in tux's) thing really put me off. I'm new to the music of Dean Martin, I'll admit. It took hearing Dean Martin's voice without knowing it was him, to really appreciate his talent. After hearing a few songs and discovering that I really liked his voice after all, I figured I'd best get started on his music with a Greatest Hits.

The songs on this disc are terrific, his voice is beautiful and as a Dean Martin neophite, I'm hearing enough to want to buy more of his work.

My problem with this disc, is that a little more than half the songs have been remixed (says so in the booklet) as stereo from what were probably 3 track tapes that were never meant to be mixed as anything other than mono. The engineer who did the remix, somehow missed that day in engineering school where they teach you that anything you pan to the right or left sounds much LOUDER than whatever's in the center. On this recording, that means that the horns, drums, and backing vocals are very often MUCH louder than Dean Martin's vocals.

I understand the temptations to remix in stereo. In today's world where 5 channel audio is on the rise and stereo is an established standard, that as a producer, you'd want to present Dean Martin in a competitive fashion with today's artists. Only he isn't one of today's artists and in his day, they had mono play back devices and the engineers mixed the performances going to tape accordingly.

From an engineering stand point, the temptation is to unclutter the mix by pulling the instruments out to the right and left, leaving the vocals and bass instruments (if possible) in the center. This works fine on the quieter passages as it leaves Martin's voice alone in the center, sounding great. And you CAN hear the instrumental parts better, even if the instruments aren't really the point of this record. It all works okay, until the song really gets going and then Martin's voice is lost behind pounding drums, wailing horns and very loud backup singers.

The other problem with the stereo remix, is that because the original tracks weren't really meant to be stereo, you get the drums and more than half the instruments coming out of one speaker while the backup singers often fill up the other speaker. It's a lot like listening to the stereo remixes of the early Beatles albums where you'd get John Lennon and the guitars in one speaker and the rest of the band in the other. It's not how it was meant to be and it ruins the listening experience.

The remix/remaster engineer for this King of Cool recording does the listeners a disservice by putting more emphasis on the instrumental performances than on Dean Martin's voice.

I'd hold off and recommend getting an old mono recording if you can, or wait until whoever owns the rights to Martin's recordings decides to do the right thing and put out mono remaster that's true to the original vision. This disc is a waste of money and good music unless you have digital audio editing software that can rip the audio off the disc and convert it back to mono. Which is really just a band aid to make do.

You can see a complete list of all Dean Martin discography, or go back to the Dean Martin tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.