Most of us have heard The Association's most famous tunes maybe literally a thousand times, usually blasting out of a mono AM car or home radio in the old days. It's a real treat to hear these hits (and some that should have been) on this fine sounding remaster. These guys are one of the finest vocal bands to ever enter a studio (the playing is great too, actually). It features "Cherish," probably the best / most-played unrequited love song ever not sung by a saloon singer!
Enjoy this great CD from this somewhat underrated band.

Strangely enough, despite being one of the quintessential "few hit wonder with good deeper catalog" acts of the 1960s, The Association have had precious few, single-disc "Greatest Hits" comps in their favor. The Warner Brothers "The Association's Greatest Hits" disc missed several singles for album tracks from "Birthday," while most other compilations used re-recordings of the original tracks; the Japanese got a great, 20 track disc, but at the usual import prices.

With "The Essentials," Rhino finally fills this niche once and for all. As far as I can see, all of the major tracks are here: Never My Love, Along Comes Mary, Cherish, and Windy are the four big radio tracks, while Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies (a GREAT song, bizarrely missing from the earlier, WB disc), Goodbye Columbus, and No Fair at All round out the slew of minor hits. "Enter the Young" is the far-superior take from the first album, and "Six Man Band" is an excellent Greatest-Hits-only bonus. Some tracks are missing in action from the Warner Brothers disc, but few should miss the "why-was-it-there?" We Love Us.

Quibbles? I'm still perplexed by the inclusion of the twee "Time for Living" ("The Time It Is Today" is a better song, and is one of the few original-GH tracks that deserved to be ported over), and I wish Rhino had seen fit to include some of the tracks from their oft-overlooked--but excellent--self-titled 1969 album. These are minor issues, though.

Verdict: If you're looking for an inexpensive, single-disc original-recordings "Greatest Hits" collection from The Association that's more comprehensive (if more concise) than the ancient, poor-sounding Warner Brothers disc...finally, someone saw fit to provide! Grab it without remorse.