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Customer Reviews of The Beat Goes On: The Best of Sonny & Cher

So Close To A 5-Star Rating
This has almost everything needed in a CD to rate 5-stars by a completist collector. Almost - but not quite. Purporting to cover their best for Atlantic's Atco subsidiary label, where they had 14 Billboard Pop Hot 100 singles from 1965 [I Got You Babe - # 1 that summer] to 1968's Good Combination [# 56 in January] you get all but one. They even provide the Reprise label hit, Baby Don't Go [# 8 in September 1965], and a marvelously detailed 20 pages of liner notes written by Ken Barnes, including a complete discography of the contents, mixed with some classic pictures of the duo. <
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>There are, in addition, five B-sides: Sing C'est La Vie; Hello; Leave Me Be; Love Don't Come; and It's The Little Things. These backed, respectively: Just You (# 20 in September 1965); But You're Mine (# 15 in November 1965); Have I Stayed Too Long (# 49 in July 1966); Living For You (# 87 in December 1966 and The Beat Goes On (# 6 in early spring 1967 - note that Love Don't Come was the B-side to those last two hits; and Plastic Man (# 74 in June 1967). <
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>By including the uncharted flip of that last one, but not the hit itself. they lost 1 star from this reviewer. Could it not have been included to make an even 22 selections or, at the very least, be included in place of Sonny's failed 1967 solo My Best Friend's Girl Is Out Of Sight? <
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>Another oversight was the omission of The Letter. First released on Vault 909 in 1963 when they recorded as Caesar & Cleo, it was re-released in late 1965 on Vault 916 after they had become a hit, and this time it made it to # 75. If they could include the Reprise release why not this one? <
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>I was, however, pleased to see the inclusion of Hello. This is not a song, but rather their spoken thanks to their fans b/o But You're Mine in 1965, not without some humour surrounding Cher's "shyness" at the time. <
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>For those who are not obsessed with getting ALL the hits this is, however, very much a 5-star release which should not be missed.

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Comprehensive overview of the ATCO years (first phase of their career)
I listened to this CD (again) in its entirety last night. This is an excellent compilation of Sonny & Cher's best songs from their ATCO years (1965-1967). The packaging is top-notch, and the essay by Ken Barnes is informative and entertaining. <
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>For a die-hard fan like me, this is a five-star set. But for the sake of objectivity, I'm willing to look beyond my die-hardedness and to put myself in the shoes of the casual listener. There are 21 songs in this collection, 14 of which were chart hits. (Think about it: 14 charted songs in 3 years!!!) The collection would work far-more successfully for the casual listener if only the chart hits were included. (So, if you're not a die-hard fan, consider this a four-star set.) <
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>For the die-hards, though, this is an excellent historical overview of their career. There are three Sonny solo songs: the top 10 hit "Laugh At Me," and the follow-up "The Revolution Kind" and his ultimate camp classic "My Best Friend's Girl Is Out of Sight." There's a rare B-side, "Hello," from 1965, which is throw-away filler to be sure, but a Sonny & Cher throw-away!! And also a brief public service announcement with Sonny & Cher encouraging kids to "stay cool, go back to school." <
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>My hair stands on end whenever I read that Sonny's talent was "limited." Whose isn't? Think of what this man accomplished, however. He had a knack for writing commercial hits that had addictive hooks and lyrics. Some of his lesser-known songs aren't as "good" as his hits, but so what? Out of the 14 chart hits Sonny & Cher amassed that are on this collection, he wrote (or co-wrote) 12 of them. That ain't bad, is it? (And that is not counting the hits that came about in the second phase of their career in the early '70s, either.) <
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>I've written in another review that their voices blended together beautifully, especially in this inital phase of their career. I'm always taken aback by their duets. "The Beat Goes On: The Best of Sonny & Cher" is expertly-compiled collection of their best work together.

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Help
Help! I'm trapped inside a Sonny & Cher review and I don't know how I got here and I think I like it. A lot of time has gone by, kids, and there's not much left of the world that spawned this unholy coupling, but it is a suitable window into a certain side of Sixties culture that was so magnificently decayed and bankrupt, with music that is a precursor for, yes, the amazingly bad songs of the film "Ishtar" that . . . well, ok, I've said enough. You either know at this point to go forth or run, but I can say no more.