Browse by Artist: TOKENS, THE

Artist:	TOKENS, THE
Title:	Intercourse
Label:	REV-OLA (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	CRREV 037CD

"From the depths of the legendary BT Puppy vaults (a label which seems to have as many lost albums as they had hits!) the very daddies of softpop The Tokens! Though The Tokens are best remembered for their international smash hit 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight,' recently revived in The Lion King, they did much more. Producers, writers, publishers and label owners, they had a long string of hits in all those roles. Intercourse is a full-on softpop song cycle, inexplicably turned down by their then-label Warner Brothers, and released in an edition of 200 copies on their own BT Puppy label for contractual reasons. Far from their Doo-Wop roots, The Tokens delivered an album pitched somewhere between Pet Sounds and Sgt. Pepper's, with all the production and arrangement tricks that implies. No wonder Warners were dumbfounded, and no wonder collectors have been going nuts and paying silly sums for this album ever since! Newly remastered by The Tokens themselves, this is a surprise treat in anyone's language, as The Tokens show not only every cult softpop group, but many superstars just how it's done, with the wicked tongue-in-cheek touch which they were justly famous for."

Artist:	TOKENS, THE
Title:	Both Sides Now
Label:	REV-OLA (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	CRREV 261CD

"The title kind of gives the game away here, it being somewhat a game of two halves! A semi concept follows the title of the exquisite baroque cover of the Joni Mitchell tune. The Tokens are pictured on the cover in off-duty mode, casually dressed and with a cigar on the go. Side one consists of more baroque reworkings of modern folk rock standards, covering label mates Melanie and The Lemon Pipers creditably, as well as doing a stripped down beauty of a cover of 'Don't Worry Baby,' which surely influenced The Beach Boys later live revamps of their early repertoire. Side two revisits The Tokens past in the manner of their later Oldies Are Now! project, with their first two hits 'Tonight I Fell In Love' and 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight,' and their soft-pop masterpiece 'I Hear Trumpets Blow' among others, being reinvented in the style of side one. Altogether a most satisfying and poptastic album showcasing old hands at the peak of their powers. A must for all fans of soft pop, New York pop, Baroque pop, and top vocal group masterpieces!"

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