After the Lovin' Spoonful's dissolution in 1968,[3] many of the band's original multi-track master tapes were lost.[4][5] The band's earliest CD reissues were instead made from the best available stereo masters,[5] leaving the material sounding substandard when compared to reissues of other 1960s music.[6] After rediscovering the first-generation master-tapes, Buddha Records issued Greatest Hits as the first digital remaster of the band's material.[1][7]
Greatest Hits was released on February22, 2000.[8] The compilation features 26 tracks,[1] including the Lovin' Spoonful's first seven singles, all of which reached the U.S. Top Ten upon initial release.[2] In his review of the album for AllMusic, Hal Horowitz described its sound as possessing "a crispness and definition previously unheard", and he counted it as the band's most essential one-disc compilation.[1] The critic Robert Christgau described it as a slight improvement on the band's 1990 compilation Anthology, and he added that there are only a few weak tracks in the selection which "slow down its historical mission of evoking the balmy upsurge to the Summer of Love like no other body of music".[2]
^Rucker 1996, p. 423: "Many of the masters for Spoonful recordings have long been destroyed, which makes more reissues unlikely."
^ abAnon. (1995). Do You Believe in Magic / Hums (Liner notes). The Lovin' Spoonful. Kama Sutra, Replay. 75517 49500 2. Digitally remastered from the best available stereo master tapes. Unfortunately, all efforts to locate the multitrack session tapes over the years have been unsuccessful.
^Anon. (2000). Greatest Hits (Liner notes). The Lovin' Spoonful. Buddha. 74465 99716 2. ...digitally remastered for the first time from the long lost first generation master tapes.
