The Lemon Pipers: Green Tambourine: The Best of the Lemon Pipers (2001)

(As published in Blender ... )

The Lemon Pipers
Green Tambourine: The Best of the Lemon Pipers
(Buddha)
***

What besides its quintessential ’60s AM title hit makes this admittedly frothy collection more than mere meringue? A dozen trippy baroque sing-alongs that make both “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “MacArthur Park” sound like stripped-down garage anthems by comparison. Yet the “best” label is misleading: Two songs described in the liner notes as being among the band’s shining moments—“Turn Around Take a Look” and “Through With You”—are missing, even though this forty-six-minute disc has room enough for both. Partial consolation comes with the inclusion of both “Shoeshine Boy” and “The Shoemaker,” proof that the Pipers sang about subjects other than rice, blueberries, tangerines and wine.