You Were Mad For Me/In Disneyland

This release combines two British Freddie & the Dreamers' albums, 1964's You Were Mad for Me and 1966's In Disneyland, on one compact disc. You Were Mad for Me was Freddie & the Dreamers' second U.K. LP, and in the British Invasion tradition, it wasn't issued as-was in the U.S., its tracks subsequently scattered across numerous American releases. Nor did it feature any hit singles; though at a glance you might think the album's title is "You Were Made for Me," one of their biggest hits on both sides of the Atlantic, it's actually "You Were Mad for Me," and doesn't include the actual track called "You Were Made for Me." Nor does it contain any original material, instead being split between oldies covers and efforts by writers from the British equivalent of Tin Pan Alley and the Brill Building like Peter Stirling, Geoff Stephens, John Carter, and Ken Lewis. Its oldies covers are uniformly mediocre, and though the recently penned compositions by other British songwriters included a couple that other U.K. groups had made into hits into early 1964 ("I Think of You" and "Tell Me When," popularized by the Merseybeats and the Applejacks respectively), they're emblematic of the British Invasion at its most lightweight and sappy. You do have the novelty of a lead vocal by someone other than Freddie Garrity when bassist Pete Birrell takes over for "Cut Across Shorty." But really, this LP isn't worth trifling with by any but the most completist of British Invasion collectors.
The same and then some could be said of In Disneyland, issued in the U.K. only in late 1966. It's not a live album, but an entire LP of covers of songs associated with Walt Disney films, including "When You Wish Upon a Star," "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," "Whistle While You Work," "Chim Chim Cheree," "Hi Ho," and "The Siamese Cat Song." With orchestral arrangements by Johnny Scott that are pretty typical of those applied to scores in children's films, the participation of the Dreamers seems light at most, if they were even involved in the recording at all. True, Freddie Garrity was probably more suited to moving into children's music than any other British Invasion performer due both to his clownish on-stage persona and vaudeville-ish vocals, and he does a decent job with the singing here. But it's very unlikely that the average rock fan -- even the overwhelming majority of Freddie & the Dreamers fans -- would be interested in this expectedly cutesy album in the least, boasting as it does nary a shred of rock & roll. It can be dismissed as a novelty item that might possibly not even be of any interest to completists, and while You Were Mad for Me isn't as dispensable, the combination of the two records on one CD will test the tolerance even of dedicated British Invasion fans. ~ Richie Unterberger|