The Buckinghams - Greatest Hits (1969) LP

The Buckinghams recorded five Top 40 singles that all charted in 1967. All five of those tunes are included in this collection. Their three biggest singles, "Don't You Care," "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy," and the number one hit "Kind of a Drag," are pure pop ear candy. Most of the tracks were ably produced by James William Guercio, who would later produce Blood, Sweat & Tears' classic self-titled second album and all of Chicago's earlier albums. Like a lot of '60s groups, the Buckinghams included a song to raise the social conscience of its audience. In this case, the song is "Foreign Policy," an almost unbearable "experimental" tune that includes a snippet of a JFK speech and clocks in at over four minutes! Of course, that's really not very long, but the other ten tracks are all less than three minutes a pop. "Foreign Policy" is truly "kind of a drag." However, the rest of the tracks are tolerable.