In Liverpool, in Hamburg, Gerry Marsden and his Pacemakers were the Beatles’ direct competitors. Gerry, an equally formidable singer, was irresistible, a real party animal. The Pacemakers, solid musicians, only lacked rock’n’roll allure. A crime of limp faces. The 98 pieces included here, recorded under the leadership of George Martin, are both unstoppable in their effectiveness and limited in their capacity for invention: if the anthology stops in 1966, it is because it failed to reinvent itself. Everything is good, even the unreleased tracks in the lot, including a stunning version of Hello Little Girl Lennon-McCartney, but everything is frozen in their brief heyday. We appreciate the inclusion of an entire show from October 1964: they knew what they were doing, the buggers, untouchable in What’d I Say Or My Babebut already old genre. In the end, they are confined to the cabaret circuit, adapting Strangers in the Night And Guantanamera. Very good, in fact. Demotion nonetheless. Paradoxically, it doesn’t age.
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