AMG Review of Very Best of the Standells

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

The Standells were a one-hit wonder, and that hit was "Dirty Water," which appropriately opens and closes this compilation (the second version is in stereo). Among the 15 other tracks are the group's less successful follow-ups to their hit, notably "Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White," and LP tracks from their three albums of 1966-67, including their versions of standards like "Hey Joe," "My Little Red Book," and "Ninety-Nine and a Half." Of course, nothing is as good as "Dirty Water," even if many of the tracks echo its snotty garage rock appeal, especially the taunting "Try It," a single that Cub Koda's entertaining liner notes reveal was banned in Boston, which, for a band that declared (falsely), "Boston, you're my home" on its hit single, must have been traumatic.