Joanie Sommers - Hits and Rarities (1995)

Joanie Sommers had a recording career encompassing more than her relatively brief recognition on the singles pop charts. And while Sommers had a few singles that made the top-100 charts, she is usually relegated to one-hit wonder status. Her 15 minutes of fame came about when her teeny-bopper-oriented "Johnny Get Angry" rose into the top-10 in 1962.
This collection from Marginal Records in Belgium is one of the first, and still few, gatherings of Sommers' pop recordings. It contains 31 tracks, including her signature song "Johnny...", her two other charting singles and a number of album tracks and other non-charting singles. So, this collection fairly well fulfills its title's promise of "hits and rarities".
Technically, this CD varies widely in its quality. Some of the tracks (3,4,6,18,20,30,31 - including two of the charting singles "One Boy" and "Johnny Get Angry") appear in stereo and in reasonably decent sound quality. The remaining cuts are in mono, of which some are listenable while others exhibit varying degrees of audible distortion - most notably on tracks 2,7,9,10,16,25,26 and 27. Ancillary material is lacking and the liner notes are limited to a track listing on the inside page of the front cover.
No domestic company has issued a comparable collection on Sommers leaving this item pretty much standing alone. At this time, the only other option is an out-of-print Japanese collection that is quite pricy in the secondary market. Collectors Choice had a two-disc Joanie Sommers singles collection scheduled but has since aborted the project. While exhibiting some notable shortcomings, this collection does provide a generous collection of Sommers' teen-oriented early recordings that includes all her charting singles. As of at the time of this review, it is still available new and at a reasonable price. It is not unlikely however that it is already out of print and the new copies still available may be leftover inventory at this point. With the Collectors Choice piece not to be, availability of this CD may diminish when the remaining new copies are sold out.
Update to above comments as of late 2012... Real Gone Music picked up the ball and issued the abandoned Collectors Choice Joanie Sommers project. While the sound quality of the Real Gone package is superior to this Marginal-label product, it may be overkill for the casual listener in that it is two CD's. This CD does contain significant filler along with the "hits" but the Real Gone package goes even further. For the casual listener, the Marginal collection may still offer a decent alternative.