Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the Best Slices of the Apple, 20 April 2004
Out of all the Apple reissues released in 1991, Post Card was my firstselection. As a kid, I was fascinated with Mary Hopkin's vocal delivery ofThose Were the Days. Many years later, I found out that one of my auntsshared this particular fondness upon discovering that she had a 45 RPMversion of the song with the B-side that consisted of Mary Hopkin'sarrangement of Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season). Bythen, the single was too scratched and too worn to be deemed playable, andto try find a replacement on any tipe of vinyl (LP or another 45)wasvirtually going on a "wild goose chase".
Fortunately, I would obtain these two songs on this CD, along with otherdelightful remakes which include covers of Lullaby of the Leaves, YoungLove, Love Is the Sweetest Thing, and Someone to Watch Over Me, the lastof which is probably my favorite.
In addition to these old favorites, Donovan pitched in two contributionsfor Ms. Hopkin to record, namely Voyage of the Moon and Lord of the ReedyRiver, both of which finely suited her voice. Another asset for Post Cardis Harry Nilsson's The Puppy Song, a lovable track that was almostreleased as a follow-up single to Those Were the Days. Also contained areY Blodyn Gwyn and Prince En Avignon, two tracks not sung in English, thelatter in French and the former in Welsh.
All in all, the instrumentations of echoing strings are quite serene andreminiscent of the Burt Bacharach musical arrangements present in theearly days of A&M Records, which had in its artist lineup Dionne Warwick,Jackie DeShannon, and The Carpenters. If Paul McCartney planned for awholesome image on the Apple label, then his decisions to follow theadvice of Twiggy and hire Ms. Hopkin and then select these songs for herto put forth were most definitely apt.
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2 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
An 'odd' album from Ms. Hopkin., 13 Jan 2008
A very bizarre opening track to any album in 'Lord Of The Reedy River', followed by a much better song in 'Happiness Runs'.
As one would expect here, this is a very 'folky' album, but also full of other 'weird' songs and covers one may not have expected from Mary Hopkin - particularly songs that were not written for women, and so do not come out well... Among these are: 'Love Is The Sweetest Thing' and 'Young Love' - also a terribly sluggish rendition of 'Show Business' that was most certainly a mistake to record...
Upon first hearing this; a very strange album indeed that one really needs to listen to several times in order to get used to it. For many people who had been swept away by her number one smash 'Those Were The Days' and were expecting more material like that - this album would have been disappointing to say the least... It would have been nice to have heard more 'unique' material from Ms. Hopkin. Side two of the original LP is better than the first in my opinion, but on the whole, lets us know quite directly, why Ms. Hopkin disappeared from the music scene, and so quickly!
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4.0 out of 5 stars
"The sweetest thing" in 1969!, 4 Aug 2009
There are mixed feelings about this LP from others and to some extent I share them. MH was a breath of fresh air at the time and I still love listening to her 40 years later so she had something. However some of the tracks are poorly considered - "Love Is The Sweetest Thing" sounds like a saturday night in a Working Men's Club version: other tracks are awesomely beautiful. Y Blodyn Gwyn and Inch Worm would stop the traffic, Prince en Avignon (is that PMC on drums?) grows on you, 'The Game' shows her voice off wonderfully. "Happiness Runs" is just beautifully silly - perfect for the time. As for the reviewer mentioning her absence from recording - there wasn't one. She is listed as a session singer on many albums recorded throughout the 70s and 80s especially LPs produced by hubby Tony Visconti. I don't think Mary particularly wanted fame and all the glitz - she only ever looked really comfortable when singing and that is a huge amount of her appeal.
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