Golden Earring were hailed as one of the hottest new bands in America when the song "Radar Love" from their album Moontan was released in 1973. Funny thing was, Golden Earring were
hardly a new band; while they weren't well known outside the
Netherlands, in their native Holland they were major stars who had been
scoring hits for eight years.
Just Earrings was their first LP, recorded in 1965 when they were still billed as the Golden Earrings,
and it's fine British Invasion-style beat music that suggests the group
was still formulating a sound of its own, but had absorbed the
influences of the Who, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Zombies, and the Hollies and
had fashioned the bits and pieces into a sound that was powerfully
tuneful and engaging. The Golden Earrings wrote nearly all their own
material at a time when even the U.K. bands they modeled themselves on
performed a fair percentage of covers, and "Now I Have" and "Lonely
Everyday" show they knew how put together a potent rock & roll
number, while "I Am a Fool" and "When People Talk" are effectively moody
downbeat tunes and "I Hate Saying These Words" is a light but
effervescent pop song. George Kooymans and Peter De Ronde were a great guitar team, bassist Rinus Gerritsen and drummer Jaap Eggermont push the music forward with energy and imagination, and Frans Krassenburg's
vocals show both attitude and aptitude, especially since he's singing
in English (though the lyrics don't always survive close scrutiny).
If Just Earrings had
been recorded by a British band, chances are good the group could have
scored that first hit in America a lot sooner -- the album is certainly
on a par with the work of most of the U.K. bands that were storming the
U.S charts at the time, and if it took longer for America to warm to
rock & roll from Holland, this is fun stuff that swings in any time
zone.(allmusic.com)
The music on this album is completely different from what the later renamed Golden Earring played. This is a really strong album of so called ''british invasion'' sounds. You hear the influence of the Beatles, the Hollies, Kinks and all the british big bands of the time then. And the Ear-Rings have done it very well and i recommend this album to all of you who loved and love the british sounds of the mid sixties.
Have fun
Frank
New Flac & mp3@320
