Catchy and Collectible --Marilyn is always a classic!

An excellent collection of Marilyn's surprising talent for song. I brought this into my office and curdled all my male officemates' hormones with her sweet, breathy tones. This is definately a fun CD and a neat item to own. I've used it as a gift item myself and received thank yous from people who were quite surprised at how much they liked it.

Incomplete collection, but good sound quality!

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I have a large collection of Marilyn Monroe CD's, mostly aquired as gifts from my many admirers. Most of them have the same songs, because after all, Marilyn Monroe didn't record that many songs in her short-lived career.

Of all the CD's in my collection however, this one (although vastly incomplete in the scope of Marilyn's best songs) has pretty good sound quality overall. The packing says nothing to give one a clue as to the source of the soundtracks found herein.

The sound quality is fairly full and rich, and unlike many other Marilyn Monroe CD compilations, it definitely does NOT sound as if someone has simply made a recording of an old LP (complete with scratches and "pops") and then transferred it to a CD.

The songs on this one are a good choice for the most part, even if no songs from "Some Like it Hot" are found here. Sadly, the "Hot" songs were some of Marilyn's most outstanding, so they are definitely missed on this collection.

A special treat is the version of "Bye Bye Baby" found here, in which the song is sung in its entirety by Marilyn Monroe (unlike most versions where the vocals are shared with Jane Russell).

MMmmmmmmmmm... Marilyn Monroe! Nowhere in history is there another woman who can lend the same level of innocent naughtiness to the song "Do it Again". When Marilyn sang this at an army base, she so titillated the soldiers that the high brass asked her to please discontinue her performance of this song at subsequent base visits. Marilyn innocently replied "But I'm only trying to do my part to keep the soldiers spirits up!" Well, their spirits weren't the only thing "up" after hearing this song!

Final word: This is a good choice for an addition to anyone's Marilyn Monroe music collection, and also a great choice for a first CD for someone who is just beginning to experience the vocal talents of Marilyn Monroe.

One of the more impressive Marilyn CDs available

There are a good many Marilyn Monroe collections out there containing most of the same songs (there are only about three dozen Marilyn songs in all), and this is one of the more impressive ones, containing almost 38 minutes of music. Half of these 12 tracks are taken from two movies. You get all the great tracks from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend, A Little Girl from Little Rock and When Love Goes Wrong, Nothing Goes Right with Jane Russell, and Bye Bye Baby. This version of Bye Bye Baby is not the version featured in the film, which makes it notable. In the movie, Marilyn only sings the final portion of the song, but here Marilyn alone sings the entire song, making it all her own. River of No Return gives us I'm Gonna File My Claim, one of my favorite Marilyn songs, as well as the less familiar but haunting One Silver Dollar - this song, despite its slightly airy sound quality, really expresses the passion and emotion that Marilyn could bring to a song.

A Fine Romance, She Acts Like a Woman Should, and the Gershwin classic Do It Again all sound wonderful against a big band backdrop, and two notable recordings from the movie Let's Make Love complete the bill. Specialization is a little-known duet Marilyn performed with Frankie Vaughan, but the real gem is Marilyn's complete 5:00 version of the Cole Porter classic My Heart Belongs to Daddy. The inclusion of One Silver Dollar, Specialization, and the complete My Heart Belongs to Daddy makes this album one of the more impressive Marilyn CDs out there.