🍿 Trivia What do they have in common?

Harry

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Here are 12 tracks recorded by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. What do they have in common?

Love Potion #9
Never On Sunday
A-me-ri-ca
Last Tango In Paris
My Favorite Things
Cabaret
Zazueira
Wade In The Water
The Maltese Melody
Without Her
Summertime
Acapulco 1922
 
Every time I think I've got it, one or two songs tell me, "Nope!"

Songs with Saxophone... Nope
Songs that were single B-Sides.... Nope
Songs that preceded their LP as a single... Nope
Songs with orchestrations... Nope
Songs written by members of the TJB... Nope
Songs from Movies... Nope
One song each from a different album... Nope
First song on Side two of their respective albums... Nope
All have the same running time... Nope
All are covers... Yeah, but I doubt that's what you're looking for...
All feature instruments not rally a part of NOR not played by regular members of the TJB... Again, probably not what you're looking for (and probably not true for all of these anyway)...

Rudy's answer is the best one so far! 😉
 
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Interesting that all are covers. Perhaps that might be ancillary to the answer I'm looking for.
 
Every time I think I've got it, one or two songs tell me, "Nope!"

More from the "nope" category, I'm thinking...
  • Songs with the trumpet parts secretly overdubbed by Maynard Ferguson.
  • Songs written at 11:37pm on the ninth day of the month. But only during a full moon.
  • Songs covered by Lawrence Welk. (You haven't heard "Love Potion #9" until you've heard it sung by the Lennon Sisters!)
  • Songs that Lani no longer allows Herb to play at concerts due to the hotel keys and other unmentionables being tossed onstage.
  • Songs written while suffering a hangover.
  • Songs that tangle up in your 8-track player.
  • Songs rejected by The Three Tenors. (Because, you know, Pavarotti never did the tango in Paris. And butter gave him heartburn.)
  • Songs that made Willie Nelson fire up a blunt.
  • Songs shorter than 17½ minutes.
  • Songs best played during a colonoscopy.
  • Songs that reached #23 on the Hot 100.
  • Songs listed on some thread on some forum somewhere.
  • Songs used for a drinking game.
  • Songs not mistaken for the Bob Crewe Generation.
  • Songs to winterize your RV by.
Not even warm, am I?
 
Kicking around "placement," I'm still not yet seeing the connection. One idea I had is that the tracks were in the same place on an LP or CD in terms of the track numbers, but I'm not familiar enough with the compilations and anthologies to know where they all fell. (Such as, "These tracks all appeared as track #6 on an original album or compilation.")

I also tried thinking of a connection where the listed tracks on a single or EP were backed with a song composed by one of the TJB members and/or Sol Lake...or one could really stretch the idea to include A&M's extended family with Bacharach and Roger Nichols as composers. And that gets tricky since there are singles and EPs issued in different years and versions, as well as in the US or around the world.

Wade in the Water b/w Mexican Road Race (Sol Lake) A&M 840
Maltese Melody b/w Country Lake (Sol Lake) A&M 1159
My Favorite Things b/w She Touched Me (Sol Lake) A&M 1015

...but then "Last Tango in Paris" and others blow that idea out of the water. "Zazueira" (1043) was backed by "Treasure of San Miguel" (Roger Nichols).

I'm going to hold off looking at the answer here since I want to get a little more time to see if I can figure this out.

So it might be good for correct answers to be hidden by spoilers. 😉
 
So it might be good for correct answers to be hidden by spoilers. 😉
Good idea.

Answer here for those who have given up: [Click below and the text comes into focus.]
I was looking over some track listings of some TJB compilation albums and got to wondering if all or most of them had been included in the giant box set HERB ALPERT IS...

I looked through just the three main 70s compilations, GREATEST HITS, GREATEST HITS VOL. 2, and SOLID BRASS. The tracks listed are the ones that were NOT included on HERB ALPERT IS...

At one time, they were obviously considered "greatest hits" (or at least "solid"), but for this giant box set they were not included. I wondered if they'd fallen out of favor, and then someone suggested they were all cover songs. I don't think that's the total answer for their exclusion, since a fair number of covers WERE included on the box set. I believe it was mostly a case of "not enough room", but even that can be debunked. Looking at the CDs in the box set, Disc 1 clocks in at around 68 minutes. Disc 2 comes in at 71 minutes, and Disc 3 is only 63 minutes.

The twelve tracks above total around 34 minutes, which is nearly the exact number of minutes that *could* fit on the box set to take each disc to 79 minutes. It would probably require doing some track-juggling, but I suppose it could be done.

I toyed with the idea of including FOURSIDER, but that was really less of a "hits" compilation.

All of this was just an observation, and I wondered if it would be in any way obvious to list the tracks and see if anyone caught on. Guess not. Rudy probably will not, given that he's not a compilation guy. I don't even know if he got the box set! (The twelve tracks DO make for a rather interesting compilation on their own.)

If you comment, for now, use spoiler tags.
 
Thanks for the spoilers, Harry, I still want to try to crack this riddle. It's a good one!
 
At one time, they were obviously considered "greatest hits" (or at least "solid"), but for this giant box set they were not included. I wondered if they'd fallen out of favor, and then someone suggested they were all cover songs. I don't think that's the total answer for their exclusion, since a fair number of covers WERE included on the box set. I believe it was mostly a case of "not enough room", but even that can be debunked. Looking at the CDs in the box set, Disc 1 clocks in at around 68 minutes. Disc 2 comes in at 71 minutes, and Disc 3 is only 63 minutes.

The twelve tracks above total around 34 minutes, which is nearly the exact number of minutes that *could* fit on the box set to take each disc to 79 minutes. It would probably require doing some track-juggling, but I suppose it could be done.

The Box Set tracks were chosen by Herb. The total music time was calculated for the records and the CDs, to make the two versions identical. One tune, LEMON TREE, was in the original list, but clearance by its publisher was denied. Adding another CD wouldn't fit the plan, as more vinyl would be needed, the space within the Box Set was planned out, more clearances would be needed, and the price points of the sets would be affected as well.
 
In conjunction with Steven's endorsement, I'm officially throwing in the towel on this one.

After reviewing the answer, I wouldn't have figured it out given the TjB ship I was sailing...

In any event thanks, Harry!
 
I never would have figured it out either.

Any of Herb's "hits" compilations include a number of tracks that weren't necessarily hits. (Just because something was released as a single doesn't make it a hit!)

I always thought it would be a fun Internet thing for Herb (or any artist, really) to put up a poll listing all of his songs and ask people to pick which 20 they would put on a "People's Choice" release. I'll bet a few surprises would make the cut.
 
Rudy probably will not, given that he's not a compilation guy. I don't even know if he got the box set!
No plans to get the box set--I own all the music already, can easily throw the same tunes into a playlist, and at that point I'd be paying a small fortune to get what is essentially a 12"x12" photo book with five record sleeves bound into it. And the CD set would be pointless for me since the printing and photos are too small for me to see clearly, even with readers on. They are very nice box sets, though! I'm just not the type of person a box set is made for.

I'd gladly buy just the photo book if it were ever published. With the box set having passed, it would be a clever idea to have something like that published, even in paperback, perhaps with more content (maybe a bio and an essay or two, so casual buyers who don't know Herb's history would have something to compel them to purchase it).

I never did "crack the code" on this one so I had to cheat and use the spoiler. 😁 I'd thought of looking at compilations but even there, I probably would have started including Foursider, the Classics Vol. 1, etc., and that would have thrown off the results.

Sneaky dilemma, this one is... 🍻
 
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