REVIEWS:
(reviewed by Kevin Baker)
This is a controversial album. A lot of folks say it's the great lost 60s album and one of the best albums ever, but plenty of others don't go for the hype and say it's good, but too derivative to be great. Well, as usual, I'm not gonna play the centrist---I love this Love album (hehe), and I do think it's truly great. The usual complaint that it is derivative has some credence, but only some. Most critics of it say that Forever Changes sounds too similar to Days Of Future Passed to be truly original. However, how could Love be apeing the Moody Blues? Both album came out in November of 1967 and were recorded half a world apart at the same time! Of course, I don't doubt at all that Love had spent plenty of time soaking in the influence of Pet Sounds, Sgt. Pepper, the Doors' first two album, and Jefferson Airplane's offerings of the year, but Forever Changes does not sound like any of these. Is there influence? Of course---but is that so bad?
However, I should probably let the merits of the album speak for themselves? What do we have? A lovely orchestrated psychedelic folk pop album. The guitar is mainly acoustic with a BIG Spanish influence in terms of playing style. I don't know who made Carlos Jiminez, house mariachi at Lupita's Kitchen, the new guitar player, but I'll be a monkey's uncle if it doesn't work very well. I may just be a sucker for Latino-influenced musica, pero en.....heh, sorry. In this case, it gives the music a different flavor from other albums of the time. Furthermore, the brass and other embellishments (strings, harp, harpsichord, etc.) sound less influenced by music hall and more influenced by Herb Alpert and the like. It has a distinctly different feel than Sgt. Pepper because of that.
Lyricwise, the songs don't exactly form a concept album, but there seems to be a theme of confusion and a dystopic outlook. Apparently, Arthur Lee wasn't happy and was convinced he was going to die, and the emotional impact of the songs models this. While the songs aren't necessarily clear and meaningful in a straightforward way, there's more there than just trippy excess if you look. Of course, the individual songs themselves deserve mention. My personal favorite is the opener, Alone Again Or, which is the most openly Latino-sounding tune, but it's not like you're listening to the local Tejano station or anything. It's got a lovely melody, very tasteful flamenco-style acoustic guitar, and more brass than the other songs. It all makes for a very pleasant listen. But what about darker stuff? Well, you've got A House Is Not A Motel and The Red Telephone! The former is a very bleak tale of worry and disillusion about the entire world and how it's gone down the drains, and the latter seems to be all about paranoia. OOOOH, creepy. MUAHAHAHA!
However, you sissies out there will like AndMoreAgain, Old Man, and The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This. These are soft and fluffy and purty and happy and make you wanna sit beneath the ash tree in your back yard with your nice cuddly dog and acoustic guitar and serenade the pastoral beauty of the summer afternoon. Naturally, once you get out there you'll slip in dog poo, break the guitar, hurt the dog, and swear profusely as the neighbor's dogs start barking and a car alarm goes off down the street because the elderly lady there forgot to disarm the alarm, but that's life.
The remaining songs (other than bonus tracks) are all in between the softhappy and wilderbutstillsoftcreepyorparanoid extremes. The Daily Planet is a meditation on the dull, rote, and stupid parts of daily life, Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale is about LA, Live And Let Live is about living and letting live, Bummer On The Summer sounds a lot like Plastic Fantastic Lover, and You Set The Scene is kind of like a summation of all the attitudes on the album. In short, this is not a perfect album----it IS a little samey sounding, especially song intros. But then again, it's very good. Great. Listenable, pleasant, serious, arty, fun, and many other pretentious epithets. My rating----grrrr.....this is so hard. Part of me screams that the sameyness deserves a penalty, but on the other hand, this album is a personal favorite. Oh well, since George Starostin doesn't do it much justice, I'll compensate.
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COMMENTS
Thanks for compensating, man - I'm not the kind of guy who believes hype and when I discovered Love a few years back, there wasn't post-hype yet, and I found a band that deserved to be recognized as one of the bests of the era! Because Love reached something rare, call it "Beauty" with a capital "B". You should review Da Capo as well: its first side is better again than Forever Changes to me... (but it can be a personal preference...)