Album: Forever Changes
Artist: Love
Born: Los Angeles
Released: November 1967
Genre: Psychedelia
Influenced: The Doors, Robert Plant, Jesus & the Mary Chain, Stone Roses, Yo La Tengo
On Forever Changes, the songwriting steps up a level and the compositions, with the help of David Angel, are more focused and original. As with the best psychedelia (Piper At The Gates Of Dawn being a good example), there's also something unsettling about listening to Forever Changes that Love were not able to recreate so well on any other album. Opener Alone Again Or is stunning, combining acoustic guitar, Flamenco horns & trumpets and Lee's mournful vocal delivery. Like One Nation Underground, this is psychedelia but with a dark underbelly, a sense of foreboding that presages the unravelling of the counterculture movement in '68 and '69. Andmoreagain is a mesmerising song about love and its power for surprise and redemption, while on The Daily Planet, you get the first sense in Lee's lyrics of a coming apocalypse; he was convinced he wouldn't live past his 26th birthday, which gives this album a real urgency ("the iceman, yes his ice is melting"). That paranoia builds on majestic side 1 closer, The Red Telephone, with Lee articulating his fears for his own liberty set against the sound of baroque strings.
Side 2 of Forever Changes is sublime. I love the poetic innovation on Between Clark and Hillside of omitting the last word of every line, only to integrate into the next after a dramatic pause, and it gets things off to an energetic start. Live & Let Live is an impassioned anti-war song that continually changes shape, driven by a brilliant guitar riff from Johnny Echols. The Good Humor Man, He Sees Everything Like This is sickly sweet and pollyanna and rips itself apart at the end, a brilliant satire of the hippie mindset. Bummer In The Summer provides some light relief before the album closer and masterpiece, You Set The Scene, a brilliant showcase for Lee's genius. Even after repeated listens, this song (and the album) still sounds fresh and triumphant, and ranks among the high points not just of psychedelia but all of pop history.
Artist: Love
Born: Los Angeles
Released: November 1967
Genre: Psychedelia
Influenced: The Doors, Robert Plant, Jesus & the Mary Chain, Stone Roses, Yo La Tengo
For me, this album is the high water mark of the first wave of psychedelia. Arthur Lee, like his friend Jimi Hendrix, would not gain the initial recognition in his home country that he deserved, but by the time of his death in 2006, Forever Changes had come to be considered one of the best albums ever made. Like many west coast bands in the mid-60s, Love were influenced by the Byrds, but not so reliant on Dylan and really a whole new proposition altogether; mixing Bryan McLean's blond good looks and love of flamenco with Arthur Lee's mixed-race heritage and love of garage rock. Their eponymous first album bears the hallmarks of their early acid-tinged garage rock style, with Lee belting out the songs, but there were few clues as to the evolution of their sound on follow-up (and near masterpiece), Da Capo. The first half of the album is the equal of Forever Changes, with 7 and 7 Is a pounding piece of garage rock and Orange Skies a beautiful slice of pastoral psychedelia; sadly, 19min-long Revelation is anything but, taking up the whole of side 2 with the sort of self-indulgent ramble that would characterise the Doors at their worst.
On Forever Changes, the songwriting steps up a level and the compositions, with the help of David Angel, are more focused and original. As with the best psychedelia (Piper At The Gates Of Dawn being a good example), there's also something unsettling about listening to Forever Changes that Love were not able to recreate so well on any other album. Opener Alone Again Or is stunning, combining acoustic guitar, Flamenco horns & trumpets and Lee's mournful vocal delivery. Like One Nation Underground, this is psychedelia but with a dark underbelly, a sense of foreboding that presages the unravelling of the counterculture movement in '68 and '69. Andmoreagain is a mesmerising song about love and its power for surprise and redemption, while on The Daily Planet, you get the first sense in Lee's lyrics of a coming apocalypse; he was convinced he wouldn't live past his 26th birthday, which gives this album a real urgency ("the iceman, yes his ice is melting"). That paranoia builds on majestic side 1 closer, The Red Telephone, with Lee articulating his fears for his own liberty set against the sound of baroque strings.
Side 2 of Forever Changes is sublime. I love the poetic innovation on Between Clark and Hillside of omitting the last word of every line, only to integrate into the next after a dramatic pause, and it gets things off to an energetic start. Live & Let Live is an impassioned anti-war song that continually changes shape, driven by a brilliant guitar riff from Johnny Echols. The Good Humor Man, He Sees Everything Like This is sickly sweet and pollyanna and rips itself apart at the end, a brilliant satire of the hippie mindset. Bummer In The Summer provides some light relief before the album closer and masterpiece, You Set The Scene, a brilliant showcase for Lee's genius. Even after repeated listens, this song (and the album) still sounds fresh and triumphant, and ranks among the high points not just of psychedelia but all of pop history.
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