Review Summary: The best pop album ever?
Most music fans know about the summer of love. 1967 was the year the rest of the world caught up with what was going on in California and elsewhere up to that point, what with the be-ins, love ins, flowers in your hair, and the rejection of the draft, sexual repression and soap. To those who were living it though, it was glaringly apparent that this was the beginning of the end. Because once the media and it’s advertisers caught wind of the revolution and figured out how to sell it, it’s purpose was defeated.
In the Autumn of 1967, Love (the band) released it’s third LP titled “Forever Changes”. Recorded in June of that year, it is anything but a reflection of those times. This record is instead, a window into the future. It accurately predicts the disillusionment of the seventies, the me-first attitude of the eighties, as well as the news as entertainment mentality of the nineties and beyond.
Most of the songs on “Forever Changes” were written by Love’s enigmatic front man and band leader Arthur Lee. The opening track however, was penned by band mate Bryan MacLean. Titled “Alone Again Or” , it’s juxtaposition of positivity offset by stark reality is a hallmark of it’s brilliance.
“You know I could be in love with almost everyone…I think that people are the greatest fun…….And I will be alone again tonight, my dear…”
MacLean was not a principal songwriter for the band, but this track wisely chosen by Lee as the album’s opener dissects free love, exposes it as the fallacy it had become and leaves it out on the examination table for all to bear witness. Set to a flamenco guitar rhythm track with mariachi horns, it is one of those songs that when you hear it for the first time you exclaim, “Oh I’ve heard this before!” It’s actually a peppy little tune which makes the underlying message all the more powerful.
Arthur Lee however, would chime in soon enough. On the LP’s second track, “A House Is Not A Motel” Lee cuts loose with some scathing social commentary with nary a daisy or a lava lamp in sight.
By the time that I'm through singing
The bells from the schools of walls will be ringing
More confusions, blood transfusions
The news today will be the movies for tomorrow
And the water's turned to blood, and if
You don't think so
Go turn on your tub
And it it's mixed with mud
You'll see it turn to gray
And you can call my name
I hear you call my name
Lee’s lyrics here paint a grim picture of the future that is stunning in it’s accuracy.
Even more important is that these lyrics don’t sound dated. They are actually more relevant today than they were back then. Lee had been quoted various times about the lyrics on this record as him writing from a place where he was viewing the world as if he was dying.
"When I did that album," commented Arthur Lee, "I thought I was going to die at that particular time, so those were my last words."
Lee of course did not die, at least not right away. The idealism of the ‘60’s however WAS dying and bands like Love and The Doors were on the cutting edge of this conclusion while gramdmas and grampas on vacation were taking the bus tour through Haight-Ashbury so they could see real live hippies.
The sociological undercurrent that drives the mission statement of this album is not always so obvious. It runs through the piece like a thread that is sometimes hard to see, sometimes plain as day, but always there. There are personal pleas and “look at yourself in the mirror moments” cleverly disguised as self examination. “You Set The Scene”, perhaps Lee’s magnum opus, explains.
This is the time and life that I am living
And I'll face each day with a smile
For the time that I've been given's such a little while
And the things that I must do consist of more than style
There are places I am going
This is the only thing that I am sure of
And that's all that lives is gonna die
And there'll always be some people here to wonder why
And for every happy hello, there will be good-bye
There'll be time for you to put yourself on
The last verse is where Lee turns the tables with an impassioned plea for awareness and participation towards fixing what is happening in our world. Not exactly “Tune in, turn on and drop out” is it?
Everything I've seen needs rearranging
And for anyone who thinks it's strange
Then you should be the first to want to make this change
And for everyone who thinks that life is just a game
Do you like the part you're playing?
Most records are very much “of their time” meaning that when you listen to them they take you back to a place or a feeling. “Forever Changes” contains an inherent sense of immediacy that flies in the face of that logic. This record sounds like it could have been recorded yesterday. It contains none of the psychedelic trappings or backwards tape looping of the era. It is mainly an acoustically driven folk inspired effort, but delivered with tasteful orchestral flourishes and an uncanny edge that makes it both timeless and essential.
The record charted only as high as #154 on the Billboard US album charts, mainly due to a lack of a hit single and Arthur Lee’s resistance to touring anywhere other than the immediate Southern California area.
Today the record is almost universally lauded as a classic. The most notable retrospective praise came in 2003 from the British magazine, NME, who rated Forever Changes #6 on their list of greatest albums of all time. In 1998, Q magazine readers voted Forever Changes the 82nd greatest album of all time.
Rolling Stone magazine ranked it 40th in its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time in the December 11, 2003 issue. In a special issue of Mojo magazine, it was ranked the second greatest psychedelic album of all time, while in 1995 it made #11 in Mojo's list of the 100 Greatest Albums Ever Made.
Forever Changes was ranked 83rd in a 2005 survey held by British television's Channel 4 to determine the 100 greatest albums of all time.
Forever Changes was praised by the British Parliament in 2002 as being one of the Greatest Albums of All Time.
According to the New Musical Express, The Stone Roses’ relationship with their future producer John Leckie was settled when they all agreed that Forever Changes was the "best record ever".
While I’m no big fan of polls and how they’re used to fill space on magazine racks, this kind of across the board praise has to give one pause to think as to why they have not checked this album out yet. So you might wanna set out to do something about that if you have’nt already.
