82. Moby Grape - Moby Grape (June 1967)

 

1. Hey Grandma

2. Mr. Blues

3. Fall on You

4. 8:05

5. Come in the Morning

6. Omaha*

7. Naked, If I Want To

8. Someday*

9. Ain't No Use

10. Sitting by the Window*

11. Changes

12. Lazy Me

13. Indifference

A-

I think it's obligatory to open any discussion of Moby Grape by observing how unlucky they were, and that if it weren't for that infamous run of bad luck they might have been huge. That said, the band's status as might-have-beens kind of overshadows their music, and it would be easy to heap undue praise on their debut album purely out of a desire to correct the course of history.

Having said which, this is a pretty great album. Although it's clearly psychedelic rock, the songs have an economy to them - they're all short and sweet, and there are no acid jams to be found. Instead the songs (and by extension the album) rush by so quickly that you barely have time to process one before its over and the next one's started. This helps to keep the album sounding fresh all the way through, especially as there's a decent amount of variety in the tracks. The rockier numbers like "Hey Grandma" and "Omaha" seem to get the most attention, being obvious precursors to the power pop and the like of the 1970s, but my personal favourites are the slower numbers "Someday" (which begins with gorgeous harmonies that would pop up again in a Galaxie 500 song, though I can't recall which), and the haunting "Sitting by the Window", which is a lovely song about lost love. There are even a couple of stomping soul numbers ("Mr. Blues" and "Changes") which, while probably the weakest songs on the album, are still pretty good.

That said, the short and sweet approach works well on this album, but there are a few tracks that should have been longer. "Omaha" is one of catchiest, most rocking songs we've had so far, but it really deserves to be longer and keep building, and fades out just when it's getting good. I think I read somewhere that Moby Grape's manager insisted they restrict themselves to a three minute pop formula to ensure lots of singles, and it's a bit of a mixed blessing. 

This is, really, a very good album. For one thing, it's very well played. There's some great guitar interplay and the rhythm section is incredibly snappy and quite well-recorded. The group also sings in harmony a lot, and it's beautiful. Not only do all the members have great voices, but the production on the album captures them perfectly. (It was kind of weird, actually - due to the position of the stereo speakers, and where I was sitting as I listened to this, the harmonies on several songs echoed off my loungeroom wall, and I ended-up listening to the album in surround sound). Lyrically, the album also holds-up quite well. All the members of the group contributed songs, and while no-one is going to mistake them for Nobel laureates they deliver touching, no-nonsense songs about everything from the generation gap to unemployment to lost love to whatever "Omaha" was about (apparently not Omaha, Nebraska, oddly enough). 

It's unfortunate, really. There's no way that Moby Grape could ever live up to the hype surrounding them at the time, and this album's reputation as a one-off classic means it's pretty impossibly for it to live up to the hype which has since amassed around it. But that doesn't mean it isn't a great collection of brilliantly played tunes, at turns witty, rocking, and poignant.