86. Tim Buckley - Goodbye and Hello (August 1967)

1. No Man Can Find the War*

2. Carnival Song

3. Pleasant Street

4. Hallucinations 

5. I Never Asked to Be Your Mountain*

6. Once I Was*

7. Phantasmagoria in Two

8. Knight-Errant

9. Goodbye and Hello

10. Morning Glory

B

More California hippies, with their impenetrable poetry and odd time signatures. I'm a little disappointed with this album, as I don't mind some of Buckley's early 70s work and was looking forward to this. It's not a bad album, but don't expect something like the weirdness of Lorca or the strange beauty of "Song to the Siren".

Instead, this is a wildly uneven mixture of jazz and folk-rock, with Buckley's voice strong but undeveloped throughout. He obviously hadn't come into his own as a vocalist yet, and so while sometimes there are flashes of beauty, more often than not he produces a strained caterwaul that I find slightly annoying (a good example being the high-pitched keening of "Knight-Errant").

Lyrically, the album is something of a mixed bag. Buckley was working in collaboration with friend Larry Beckett at the time, and honestly the songs they collaborate on are some of the weakest. The problem being that this album is the last word in pretentious 1960s poetry - a sort of strange hybrid of Beat nonsense and faux-classical balladry. You only have to listen to the ludicrously overblown title track to appreciate how preposterous this whole project is, a song that makes "The Sound of Silence" seem grounded and subtle.

Still, "No Man Can Find the War" may not make a great deal of sense, but it features strong imagery and is evidently about something (war being bad), so there's that. "I Never Asked to Be Your Mountain", another highlight, is an interesting beast. It's about Buckley abandoning his wife and unborn child, and it walks an interesting line between an admission by Buckley of a sense of guilt, and an inability to face up to the strain of being a husband and father, and at the same time being kind of a dickish lament that he, as the title says, never asked to be her mountain. So that's interesting. I guess relationships fail at times, but he didn't need to be a dick about it. 

The one song on this album that I unreservedly like is "Once I Was". It's a lovely piece of folk rock, in which Buckley and Co stop trying to make the Great Art that is so obviously beyond their grasp, and instead just produce a melancholy love song about the end of a relationship. 

I don't want to dump all over this, mind. It's a solid album. I think it's more than the sum of its parts, really. From a musical perspective, I may find some of its excesses grating, but it's obviously influential and ground-breaking in the way it mixes genres and defies conventions of structure. And the lyrical ambition is laudable, even if the poetry ends-up mostly god awful. I think some albums have to be appreciated more for the times in which they were produced, and their impact, than as purely musical experiences. Buckley's music opened up possibilities, and suggested a freedom and boldness in respect to composition and lyrics. 

So, an A for effort and a C for execution makes a B for (not) bad. 

On to the next one!

85. The Monkees - Headquarters (May 1967)

1. You Told Me

2. I'll Spend My Life with You

3. Forget That Girl*

4. Band 6

5. You Just May Be the One

6. Shades of Grey*

7. I Can't Get Her Off My Mind

8. For Pete's Sake

9. Mr. Webster

10. Sunny Girlfriend

11. Zilch

12. No Time

13. Early Morning Blues and Greens*

14. Randy Scouse Git

B+

And we're back. Possibly because I watched Last Night in Soho, and it reminded me that the 1960s existed.

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the Monkees. I used to watch their TV show now and then, and obviously they had a number of classic songs and I always felt they were pretty unfairly maligned. Reading about them, it turns out the band weren't just angry about their lack of creative input early on, but were also angry that they had been misrepresented as an actual band when they initially considered themselves actors, effectively misleading the public and robbing the writers and musicians who actually created their early songs of credit. So, stand up guys.

This is the first Monkees album, however, where the band play on all the songs, and had input as to which songs they wanted to record, included original compositions by the members, and had a say in the arrangement and production. And the result is a pretty solid album. There's no "Daydream Believer" or "A Little Bit Me (A Little Bit You)" here, true, but Headquarters is a very solid collection of songs. I doubt it would have sold as well as it did (the number two album for 1967!) if it didn't have the massive publicity boost of being a Monkees album, but that doesn't mean it's not a good listen. 

Listening through a couple of times, there are two things that strike me. The first is the little experimental tracks that are included. "Band 6" is a throwaway country rock goof, while "Zilch" is a deeply strange experimental track consisting of the band members repeating odd phrases over the top of one another. It's a solid reminder that the Monkees were a group of comedians, as well as singers, and stands in contrast to the second thing that struck me - namely, that there are a few rather dark songs here. "Shades of Grey" is a meditation on lost innocence, and the difficulty in knowing the right thing to do and making meaning of the modern world. "Early Morning Greens and Blues" is a sad little description of a lonely life and a wasted day. Both contrast pretty strongly with the Monkees' image as a bunch of goofy popsters, and add a little emotional weight to an album that's largely sunny in disposition.

So apart from the two short goofs, which exist beyond criticism, the only song I don't like is "You Told Me". It may or may not be a joke, but it's clearly just a (admittedly pretty well executed) Beatles rip-off, and not even a rip-off of one of their better songs. It had me a bit worried, starting the album in such a way. Thankfully after that the musical style is a sort of strange synthesis of most of the music we've had up to this point - a little Beatles, a little Byrds, a little Paul Revere, a healthy dose of the Beach Boys, and even nods to show tunes and classic 60s pop. The result is a rich, varied album of memorable tunes. "Forget That Girl", in particular, is a real gem, with gorgeous vocals and a catchy melody, delivering a mature take on the end of a toxic relationship.

Anyway, I think that's it for the Monkees. They had their moment in the sun, proved the haters wrong, and left a lasting mark on pop music that more "serious" or "authentic" bands could only dream of. Is that fair? I don't know. I prefer singer-songwriters, but I don't have a problem with talented performers using songs others have written for them. It's what pop stars have always done, and it has just as important a place in our culture as any other means of artistic expression. I mean, can Kylie Minogue writer songs? I don't know, but "Love at First Sight" and "Better the Devil You Know" both kick arse. God awful factory-produced pop crap is another matter, obviously (I once saw an interview with a producer explaining that computers now allowed them to modify a single master track into countless new, barely indistinguishable songs, and effectively create a pop assembly line, which is troubling), but the Monkees have held up because, whoever was writing or playing, they were a vehicle for some truly amazing songs.