101. The Electric Prunes - The Electric Prunes (a.k.a. I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)) (April 1967)

1. I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)*

2. Bangles

3. Onie*

4. Are You Loving Me More (But Enjoying It Less)

5. Train for Tomorrow

6. Sold to the Highest Bidder

7. Get Me to the World on Time*

8. About a Quarter to Nine

9. The King Is in the Counting House

10. Luvin'

11. Try Me on for Size

12. The Toonerville Trolley

B-

This is another headscratcher. It's not that it's a bad album, just that it's a mediocre one. And when there are so many great albums that have been left out of the book, its inclusion is pretty weird.

Let's start with the good. The Electric Prunes (such a terrible, terrible band name) have a great sound. There's a lot of effects, a lot of reverb, some genuinely solid and innovative playing, and even a few primitive electronic flourishes in the form of keyboards and tape effects. The whole album has a dark, weird sound, loose and jazzy sound to it that obviously helped to influence the dark, vaguely gothy sound of a lot of punk and post-punk. Unfortunately, the material is just not up to the sound. In fact, (and, to be fair, the band were forced to record a lot of these songs instead of their own material) often the full-blown psychedelic sound is at odds with the more conventional songs. 

There are a few exceptions, of course. The title track/opener just kicks ass. It starts with a fuzzed-out, reversed, oscillating guitar that sounds like something from outer space. This slams into a hard, dark, totally rocking number that sounds like nothing else, and is basically all hook. Yeah, the lyrics are stupid, but they're also pretty trippy. It's a great song.

Another good song is the pretty ballad "Onie", which is about someone growing up too fast and not enjoying their youth. Musically, it's basically just a 50s-style ballad, but the Prunes' dark and mysterious sound warps it into something rich and strange. 

And then there's the kick-ass, Bo Diddley-swiping "Get Me to the World on Time", another stellar rocker that actually plays to the band's strengths as psychedelic exploraters instead of sticking them into a pop-rock straight jacket.

Otherwise, it's mostly just weak songs with nifty production, and there are even a couple of outright stinkers in "The King Is in the Counting House" and the execrable "Toonerville Trolley".

So is this a bad album? No. But you're basically only listening to it because the title track was on the first nuggets compilation. One great song does not an indispensable album make. I get that this was not the Electric Prunes' fault - they were hamstrung by their producer, who insisted they perform songs written by his pet songwriters. It's pretty good, but fails to meet the standard of being one of the 1001 albums you should hear before you die. Especially when (and I'll gripe about this forever) albums like Homogenic, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Aquemini, and I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One were left out of the Book. But hey! Two Supergrass albums and Billy Fucking Joel, so it's alright. 

Anyway, here's "I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)", to save you the trouble of listening to the album:

100. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced (May 1967)

1. Foxy Lady

2. Manic Depression*

3. Red House

4. Can You See Me

5. Love or Confusion*

6. I Don't Live Today

7. May This Be Love

8. Fire*

9. 3rd Stone from the Sun

10. Remember

11. Are You Experienced

A

Well here we are at album 100. I didn't think I'd make it this far. Only 901 albums to go! I thought maybe I'd do something special for this, but then I couldn't think of anything, and nobody reads this anyway. So, eh.

Anyway, this is a great album to have at number 100. We've had a lot of gradual shifts and developments so far, but nothing like this album. The opening of "Foxy Lady" - a warbling chord that fades in only to explode into the biggest, loudest, dirtiest riff imaginable - was like nothing else in 1967, and it still sounds incredible today. There's not much you can say about Jimi Hendrix as a guitarist that hasn't been said before, really. His approach to music was like nothing else before, and while I don't love all his songs, his best pieces are fucking incredible. He was also an innovative singer, with his stoned-out, declamatory style hitting as hard as a drum kit. I remember seeing a documentary on Hendrix once, where he wanted them to hire someone else to do the singing, but he kind of got pushed into it because he had such a unique and incredible rhythm and tone. 

The backing band, too, were pretty damned great. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was effectively assembled by Hendrix's manager to support and highlight Hendrix as a performer, and the drums and bass really are the perfect foils for Hendrix's guitar and vocals. I know this was the Jimi Hendrix Experience, but the other two guys are often unfairly overlooked.

Still, it's Hendrix we remember, and we remember him as a brilliant guitarist and songwriter. I've adhered to the original UK track listing for this album, which means no "Purple Haze" or "The Wind Cries Mary", but there's still a great range of styles on display, all brilliantly executed, and really there's not a bad song on the album. The great thing about Hendrix is that he was a brilliant guitarist, but (at least on this album) he didn't give in to proggy excess. So you have a massive stormer of a song like "Manic Depression" anchored by a hook you could learn to play approximately ten minutes after first picking up a guitar, while at the same time featuring utterly blistering solos. Then you have softer songs like "Remember" and "Love or Confusion", and even a kick-ass blues number in "Red House", showing that Hendrix could play "normal" music, too, and wasn't just hiding behind acid-tinged weirdness and studio trickery.

And as for that trickery? Well, this album is at the same time very well-produced, and, due to budgetary and technical limitations, possessed of a fuzzy rawness that perfectly complements the music. So you have both the slick sci-fi weirdness of "3rd Stone from the Sun" and the skull-crushing dirtiness of "Foxy Lady" on the same album. And through all the sound is big and distorted in a way that seems logical to us in the present day, but was quite revolutionary at the time. I tend to think Hendrix gave in to excess a little on his next two albums, but here the Experience are straining against the limitations of the technology, and that gives the music a verve that can't be matched by a more polished recording. Although advances in studio recording would of course lead to classics like "Castles Made of Sand" and "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)". Then again, my favourite Hendrix album is Band of Gypsys Live at the Filmore East. 

Anyway, that's my opinion to the extent I can be bothered defending it. Here's to 901 more rambling, incoherent observations.

99. Merle Haggard and the Strangers - I'm a Lonesome Fugitive (March 1967)

1. I'm a Lonesome Fugitive*

2. All of Me Belongs to You

3. House of Memories

4. Life in Prison*

5. Whatever Happened to Me

6. Drink Up and Be Somebody*

7. Someone Told My Story

8. If You Want to Be My Woman

9. Mary's Mine

10. Skid Row

11. My Rough and Rowdy Ways

12. Mixed Up Mess of a Heart

B+

I criticise the Book for its chronological inconsistencies, but the editors obviously knew people were going to try and listen through the List in order. So it is that we emerge from a cloud of incense and hash smoke and into the clear air of a pretty solid country album. It's a welcome respite.

Merle Haggard is a great singer and guitarist, and he wrote or co-wrote most of the songs here. Most of them are rough-and-ready bar room numbers about the usual country themes - lost love, caring for your sweetheart, and the mixed blessing that is alcohol. The sound is somewhere between Buck Owens and Patsy Cline, with a steady back beat and lots of bluesy flourishes and nods to jazz and swing. The production is pristine, and the arrangements (lots of pedal steel here) are tasteful while still being tough. But still, it's very much what people think of when they think of old country music. I can imagine Hank Hill loving this album.

Probably one of the most notable elements of this album is the songs focusing on crime and poverty and wasting your life. This is interesting because Merle Haggard was a former criminal who did multiple stretches. Apparently the title track was written without knowledge of this fact, but it appealed to Haggard due to his past and he made it his own. But as bleak as that song is, it's still kind of a romance that pays court to the allure of being on the run (America, much like Australia, loves its outlaws). Much bleaker is the harrowing "Life in Prison", a song Haggard co-wrote. What do you make of a song about a man facing life without parole, whose only wish is that he might die and be freed from his torment? It also raises a good point about capital punishment, or at least something I've always felt, that is that killing some prisoners might be considered a mercy they don't deserve. I mean, obviously if there's a God and a Hell then it's just to send monsters to meet their maker, but if you're like me and don't believe in any of that it's a much more fitting punishment to have them rot in gaol for the term of their natural life. Although that's just my opinion, and actually antithetical to the real point of the song.

Anyway, equally bleak is the song "House of Memories", which is kind of like "There's Always Something There to Remind Me" I suppose. The narrator has nothing left but his house, and everything in it is a constant reminder of the lover he's lost, to the point where it's driving him mad.

Another good song is "Drink Up and Be Somebody". It's a dark song, although delivered in an upbeat style, dealing with a man who's been spurned and drinks to feel important and hide his true feelings. A lot of songs about alcohol either wholly endorse it or tell some bleak tale, but this song actually captures why a lot of people drink, and both the pros and cons of it. This kind of honest appraisal of working class life is one of the things I've grown to like about the country music I've listened to. 

But it's not all bleakness and despair. There are a few upbeat love songs, and some cheeky almost-rockers. Really, the whole album is pretty good, and the lyrics are complex and clever enough to support sitting and listening to it through (ideally on a Sunday afternoon, with a beer in one hand and a smoke in the other). One of the things I've liked about this project is being forced to listen to more Country music. It often gets written off as a load of depressing, ultra-nationalist clap trap, and to be fair I wouldn't want to have to listen to the overproduced crap that passes for a lot of country these days. But there's also a lot of great stuff, and artists like Gillian Welsh and Neko Case wouldn't exist without it. I'm looking forward to listening to more of it over the course of this project. 

98. Donovan - Sunshine Superman (August 1966)

1. Sunshine Superman*

2. Ballad of a Girl Child Linda

3. Three King Fishers

4. Ferris Wheel*

5. Bert's Blues

6. Season of the Witch*

7. The Trip

8. Guinevere

9. The Fat Angel

10. Celeste

A-

So another screw-up, chronologically, by the Book. This album was released in the USA in 1966, and the eventual British release the following year uses a completely different track listing. It's important to note this because music was changing so rapidly at the time that placing things in context becomes vital. Had this album been released in '67 it would have still been a big deal, but it was actually released in '66 just a couple of weeks after the Beatles' Revolver blew everyone's minds. Which makes this not only one of the earliest psychedelic releases, but an incredibly innovative album.

Musically, this album is brilliant. The clever trick it plays is to mix folk and rock music which rich pop production. The best example of this is the title track, which is a storming singalong with "everything but the kitchen sink" production values. Lyrically, it's about a man setting out to woo a woman, but in a lot of ways it's also something of a mission statement for Donovan - defiantly odd, but at the same time incredibly catchy. And the line "everybody's hustling to make a little scene/ when I say we'll be cool, baby, you know what I mean" seems to point a way forward in search of a genuinely free and unconventional way of life, not just counter-cultural conformity and attempts to "make it".

"Sunshine Superman" is a brilliant song, and a deserved smash hit, but it's also somewhat atypical of the album. The very next song, "Ballad of a Girl Child Linda", is a long and rambling chamber-folk piece rich with mediaeval imagery, which seems to be an attempt to conjure the joy and mystery and terror of listening to stories as a child. There are references to talking parrots, wizards, knights in armour and fair damsels, and the imagery is so rich and dense that at times it's almost overwhelmingly sensual. There's also a tactile sense to the lyrics (Donovan uses the word "velvet" at least half a dozen times on this album). "Three King Fishers" follows the folky, mediaeval bent, and then there's the beautiful "Ferris Wheel", a lilting pop-folk number about stumbling upon a carnival during a walk on the beach, which is again about feeling free and following your dreams, and has a very pretty melody. After that comes "Bert's Blues", a dense, strange number written for Bert Jansch, which introduces old timey jazz into the mix, and which involves cold winds blowing on their way to Hades and fairy castles terrible in the moonlight.

I'll be honest - I love this sort of crap. When I think of hippies of the 60s, the British folk revival and songs about knights and elves and the like is where I gravitate towards. And it helps that side one of this album is just incredibly pretty.

On side two, things get darker and weirder and ultimately less successful. "Season of the Witch", with its classic scratchy guitar riff and paranoid lyrics about "beatniks out to make it rich" and the like, is a stone cold classic. It's also carried by a prominent, simple bass line, which is one of the most distinctive elements of the album's sound as a whole, often filling in where chords would on a lesser album. "Guinevere", another mediaeval number, is just a pretty song about Arthurian times, rich in imagery and with a haunting melody. It's pretty great. 

The other three songs are good, but not especially good. "The Trip" is some beat nonsense about a trip Donovan took to LA, where he met a bunch of folk luminaries who he name-drops in the lyrics. It's kind of fun, but not up to the standard set by the rest of the album. "The Fat Angel" is very catchy, but it's just a silly song about a man who "brings you happiness in a pipe" and then "rides off on his silver bike". It's kind of notable because Donovan references Jefferson Airplane in it, I guess. The last song is "Celeste", which opts for a full pop ballad approach and really doesn't work.

So, this is a pretty great album. The production and arrangements are gorgeous, the songs are all trippy without being druggy, there are lots of catchy melodies, and the side openers are two of the best songs of the 1960s. It's not perfect throughout, but it's a lot of fun, full of wit and warmth and optimism. Although if you dislike whimsy, and songs about magic and mystery, I would not recommend it.

97. The Kinks - Something Else by the Kinks (September 1967)

1. David Watts*

2. Death of a Clown

3. Two Sisters*

4. No Return

5. Harry Rag

6. Tin Soldier Man

7. Situation Vacant

8. Love Me Till the Sun Shines

9. Lazy Old Sun

10. Afternoon Tea

11. Funny Face

12. End of the Season

13. Waterloo Sunset*

A

You know, I'm quite fond of the Kinks, but for some reason the only albums of theirs that I've actually heard in full are this and Face to Face (I might have heard Lola Vs. Powerman but I honestly can't remember). Well I suppose one of the reasons I'm doing this project is to remedy things like that. 

Anyway, this is one of my personal favourites. Face to Face saw Ray Davies maturing as a songwriter, and Something Else... is the album where that really bears fruit. The songs I've marked above are three of the finest ever written. "David Watts" is a hilarious character piece, about a school boy both wishing he could have the life of the paragon that is one of his class mates, and kind of crushing on him. It really shows Ray Davies at his wry best as a lyricist, as well as being a driving monster of a song musically. "Two Sisters" is a beautiful chamber pop number about a married woman resenting her single sister for the carefree life she leads, only to find meaning and purpose in the faces of her children, ultimately deciding that she's better off. And "Waterloo Sunset" is just jaw dropping, a wonderful song about finding beauty in the grimy world around you, of coming to terms with loneliness, about the way we create stories for the people we observe, and the redemptive power of love, all set to some of the prettiest music ever recorded. 

Obviously you can see from those descriptions that this is no ordinary pop album. Plenty of bands had done little character studies and vignettes at this point, but Something Else... leans into these sorts of stories with a dedication and skill pretty much unmatched in 1967. I mean, there's a rock song ("Situation Vacant") about a man being driven to ruin by his demanding mother-in-law, who's ultimately revealed to be trying to steal her daughter back for herself. There's a song about an ageing player who, thoroughly conservative and uptight, has lost touch with modern society and laments that he can't make it with women anymore now that Labour's in ("End of the Season"). "Harry Rag" is a music hall paean to the cigarette, listing a variety of bizarre characters who all "curse themselves for the lives they've led, roll themselves a harry rag and put themselves to bed". "Afternoon Tea" is a celebration of the quintessential British ritual in which the narrator invites his desired to share a cuppa with him. 

The rest of the songs aren't quite as good, but there isn't a bad number on the album. Probably the weakest track is the rocker "Love Me Till the Sun Shines", written by guitarist Dave Davies. But then again, Dave also contributes the surreal, hilarious sing-along "Death of a Clown", and the delightful "Funny Face", so I guess he can be forgiven.

Musically, this album is also very strange, ranging from music hall to chamber pop to psychedelic rock. There's a bossa nova song, for some reason. "Two Sisters" is powered by a harpsichord, and features strings. "Lazy Old Sun" is a deeply peculiar song in which Ray Davies chastises the Sun for not doing its job properly, all set to a rather queasy sort of psych-folk sound. "Waterloo Sunset" is anchored by a series of distinctive descending guitar riffs, a fleshed-out with slightly tongue-in-cheek "sha-la-la" backing vocals and some genuinely pretty harmonies reminiscent of the Beach Boys. Really, there's such a variety of styles that it shouldn't really hold together (which could explain its poor chart performance despite the success of the singles), but that eclecticism is really the album's chief virtue. Something Else... has such a wide range of styles, all executed very well, that it's tremendous value for money.

There's also a sort of unity of theme, I suppose. The songs on this album all deal, in one way or another, with the ordinary people leading lives of quiet desperation. The Davies brothers thankfully possess a wry sense of humour that stops these songs from becoming oppressive. The pathetic figures at the heart of "Tin Soldier Man" and "End of the Season" may be contemptible, but they also make sense as real people, and that attention to character elevates what might otherwise just be lame piss takes into excellent pieces of satire. I wouldn't call this a concept album, but the songs do hang together thematically despite the sonic variety.

To be honest, though, I like albums that are all over the place. There's nothing more annoying than buying an album because you like one of the songs, and discovering that every piece on it is just a shitty variation on the same theme. 

Anyway, I've ranted long enough. I don't have much more to say about this. A rambling, confused review for a rambling, confused album.

96. Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow (February 1967)

1. She Has Funny Cars

2. Somebody to Love*

3. My Best Friend

4. Today*

5. Comin' Back to Me

6. 3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds

7. D.C.B.A.-25

8. How Do You Feel

9. Embryonic Journey

10. White Rabbit*

11. Plastic Fantastic Lover

B

Conventional wisdom has it that there are only two good songs on this album. I used to agree with that, and was honestly not looking forward to Surrealistic Pillow. Coming back to it now, years later, I found myself enjoying it quite a bit. I think the big problem with this album is just that the two hit singles ("Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit") not only both stand head and shoulders above the rest of the material here, but they aren't at all representative of the sound of the album as a whole. So people coming to this album hoping for the Grace Slick experience, and a load of druggy psychedelia, are probably going to be disappointed by the more folk-rock sound of the other songs. 

Still, they aren't bad songs (well, mostly - "3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds" and "Plastic Fantastic Lover" both kind of suck). And this album was obviously pretty influential. I know Jefferson Airplane had a pretty big impact on the Fairport Convention, for example; and I love that band. Almost 60 years later, it can be easy to forget that what sounds like generic folk rock now was actually new and exciting when it first came out. And the song "Today" is genuinely beautiful, with a haunting high-pitched guitar riff and simple lyrics about giving yourself to someone in love. I also quite like "Comin' Back to Me", another gentle folk ballad. And "Embryonic Journey" is a very pretty, and very impressive, instrumental guitar piece.

Really, though, the main reason anyone cares about this album these days is because of Grace Slick. Her voice was one of the most distinctive and beautiful in rock, a laser-focused contralto that could swing from gentle cooing to the banshee wail of "Somebody to Love" to the twisted acid declamations of "White Rabbit" (which she also wrote). Slick unfortunately only sings lead on two songs, but her voice twists and winds its way through the background of many of the songs here, and it's easily the best thing about the album. I don't think anyone forgets the first time they hear "White Rabbit", with its bolero rhythms and acid-drenched, Alice in Wonderland-inspired lyrics, all delivered by Slick in her stern, icy tones like she's the Ancient Mariner or something. I believe I first encountered it in the movie The Game, for example. 

So, a handful of brilliant songs, a fresh new sound, and only a couple of clunkers. Apparently this was the album that introduced San Francisco to the wider world, being as it was a massive hit. Which means that it's incredibly important album irrespective of musical quality. I am glad that this project has forced me to give it a second chance. I doubt I'll listen to it again any time soon, but it's definitely better than I remember it being.

95. The Young Rascals - Groovin' (July 1967)

1. A Girl Like You*

2. Find Somebody*

3. I'm So Happy Now

4. Sueño

5. How Can I Be Sure

6. Groovin'*

7. If You Knew

8. I Don't Love You Anymore

9. You Better Run

10. A Place in the Sun

11. It's Love

B

You know, I'm not sure if the Young Rascals were very successful in Australia. I used to listen a lot to an oldies station specialising in music from the 50s through the 70s, I don't recall ever hearing one of their songs. Meaning that while this band were quite popular and influential, they were also completely new to me. Which is nice, in a way, as it let me come to this band free of preconceptions and take the music on its own terms.

And really, this is very good music. Nothing mind-blowing, but a delightful mix of soul, R&B, garage rock and psychedelia. I wasn't overly impressed with it at first, but I think it was the title track that won me over. Possibly because my work week starts on a Friday, so listening to this today (Thursday) I was effectively groovin' on a Sunday afternoon. I've also had a couple of glasses of Canadian Club. 

Things kick off with the wonderful, Turtlesesque "A Girl Like You", then there's the equally good "Find Somebody", which anchors a soul sound with a chiming ostinato guitar part. The Young Rascals are (at least on this album) very much an R&B/soul act, but they're also happy to augment their sound with borrowings from rock, jazz and psych. Thankfully they have the good taste to do this with a degree of subtlety and avoid burying their catchy, poignant songs under trendy new sounds. The result is an album that sounds fresh and invigorating when so many other acts of the time just seem dated. A good example of their willingness to experiment is the track "Sueño", which opens with Latin guitars before morphing into a strange sort of garage rock number, returning to the Latin guitar part when appropriate. 

The first half of the album is mostly upbeat pop numbers, but the second half is where things get looser and weirder. "Groovin'" is a beautiful, laid-back song, quite unlike anything we've had up to this point (in fact it was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fames' list of the 500 songs which shaped rock and roll). Apparently Atlantic didn't even want to release it, it was so strange. Of course now, listening to it it's just a sweet song about taking it easy, a very gentle bit of psychedelic soul. Another great song is "I Don't Love You Anymore", which is a subdued and melancholy number with a great chorus. And "It's Love" incorporates jazz flute to wonderful effect.

I don't have much to say about this album, but it's a lovely record. It's really a time capsule of a moment in pop, covering a wide variety of styles all done quite well. It's a little thin at times, production wise, and not all the songs are strong, but it's a fun listen and an intelligent and well-crafted pop album. In a lot of ways, this is the real sound of the Summer of Love.

Which, unfortunately, is not something that can be said about the next album on the List...