A little disappointed to get this first as I wore out the vinyl when I was 14. I do play a lot of music for my 7-year-old, including a bit of "classic rock", though not any Zeppelin that I recall. Trying to listen with those ears, maybe something will pop. But, I've just reached the 11 minute dirge of "In My Time of Dying", and I'm connecting on a pretty fundamental level with that.
Completed, it just seems so sessiony. There is undeniable talent here and some really great moments, but they are too spread out across fifteen 5-6-8-11 minute songs. Not that the stuff in between is bad, it's just often unnecessary.
On the other hand, I think I bought drugs out front of 96-98 St. Mark's Place (featured on the album cover) on a few occasions. That's a happy memory.
I have always hated the lead track, "Scarborough Fair", from which the album takes it's title, but overall I'm a fan. Simon is kind of a grifter, artistic integrity was a pose but he would have recorded in any style to make a hit. ("Sounds of Silence", their first hit illustrates this perfectly. They were a rock duo aping the Everly brothers until Dillon hit, and suddenly they were a folk duo. Then Dillon "went electric", and the song was re-released with with guitars, bass, and drums over-dubbed. Simon claimed it was done without his knowledge, but I don't buy it.)
Anyway, there's not many of my favorites on this one, though all of them besides the pandering, desultory lead track clock in at less than 3 minutes; which is awesome!
"The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)" is another one that tries my patience, but I think nostalgia and various cover versions rescue it for me. The rest of the deep cuts are all fine, I imagine real , struggling folkies hated them, but I don't have that baggage.
"A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara'd Into Submission)" was a surprising highlight amongst the deep tracks, even if (or, maybe because) it is such an obvious Dillon rip-off. I guess I kind of like Simon best when he's being his honest song-thieving, commercial whore self rather than pretending to artiste.
Not all of it is to my taste but it's hard to deny the achievement of this album. The first side: "Carry On", "Teach Your Children", "Almost Cut My Hair", "Helpless", and "Woodstock" would be most bands greatest hits album.
The songwriting credits, in order, of Stills, Nash, Crosby, Young, and then Joni Mitchell really illustrate the collection of individuals that was this band. Each of the first four tracks sounds exactly as it on four solo projects that the other sat in on. Only when they get to the Joni Mitchell track do they actually sound like a band.
I mean that as no slight. They were a "supergroup", and the democracy displayed was too incredible to last. The second side of the album proceeded in the same vein, one from each, and a Stills & Young collaboration to close it out.
The second side
It seems on first listen a little unfocused but it's an amazing, passionate accomplishment. The "hits" from the first two albums of the Experience aren't really there, the amazing "Cosstown Traffic", "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)" and Dillon cover "All Along the Watchtower" excepted. And, "Still Raining, Still Dreaming" is a great deep cut surprise.
It's more sprawling psychedelic epics punctuated with short, experimental tracks. Amazingly, as a noted long song hater, it's the epics that I really dig. During the 15 minutes of "Voodoo Chile" and 13 of "1983...(A Merman I Should Turn to Be)"I never got bored.
Some of the psychedelic trappings feel dated, but it is over fifty years old, after all. The guitar (and the often underrated rhythm section) still rock.
I have been decrying the Dadrock nature of all the offerings on this project so far, and I stand by it, but this is an undeniably great album.
The Highway 61 of the title refers to the road which leads from St. Paul, in Dylan's native Minnesota to St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans. The cradles of the music he mined (read: culturally appropriated) to make his "electric" album and piss off his fans.
Well, the thing about pissing off your fans and cultural appropriation is, if your gonna do them, at least do them well.
Sigh. Once I realized this was going to be 1,001 Albums the Olds Love I knew the Beatles were coming. They'll probably be a full 1% of the total, I imagine. Basically I was dreading this.
I mean, I like a lot Beatles songs. And I am fully cognizant and appreciative of their influence on popular music. But, I don't know, I struggle with analogy to describe my feelings. I have settled on ice cream. Ice cream is awesome. Everyone likes ice cream, but in the end it's ice cream. There are more subtle, delicious deserts out there. Key Lime Pie, Cannoli, Portuguese Egg Tarts, New York Cheese Cake, etc.
So anyway. "Come Together" is a fantastic Dylan ripoff. "Something" is a wonderful George is a sweetheart example. "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" sucks, and if it was made by anyone but the Beatles people would admit it. "Oh Darling" is a good tune, surprises me how good it is on every re-listen. "Octopus's Garden" is a maggoty pile of shit that makes me wish I was listening to the fucking awful "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" a second time instead.
I don't know if I'm going to keep song by songing it. "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" is some great Lennon dark psychodelia that along with "Come Together" should have been on a Lennon solo album. I mean I appreciate that they are wearing their influences so clearly on their sleaves by this point, but I hate that Beatleheads want to claim that this is original, groundbreaking stuff. It's not, they were ripping off others, as they were being ripped off, and as everyone else was ripping off everyone else.
"Here Comes the Sun" is more George goodness. "Because" is throwaway junk that Beatleheads wank over. "You Never Give Me Your Money" is packed with too many quirky, aren't we clever, Beatles' moments to avoid being annoying, I almost like it, too bad no one in the studio by this point could tell any of these guys no.
"Sun King" is another mix of good and bad ideas that becomes less than the sum of its parts. "Mean Mr. Mustard" is more cutesy schmaltz. "Polythene Pam" is great, half proto-punk, half proto-glam. "She Came In Through the Bathroom Window" is fine. "Golden Slumbers" is great Paul cheese that he's always aiming for.
I admit, I do love the end of this album, mostly, all these sub 2 minute songs, with a could more both under 2 and a half. "Carry That Weight" is good. "The End" is let down by, I hate to say it, honestly, Ringo's semi-talented 12 year old level drumming, and "Her Majesty" is another one that should have been left on the cutting room floor.
Which is really the story of this album, and the Beatles as a whole. No one had the balls to tell them their farts didn't smell like pumpkin pie. Maybe if they made half as many songs they'd be twice as good.
This is the first one, I think, that I had not listened to all the way through previously. I liked her "hits", and knew of her presence and influence, but actually listening beginning to end seemed like something I was supposed to do rather than wanted to.
I think it was one of those things where you are pretty sure you already know what it's going to be so you don't have to, it's great, though. I was definitely wrong about half of that.
The opening, "Gloria: In Excelsis Deo" which is part medley, part cover, part reprise, and all punk let's you know right off this start: this is not going to be what you expected.
"Redondo Beach" then is an early (earlier than the London or her fellow NYC punk) exploration of ska (I know, but it's still an important milestone). She weaves again with "Birdland" a partly spoken word lyrical poem about funerals and UFOs.
"Free Money", about growing up in poverty in Woodbury, NJ; "Kimberly" about her her younger sister; and "Break It Up" about visiting Jim Morrison's grave adhere to something like a more traditional punk musicality, though with this debut release predating the Ramones debut, there wasn't a traditional punk musicality to adhere to until now.
The final song is split by "Land: Horses/Land of a Thousand Dances/La Medr(de)" another cover/medley/part spoken word epic before it closes out with "Elegie" about the death of Jimmi Hendrix, appropriately somber, the final track is the first time this album comes anywhere near to meeting preconception.
This is an amazing album, and though I'm aware its relative unfamiliarity to me boosts in compared to some of the others I've reviewed, it is a masterpiece by any standard.
