Speaker 1Hello and welcome to another episode of the album years with myself and my my co-host mr timothy bones good afternoon tim hello and uh today we are venturing back into the 60s um 1967 of course what's the most significant thing about 1967 tim oh good grief let me think could be that you're born in that year i was gonna say i hope you're bluffing and you were bluffing yes so the most important thing about 1967 is it was the year i was born that's right folks i'm old but um anyway but obviously it was also a very important year for me significant year uh musically speaking uh in fact one could argue could one not tim that this 1967 is kind of the year that the album is born i mean that you know obviously there was exceptions before that we've talked about you know those great concept records that frank sinatra made in the 50s and 60s but certainly in terms of the rock world 67 is when it all kind of comes together
Speaker 2isn't it yeah i think it's when the album becomes something significant and i think as we said in idly it's the biggest band in the world who also happened to be one of the most creative and best bands in the world the beatles when they put out sergeant peppers it's a complete album statement with the package the music the dynamics they've thought about this and it seems to set the template for a lot of rock from that point onwards right and i
Speaker 1think the thing to say is that they're not the first to do it are they but they're the most visible people to absolutely most visible artists so you've kind of referred there to the to the elephant in the room already which is the fact that 1967 was the year of sergeant peppers now we are going to have to talk about that album because it's it's kind of ubiquitous isn't it not just in terms of 1967 but in terms of the whole history of rock music that album is ubiquitous but me personally speaking it wouldn't even make my top 10 albums of 1967 and probably not my thousand albums of all time but you have to kind of accept the cultural significance of it i don't know how you feel about the album in the scheme of things i like it
Speaker 2for a day in the life and she's leaving home alone um plus i think what it does very well it kind of encapsulates the spirit of that period you've got a lot of almost this kind of sunshine psychedelic pop some strange experiments with indian classical music you know it's a far-reaching album so um and obviously the package was was was brilliant i mean i personally prefer magical mystery tour which wasn't really conceived as an album it was an ep that was stretched out with singles for the american market later in 1967 and i think it's a really good album and i think it's a really good album and i think it's a really good album and i think it's a really good album and with tracks like straw be feels forever and i'm the walrus you know it's an astonishing piece of
Speaker 1work yeah it's definitely a much more consistent work so listen so we have talked about that album i'm sure it will come up again but uh we're going to try not to talk about the obvious albums not just in this episode but in all the episodes we do so anyway tim so we're going to start with an album that i know means a lot to both of us for historical reasons and we kind of touched on this in the in the 1984 episode we you know we talked about how when we started making music together the late 80s it wasn't you know it wasn't the most inspiring time at least for us it wasn't the most inspiring time with with you know in terms of what was coming out and we somehow became obsessed with this guy donovan the don the don a gift from a garden now we talk about how how sergeant pepper and already i'm mentioning it again we talk about how the album was conceived as you know a kind of uh you know an elaborately packaged album that had a conceptual kind of sweep to it but this kind of goes one better doesn't it i mean this is a double album it comes in a box with uh lyric sheets in a folder and it's got the don on the front in his in his psychedelic splendor holding what looks like a feather duster but you know he's dressed in his caftan with this sort of uh infrared photograph with the psychedelic landscape and on the back he's shaking hands with bag one whatever his name is uh yes and uh you know So again, I mean, this album was conceived probably around the same time as Sgt. Pepper. So the Don in his own way was also there ahead of the curve in a way. For those that don't know, the first album is more of a sort of psychedelic pop album. The second album, which I think is the real masterpiece here, and I'm sure you'll agree with me, is the album, I think it's called For Children or something like that. And it's basically an album of Don, just Donovan, just singing his songs with acoustic guitar and some sound effects and not much else, occasional flute and bongo. And it's absolutely beguiling, isn't it? And so beautiful.
Speaker 2Well, I think it's called For Little Ones, I think. For Little Ones, I beg your pardon.
Speaker 1Yes, you're right.
Speaker 2Yeah, I love that structure. The fact that one album is a great light psychedelic pop album where he shows that he's got a tremendous gift for pop melodies. And the second album is. It's this Celtic-tinged, very stripped-down, intimate folk album that really does. I think, you know, you and I have felt this very strongly. It compares at times with the best of Nick Drake, John Martin, a lot of other more celebrated singers.
Speaker 1But it predates, it predates all of those.
Speaker 2And it predates them, yeah. And Nick Drake actually was an avowed Donovan fan. And I sort of understand, you know, Donovan's problem, really, that he feels he was an intrinsic part of the 60s. He influenced the Beatles, the finger-picking style. He did Prudence, that he had a profound influence on the likes of Nick Drake, the Beatles, and so on. And yet history, despite his massive success, seems to have forgotten him. You know, he's had occasional revivals. But at the time, he was having top 10 hits in Britain and America. But had he just released For Little Ones as a separate album? You know, I love this. I've always loved these albums that are divided. You know, David Bowie's Low, where you have the electronic pop songs on one side, the ambient songs on the other. And I like that approach. I kind of wonder if it went against him that Where You Love Like Heaven, which is the first album, is full of brilliantly frothy 1960s pop gems. The second album is Timeless. And it kind of hints at some of his best material to come. You know, obviously on HMS Donovan, there are a couple of our favourites on that. And I just kind of wonder, had he released the more stripped-down album separately, whether his reputation would be more serious now?
Speaker 1I mean, his reputation. His reputation isn't bad, is it? But I think you're right. I think he's not someone that springs to mind when you talk about, you know, the great singer-songwriters of the late 60s and early 70s. Donovan is not a name that comes up a lot. Maybe part of the problem was he did start off fashioning himself very much after Bob Dylan, perhaps too much, too much so. But even as early as 1967, which is only, what, two, three years into his recording career, he's completely out on his own. I mean, this is so far away. It's from Dylan now, isn't it? And when you consider just two years earlier, he's been writing these Dylan pastiches. This album is absolutely divine. I mean, you listen to a song like Blackbird on the White album, which obviously came out the year after. And I just think to myself, wow, you know, well, it's like a whole album, isn't it? Of songs of that kind of magical, childlike quality with similar kind of arrangement. Even the use of the, you know, the sound design on Blackbird with the sound of the bird singing. There's all over this album, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Kind of thing.
Speaker 2Yeah. Well, it starts off, doesn't it, with him singing into the body of an acoustic guitar. Yes. Yeah. It's a really odd sound. Yeah. There are some great ideas on it, even though it's incredibly simple. And tracks like Isle of Islay, you know, deathlessly beautiful melodies. Stunning, yeah. I think, you know, possibly the fact, as you explained, he kind of looks like a psychedelic Ken Dodd on the cover. You know, maybe the fact that he was sort of so immersed in the imagery of the era, he's been bypassed because, you know, one thing I'm going to come on to later is how this kind of psychedelic image and psychedelic sound seemed to be all encompassing for a very brief moment. It was quite ephemeral, really. But yeah, like you, I think one of the reasons we fell in love with it is because it's great. And the other reason is because nobody seemed to see that it was great.
Speaker 1Indeed. And our first single, the first No Man's Single, which, you know, was a cover version of an earlier song, Colours, was very successful for us. In fact, we arguably. Neither of us would be sitting here if it wasn't for Donovan, because that single, which we pressed on our own label and sent to the music papers, was the beginning of our career. We got Single of the Week and Melody Maker, which led to record deals and publishing deals. So thanks, Don, for the music, but also for our careers. I don't think that's overstating it. So let's move on, Tim. So that's Donovan. So I'm going to move on now to something which is kind of like borderline canon here, but I don't think it is. And for the reason, just to explain what I mean by that, we're trying to avoid the song, sorry, the albums that are regularly discussed as being part of the classic rock canon. Now, this band are certainly part of the classic rock canon, but I'm not sure this album is. And for me, it's the greatest debut album of all time and by the greatest band of all time. Yes, folks, it's Piper at the Gates of Dawn by Pink Floyd. Now, I think if any other band had made this album, it would be regularly discussed. But because it's Pink Floyd. And so many people very often can't get past talking about Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall, the kind of holy trinity. I feel this album often gets. overlooked um to me it's still one of the three best pink floyd albums you know i think we talk about albums that kind of sum up that summer of love uh the british psychedelic scene certainly is is no better served than by this album and i think what makes it psychedelic is not only the sound world but the fact that there is in sid barrett's songs this kind of yearning and i think we we touched on this with the donovan this is kind of yearning for going back to the nursery going back to childhood and that imagery that kind of seeps through a lot of his songs from people like edward lear uh you know and and alice in wonderland lewis carroll um it's kind of imbued with that sort of yearning for childhood isn't it
Speaker 2well i think there's also um a shared quality which is a britishness you know in the donovan there's a strong celtic folk influence with this there's almost a kind of english nursery rhyme influence and you kind of see with a lot of the artists during this period kinks beatles who they're sort of asserting their own britishness and it's quite natural obviously in the case of small faces there's something slightly exaggerated the kind of cockneyisms and small faces but it's kind of interesting that british music is finding its own very distinctive voice and i think you're right it's underrated in the sense that i've always got this um thing of the academy of the underrated and it's it's artists like pink floyd genesis yes thin lizzy david bowie that if they'd only made their first album i strongly believe we'd still be talking about them now you know if pink floyd had split up after this for their first couple of singles in this album they would still be being discussed as this great english psychedelic band that produced a revolutionary music so in that sense it's been subsumed by the greatest success of pink floyd maybe not discussed as much as it should have been there's a
Speaker 1there's a kind of innocence isn't there that runs through this album that runs through a lot of these albums we're going to talk about and i suppose that's kind of bound up again with the idea of the summer of love retreating to childhood retreating to less cynical more innocent times and as you say that doesn't last long in fact some people would argue that altamont two years later was the kind of death knell for that kind of era wasn't it was a very significant event um but this this to me is the definitive psychedelic album far more so than than um than sergeant peppers i mean for me i was
Speaker 2actually for me i think it's the beatles singles of that year strawberry fields forever i'm the walrus and piper at the gates of dawn where it kind of spoils a lot of other psychedelia because they're amongst the most popular and most well known but actually you know psychedelic music has rarely produced masterworks such as piper at the gates of dawn or i am the walrus or strawberry
Speaker 1fields forever so let's i'll tell you let's stay on the subject of psychedelic music but let's go over to america now because as you kind of pointed out the first two albums we've discussed are very very very british in that sense british takes on the summer of love but the summer of love of course was also happening in a big way in fact some could say it kind of originated uh you know on the west coast of america um now for me the the masterpiece of of this whole scene now this is another album that's borderline canon i know a lot of people rate this as one of the greatest albums ever made but again i'm not sure a lot of people really hear with it uh which is forever changes uh by love which again is an absolute masterpiece and and it is psychedelic but it's also dark you know one of the things about arthur lee uh his lyrics is that they were very often um tinged with this incredible cynicism which we'll come on to talk about frank zapper later who was was much more adept at that thing but you know this album has i suppose it's kind of based in a kind of folk rock sound there's very little electric guitar most of the songs appear to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a to come from the acoustic guitar but it is a full band sound but it's that kind of baroque sound as well isn't it it's using harpsichords and horns and the most famous track on the album alone again or which is written by actually brian mclean not not arthur lee that it's almost like a mariachi arrangement isn't it yeah i was going
Speaker 2to say the mariachi yeah no well i think they got away with it didn't they because the the look of the album has that multi-colored psychedelic optimism and the sound of it is quite sunny it's beautiful melodically and it has quite unusual twists and if you compare it to the doors from the same year obviously la psychedelia of a different kind the doors were a much more immediately darker proposition you know um morrison's voice for a start you know he's he's a demonic sinatra yes they're in for what i kind of find fascinating about this is that we're talking about the ephemeral nature of psychedelia um is that the doors one of those bands who were huge at the time and who did not really have much of an impact on the music surrounding them but it was later you know maybe ig in the studios to an extent but it was more late 70s early 80s uk bands like tear to explode echo and the bunny man who finally took on board the influence of the doors and it's kind of unusual for a band that was that successful to almost have a 14 year delayed effect and i suppose velvet underground i was going to say yes yeah yeah you know with that as well but um and the studio so yeah you're you're right you know you're right and i think it kind of negates the negativity in the
Speaker 1lyrics but i think you use the words you know sunshine so it's a wonderful kind of summer sunny album the the 12 string guitars the acoustic guitars the very baroque arrangements with the harpsichords and the horns and the strings and his voice is actually very very sweet on this album i mean he got a bit gruffer later on and actually before that but on this album he's really sort of he's sort of honed in on the sweet side of his voice but the lyrics are you know if you if you read into the lyrics they are you know the sweet side of his voice but the lyrics are you know if you if you read into the lyrics they are they are pretty dark and and pretty crazy so you you mentioned sinatra there tim let's talk about um sinatra frank sinatra because this uh this year produced what for me is my favorite frank sinatra album was the which is the album he made with antonio carlos hobim uh which um is devastatingly beautiful and it's arguably probably the most laid-back music i've ever heard in my life i don't know if you've heard of it but it's the most laid-back music i've ever heard in my life i don't know if you've ever heard of it but it's mellow album sinatra ever made it doesn't have any of the sort of grandstanding uh big band uh you know sort of um uh big band uh you know sort of um uh big band uh you know sort of um theatrical side of sinatra this is very theatrical side of sinatra this is very theatrical side of sinatra this is very very laid back um very laid back um very laid back um and obviously it has the boss and over and obviously it has the boss and over and obviously it has the boss and over aspect to it which is again very feels aspect to it which is again very feels aspect to it which is again very feels very 1967 doesn't it that kind of laid very 1967 doesn't it that kind of laid very 1967 doesn't it that kind of laid back back back summary boss and over sound but summary boss and over sound but summary boss and over sound but devastatingly beautiful i mean sonically devastatingly beautiful i mean sonically devastatingly beautiful i mean sonically a beautiful record as well no it's a
Speaker 2a beautiful record as well no it's a a beautiful record as well no it's a lovely album i mean obviously you know lovely album i mean obviously you know lovely album i mean obviously you know sinatra i think is important to this show sinatra i think is important to this show sinatra i think is important to this show because he was one of the first people because he was one of the first people because he was one of the first people to produce what we call concept albums to produce what we call concept albums to produce what we call concept albums you know in the early 50s um you know in the early 50s um you know in the early 50s um and he did do a few albums that were kind and he did do a few albums that were kind and he did do a few albums that were kind of themed of themed of themed um in a doomed romantic mostly quite um in a doomed romantic mostly quite um in a doomed romantic mostly quite understated way but understated way but understated way but i think there's such a sort of sad i think there's such a sort of sad i think there's such a sort of sad world-weary quality to his voice on this world-weary quality to his voice on this world-weary quality to his voice on this i mean i mean i mean um habim had obviously written a lot of um habim had obviously written a lot of um habim had obviously written a lot of these tunes in the early 60s and they'd these tunes in the early 60s and they'd these tunes in the early 60s and they'd become successful with astrid gilberto become successful with astrid gilberto become successful with astrid gilberto and stan getz that collaboration and and stan getz that collaboration and and stan getz that collaboration and they're beautiful but they're beautiful but they're beautiful but this you're right it probably takes it this you're right it probably takes it this you're right it probably takes it one step further and it's partly because one step further and it's partly because one step further and it's partly because sinatra's sinatra's sinatra's delivery it's so full of expression but delivery it's so full of expression but but it's not particularly exhibitionist.
Speaker 1Yeah, and I think you're right. There's a sense of melancholy pervading this record, isn't it? Everything seems a little bit sadder. So when you hear the girl from Ipanema performed by Stan Getz and Astrid Gilberto, it's like a lovely kind of summery pop song. But here, it's got that again, it's imbued again with that aspect of love lost, isn't it? She's the girl that just walks past him on the beach. It's love that will never be. And it just gives it that extra sense of loss and regret and melancholy, which of course is, I think it's something common to a lot of the music. I'm sure you'll agree, a lot of the music that we respond to has that sense of regret and loss and nostalgia about it. And this album has it in abundance, doesn't it?
Speaker 2Well, I think that, you know, if you listen to the Gilberto and Getz versions with Habim, they can operate as background music. Whereas I think this can't necessarily. I think you're absolutely immersed in that sound world and that infinite sadness. It's more believable in some ways. You know, these are better versions of what were already great songs that had been performed brilliantly. I mean, I also really liked Miles Davis' Bossa Nova album. Quiet Nights. It's Quiet Nights that is often dismissed. But again, it's Davis's phrasing that brings a new depth of sadness to these beautiful melodies. Yeah. And I think Sinatra's voice brings that. And obviously from this point onwards, Sinatra becomes even more conceptual. He does albums like Watertown and A Man Alone. And it seems to sort of foreshadow even sadder, more introspective projects.
Speaker 1It's still got a lightness about it, hasn't it? It's not sort of oppressively depressing. I mean, there are albums before this like Only the Lonely in the Wee Small Hours that are very melancholic again. But this, I think because of the Bossa Nova and the arrangements, it still has a little bit of a lightness of touch that makes it very easy to involve yourself in the record. So I'm going to do a brilliant piece of segue now. From Frank Sinatra to Nancy Sinatra, we're going to go with one of your favourites, Tim, from this year, which is the soundtrack to the Bond movie You Only Live Twice, of course, written by John Barry, featuring Nancy Sinatra, Frank's daughter, singing the title tune. This is a wonderful soundtrack, isn't it? Yeah. is your choice Tim so you tell us about this this album
Speaker 2well it's probably the first music I ever fell in love with um my dad used to take me to James Bond films when I was a kid and I mean you know when I was three four five six because I was a very cheap date which meant free and nothing's changed there I remember and I remember that when I first heard particularly I think it's um capsule in space or space march yeah that it haunted me and it haunted my dreams as a kid for years and as a melody it still does and um there was something about the sweeping doom romanticism of the opening strings on the title track um everything about it you know what I remember from those Bond films is partly the excitement of going to the cinema but mostly being lost in a kind of a dark space with that music oppressively caressing me almost you know Barry's music was the first I ever loved and and as a kid I didn't really get into pop music so I was about 11 um and I just had John Barry and I just loved the soundtracks and I just loved the soundtracks and I just loved the soundtracks albums and um my parents collection did include luckily the you only live twice soundtrack albums so you know as a child it was something that I played continually and you can hear all sorts of things in it as well outside of this being beautifully expressive music in its own right and it had a different quality from Barry's previous soundtracks it kind of upped the melancholy up to the grandeur but there are also weird things like Vic Flick's guitar playing on the title track is Robert Fripp pre in the Court of the Crimson King um and you can hear in some of the fragmented rhythmic sections and some of the beautiful arpeggiated melodies the DNA of King Crimson, Dead Can Dance and more importantly I suppose in some ways Portishead, Goldfrapp in the 90s um and also the Associates I guess in the 80s had that sort of doomed role in the 90s and I think that's a really good example of that and I think that's a really good example of that and I think that's a really good example of that and I think that's -
Speaker 1Yeah. - So harmonies and melodies leads me on beautifully thank you tim you've given me a lovely a lovely lead into our next item um because this is um this is the beach boys now the beach boys i think you know again they're they're they're a band that have a very strange relationship with uh with the classic rock mainstream don't they i think some people get them and some people see them still as these dweeby guys in striped shirts singing songs about surf surfing um and i i must be honest i felt that way for a long time and i never listened to the beach boys um and i think it's really one of those things where you have to be able to walk through the right door um to discover this world and for me walking through the right door was this album um and the and the few albums that came out in the immediate aftermath now this is smiley smile there is one extremely famous track on this album which is good vibrations um but in some senses it is the outlier because it's the big one it's called smiley smile and this album is quite um stripped back some would say has an almost like demo like quality as a lot of their a lot of the beach boys albums around this time have this very kind of homespun demo like quality but it's obviously i think before we talk any more about this album it's worth pointing out that this album smiley smile was born out of brian wilson's great unreleased at the time what was going to be his masterpiece smile which was going to be an incredibly produced record like pet sounds the next step on from pet sounds but smart but he then he had the break famously had the breakdown the whole project collapsed and this much more intimate stripped down version of some of these songs uh came out instead in in the form of smiley smile but it's an absolutely lovely record isn't it
Speaker 2smiley smile is fantastic and if you didn't know that it was the failed demo version if you like of the grand smile um it could be hailed as a classic in itself i mean i kind of think it's all about timing with them really that 66 pet sounds they're up there with the beatles you know mccartney townsend almost everybody would admit that the beach boys were equals and good vibrations obviously reinforces that and i think it was it was wilson's nervous breakdown and then the fact that this had the misfortune to come out after sergeant peppers after a lot of the psychedelic statements have been made that combined with their slightly cutesy image seemed to damn them for quite some time yeah i
Speaker 1think you've touched on something interesting there i think this was that this was the year when people were making grand statements weren't they so sergeant pepper grand statement to who sell out grand statement the satanic majesty's request grand statement the beach boys who as you point out up until that point had arguably been even in front a little bit of many of these should sure should have been releasing their grand statement this year which smile undoubtedly would have been you know you think of tracks like cabin essence uh you know heroes and villains good vibrations i mean this album was set up to be an absolute master it didn't come out and instead this rather demo like stripped down intimate homespun record comes out instead i can imagine it would have been in the aftermath of of an extraordinary single like good good vibrations it would have been an incredible
Speaker 2um disappointment well i think it's similar in a way to the early mccartney solo albums um in that i feel some of the miniatures on this tracks like wind chimes are amongst the best things the beach boys ever did fabulous to die for melodies and the simplicity of the arrangements means that you can listen to them now and they don't feel particularly dated in the way a lot of music from that time does and the same thing happened with mccartney that when he did mccartney one and ram at the time the albums were criticized because people were not listening to them and they were not listening to them and people were expecting this grand statement from the architect of abbey road and sergeant peppers and what they got was a series of rough-hewn home demos of course when we listen now they sound fantastic and there are many wonderful songs wonderful melodies turns of phrase and it is a great exhibition of mccartney's ability and i think the same with this it's a fantastic exhibition of wilson's skill with a melody and his ability to combine unusual musical forms um you're right it was because it was not the grand statement and it was not this i guess obviously groundbreaking production which uh good vibrations and heroes and villains had set people up for but still a
Speaker 1great record anyway so um let's move on to a couple more albums to talk about um this one i know you you don't like uh but i i feel it has to be mentioned because this this year is also the year that a record company for the very first time commission a purely electronic composition to be released as an album now there had been electronic music before this i mean famously in in the 50s people like carl hans stockhouse luciano berio pierre boulez pierre schaffer all experimenting in very kind of academic ways with electronic music and tape music but this album was released by none such records in 1967 it's it's commonly regarded as a record as the first ever electronic music lp that was specifically recorded for that format as opposed to something created for the console silver apples of the moon by the american composer morton sabotnick all recorded on the buchler synthesizer um i mean to me as a as a fan of electronic music this is an incredible listen there are so many things about it that um anticipate not what's going to happen in the 70s not what's going to happen in the 80s but what's actually going to happen in the 90s uh you listen to this record and sometimes you could be listening to an apex twin album or an ortega album um it's so ahead of its time it's it's just insane it's a very uh beautiful surreal um strange experience to listen to this 31 minutes of music tim you're not a fan of this kind of thing i know but tell us anywhere about your impressions well i don't hate it yes you do yes you said you loathed it with a vengeance you said you said all that atonal electronic nonsense should be thrown in a big well and buried forever that's what you said
Speaker 2to me is that what i said no i think some people said that maybe not me um yeah i mean you can all sorts of future echoes here as well as the 90s that you're talking about apex twin or tecra you know you've got jean-michel giard in there ghosts by japan you know if you put yeah yeah chord sequence over it it's ghosts so there are some great random sounds and i i mean it sounds a breakdown or a sort of particularly distressing scene in a 60s sci-fi film i think it's not something i'm going to put on every day it's not something i'm going to put on every year it's not
Speaker 1something you're going to put on ever is it let's
Speaker 2face it tim ever again it's something i will indeed protect myself from with garlic but i sort of enjoyed listening to it for what it foreshadows
Speaker 1i know what you mean although i think that's damning it with faint praise in a way because it is an extraordinary piece of music in its own right forget you know what it influenced and what came afterwards because this album is also very psychedelic isn't it i mean even the way it was even the way it was packaged was very much aimed at you know the psychedelic kids in a way um i think one of the things that all this music has in common and kind of makes all of it psychedelic is it has a kind of dream logic to it it doesn't sure it doesn't obey the rules most of this music doesn't obey the rules of uh you know composition you know the idea that you have versus and choruses verses and choruses and you have a three minute catchy pop song these are all albums in a way that are stretching way beyond that and they're tapping into dream logic now a lot of people talk about drugs being a big influence on on this kind of music i've always refuted that i mean i know there were a lot of people that were into drugs but there were a lot of people that weren't you know zapper wasn't and i think what people forget is that a lot of drug influence music is really the same as dream logic it's kind of freeing yourself from a kind of linear obvious pattern it's thinking outside of the box and we if you're able to tap into your dreams and try and get that logic into music as i believe most of these albums do then you have that kind of in a sense you have that spirit of psychedelia don't you
Speaker 2yeah and i think it is kind of interesting saying before as a fashion and as a sound it seems to sort of die out almost by 68 um and although you can hear psychedelic influences in kraut rock progressive rock jazz a lot of post rock a lot of jazz yeah it did certainly seem to to die out and almost become something quite embarrassing so in in later generations it's more pastiche and it's it's interesting because i was kind of thinking that which bands for me in in a later period encapsulated the quality of psychedelia and i was thinking some of the american bands like mercury rev flaming lips i think they've managed to reinvent it and personalize it the associates on sulk i think that has a weird kind of dream logic as well but um it doesn't seem to have very much direct influence on very much of value after the
Speaker 1period i think i think that's key i think you use the word direct there i think there is a massive influence of psychedelic music all the way through popular music ever since that but it hasn't been direct so for example that idea of dream logic definitely finds its way into the idea of progressive rock and pieces of music which unfold in very unproductive ways unpredictable, unlinear. unlinear ways well cocteau
Speaker 2twins and my bloody valentine to an extent as well yeah i think
Speaker 1there's an argument to say that the shoegazer music was a form of psychedelic psychedelia using that pure kind of rush of sound to create a kind of lysergic impression a lysergic state okay tim i want to move on to talk about our last album today now 1967 is also the year of a much darker form of rock music emerging in the shape of you mentioned the doors um and we talked about love having a kind of dark edges also to it but i think the the quintessential dark record from this year was the velvet underground and nico which is a masterpiece but i think you know for me that's canon it's been discussed it's been discussed and it's been over discussed in a way um but the album we're going to talk about which is one of your choices is the album that nico made in the immediate wake of velvet underground and nico which is chelsea girls which is again a very kind of atypical album for the times isn't it do you want to tell us about chelsea girls
Speaker 2well chelsea girls is perhaps the most conventional nico album and i and i like it because of it in a way because i think that a lot of her work is astonishingly original astonishing stripped down often her with a harmonium and her very very bleak voice whereas this has got some incredibly pretty chamber string arrangements and it works against that so it has a bittersweet quality which i like although of course being nico her delivery is downcast and some of the lyrical preoccupations are extraordinarily miserable you know particularly the title track chelsea girls and um eulogy to lenny bruce so you know it's a great collection of songs that she's taken from the likes of lou reed um jackson brown tim harden and it's probably as accessible as she's taken from the likes of lou reed as you'll ever get her because you have these extremely pretty chamber string arrangements some flute playing and so on but you know it's still quite a difficult dark because and because of her voice i
Speaker 1guess the main because of her voice yeah and
Speaker 2one of the reasons i sort of like this because it's one of those debuts where people now say oh it was ruined by that prettiness and actually i've always quite like this you know randy newman's first album was the same where obviously an arranger had brought in a big orchestra that hadn't uh you know it was outside of newman's control al stewart's debut album which was also 67 bedsitter images which i think is a great record once more he was in the studio with an orchestra and it wasn't quite doing what he wanted to do but i think that tension is sometimes interesting so i think this is why you've got the most accessible bittersweet nico album perhaps the only one that you would put on the lower rings of the no risk disc category i
Speaker 1guess in a way what you're saying is is what we've done in the past is that you've put on the lower rings of the no risk disc this is a point at which an artist is somewhere between between two worlds because the following year she's going to record the marble index which to me is an absolute masterpiece and and one of the most strange beautiful records i've ever heard in my life chelsea girls i quite like it when i put it on but it seems a little bit fluffy and a little bit frivolous uh it does feel like she's in a in a period of transition but i guess what you're saying is that's kind of why you like it it's interesting i think the
Speaker 2tension is interesting like you i'd i'd choose marble index over this any time because it is one of the most original scary beautiful albums in the whole of the rock and singer-songwriter canon this isn't but i think it's a lot better than people think it is okay so
Speaker 1let's leave it there let's let's just briefly touch on some of the other albums um and maybe just say a couple of sentences about about each one uh that were released in in 1967 because this was an amazing year i mean you know that as i said at the beginning of the of the episode there is a strong case to make uh for 1967 being the year that really rock music classic rock music as we know it uh was born you know uh we have two not one but two fantastic jimmy hendrix albums this year are you experienced and axis boulders love uh we have the doors first album which we've we've previously mentioned uh we have those two beatles albums sergeant pepper and magical mystery tour we have the stones doing their satanic majesty's request we have the first bgs album which we have the classic sort of psychedelic albums traffics mr fantasy their debut album uh amazing record buffalo springfield's second album again the birds younger than yesterday two more examples of that great kind of west coast
Speaker 2jefferson airplane after bathing at baxter's which is an incredible record and certainly creates that dream state with no logic that you were talking about with morton sapotnick um the kinks produced a great album this year as well um blow in your mind i like van morrison's blow in your mind i think that's quite underrated
Speaker 1you also you also have um bob dylan's john wesley harding leonard cohen songs of um you have um incredible string band released their second album uh five thousand spirits now actually i kind of missed a trick here because i wanted to talk about the incredible string band when we talked about donovan because it comes from a similar place but for me what's beautiful about the incredible string band is almost the birth of outsider music five thousand spirits in the layers of the onion it's the idea that it doesn't matter if you can't play an instrument just do what you can with it so it's kind of got this wonderful kind of ramshackle outsider music quality to it where musicians playing instruments they can't really play but getting something incredibly special uh and unique and heartfelt out of it anyway so so for me that's a that's a really important kind of thing that's going on here well hints at
Speaker 2tyrannosaurus rex as well doesn't it you know that's what mott bolan yes take on board i was gonna say as well one of the weird things about 67 is um the endings of albums that there are so because an interesting point here um ray bradbury when he talked about the film version of fahrenheit 451 always thought the film was quite mediocre but that people remembered the film as being brilliant because the ending was so strong and what i noticed when i was looking at a lot of the albums from this year is the album endings were fantastic the doors the end being a very obvious one a day in the life the beatles rail by the who there are some astonishing moments where sometimes perhaps we remember the albums as being better than they were because they have these killer farewells well a day in the
Speaker 1life is is the is the quintessential example of that isn't it because for me that album has so many quite by the beatle standards quite weak tracks but it ends with a day in the life which is just incredible so other albums we have coming out this year another great psychedelic album we've kind of hinted at it we've mentioned it a couple of times in passing the who sell out um a great year for jazz miles two two albums miles smiles and sorcerer with his great album the who sell out um a great year for jazz miles two two is great mid-60s quintet um pharaoh sanders tour here john coltrane's expression bill dixon intents and purposes there's some great jazz music going on here of course jazz rock and jazz fusion is just around the corner too so they're going to take they're also going to take their influences from what's going on in the world of rock music which maybe for the first time jazz musicians are starting to listen to what the these pop guys are doing you know which is interesting isn't it yeah so
Speaker 2tim let's pick our favorites
Speaker 1and our and our most influential albums from 1967
Speaker 2i i'd have to it's a real struggle in terms of a favorite you'd have to say the
Speaker 1dark side of the
Speaker 2moon yeah is that what you're gonna say i'd have to say the dark side of the moon i think that were the best album of 67 yeah fantastic piece of work that one yeah no i think um was songs of leonard
Speaker 1cohen 67 or 68 um songs of leonard cohen november 1967 sorry released on december the 27th he's just
Speaker 2scraped in so you can't go with that because it's it's you know yeah songs of leonard cohen it's the album from that era that i played the most and it's um on one level it's very 60s partly because of his poetic lyrical imagery but on another level it's a world away from psychedelia this is a very stripped down singer-songwriter album with some of his greatest songs suzanne being one of the most obvious ones
Speaker 1well okay so you're picking you're picking a non-psychedelic album to represent the to represent the year of psychedelic it's allowed it's probably the
Speaker 2album i played most and out of the psychedelic albums weirdly enough i'd go for magical mystery tour because it has you know two of the greatest psychedelic statements of all time in straw be feels forever and i am the walrus obvious choice but i think it's it's utterly brilliant you know um in terms of what's the most influential of course sabotnick is a good choice but i'd go with velvet underground and nico because immediately you hear their influence on david bowie kevin ayers even um certainly aspects of the stooges kraut rock yeah then you hear it in punk then you hear it in the indie british music of the 80s yeah um and it still seems kind of pervasive and once more it's one of those albums that it might not be a virtuoso's release but it hints at so many musics from folk rock to psychedelic pop to singer-songwriter to minimalism it's a very eclectic album within the band's limitations
Speaker 1i would find it very hard to argue i think you're right i think that is possibly arguably along with sergeant pepper the most influential album of all of all possibly of all time you know there is an argument to say of all time not just 1967 but i think this what's beautiful about this year is there's so many albums isn't there you can point out and say you know what that was the beginning of a whole musical genre you know um so you you know you you look at an album like moody blues days of future past you say well that's the beginning of progressive rock you look at an album like silver apples of the music that's the beginning of electronic music you look at an album like lumpy grave you say that's the beginning of experimental avant-garde rock music so it's it's just you know hendrix the beginning of heavy metal a heavy rock so it's it's well cream as well we missed them out i beg your pardon we did miss but you're almost spoiled for choice aren't you in terms of picking an album here which is going to go on to become influential in its own right
Speaker 2what i love as well as going to going back to the moody blues actually is there's something um unselfconscious about it they're defining these musics aren't they aren't you know they're making them up as they go along there's a kind of an accidental sense of discovery but what i really do like and it's one of the reasons why you know moody blues album i think still last and the donovan is that they're not afraid to be embarrassing they're not afraid to be embarrassing something majestically stupid about well the poetry the imagery well and i love that we've
Speaker 1talked about that quite a lot already haven't we in the various episodes about how music is better sometimes music is best when it's reaching when it's being willfully kind of pretentious in a way and that's how music changes and that's how music evolves but there's a flamboyant stupidity about this era there's a there's a flamboyant there's a flamboyant stupidity about it definitely there's a stupidity about all great pop and rock music in a way um so listen my my um my favorites it's very hard for me it's it's tough it's between the dawn of an album certainly the second record of a gift from a flower to a garden um so beautiful i can never get tired of hearing that record the first floyd album for me one of the greatest floyd albums possibly the greatest debut album of all time along with uh the first velvet underground album and the frank sinatra album i just i can never get so so gorgeous and so beautiful i can never get tired of hearing that record so timeless and such a golden sound but again so sport for choice uh in this year aren't you in terms of picking great records and yes i would find it very hard to to argue with your choice of the velvets as the most influential so last question tim before we before we uh before we complete this episode and sign off um pick a year for the next episode i was going to go for either
Speaker 21975 or 1976 okay pick one because we're going to stick to this okay let's go with 1976 okay should punk have happened thanks very much
Speaker 1tim and uh goodbye bye
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