Best Album You've Never Heard of?

Don't let the name of the band ("Love"), the silly-sounding title ("Forever Changes") or the psychedelic album cover fool you.  Released in 1967, this is quite possibly one of the darkest and most beautiful albums I've ever heard.  It's a seemingly obscure album by a seemingly obscure group--at least so it was with me until a few weeks ago.

I bought the album originally digitally through free MP3 credits.  I forget how it came up or was recommended.  After that, it haunted me until I had to track it down on vinyl, too.

I'm a sucker when it comes to "happy" songs that are in minor or blues keys and "sad" songs that are in major keys.  The Kinks were the first group I know of to do this--have me happily bouncing along to a song until I listened to the dark, twisted, depressing lyrics.  But nothing does it so well as this album, that's for sure.  For example, take the opening lyrics to "Red Telephone": sitting on a hill-si-ide (sung so happily), watching all the people (still happy) die (flatted, out of tune).  The effect is chilling, and unforgettable.  Even the title--"Forever Changes"--takes on a darker meaning once you know the story that spawned it.  One person was breaking up with another person, and the dialogue went along the lines of "you promised you would love me forever!"  "Oh yeah?  Well, forever changes."

There are several other lyrical gimmicks, such as leaving the last line out of a line, then using the anticipated word to begin the next line (in "Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale"), but most of the brilliance is in the music itself, rife with strings, woodwinds, and other instruments.  I'm a particular fan of session drummer Michael Stuart-Ware for his amazing work, keeping up with apparently three guitarists.

There's more than enough material written about how essential and ground-breaking this album has been.  For my part, I can only say that it lives up to the hype--and then some.

Mr. Bungle: sound surprise

I remember this album (1991) very well from my college years:

The vinyl record by Plain Recordings (2009) holds a few pleasant surprises.  Being picky about vinyl sound now, I'm used to fiddling with the settings on my stereo, but this was something very different.  First, I realized that the subwoofer was being used and that the "main sound" wasn't coming through the front speaker very loudly.  After a few setting changes, I realized that it sounded amazing in 5.1 surround.  I'm still kind of weirded out by this: that all six speakers are being used and directed, just like the sound for a movie.  And yet: it's still a phonograph, still analog. The outputs are still the standard red + white cables.  Whoever mixed this knew exactly what they were doing.  I'm guessing (I'm no sound expert here) that the different 5.1 speakers are designed to amplify sounds at certain frequencies, and so it was when it must have been converted to analog from the original, probably digital, master.

But then again, this is no typical album to begin with.  The tracks segue into weird sound bytes, bits of movies, DAT recordings, pornography, bodily functions, and other madness.  There is also the matter of the music itself.  Once described as "part death metal, part jazz, meets ska weirdness," the album does not easily fit into any category.

For all that, it is incredibly well put together, with a meticulous attention to detail--sudden changes that would drive almost any musician mad.  If I had a list of the "best weird albums of all time," this would certainly make the top 5.  The music certainly isn't for everyone.  Love him or hate him, Mike Patton (also of Faith No More, Fantômas, Peeping Tom, Tomahawk, Moonchild, and a gazillion other projects) is at his best when he is both singing and making weird sound effects, under a structured regime.  I'm also a lover of horns put to good use.  If you are into songs about sex with food, auto-erotic asphyxiation, and the masochism of sound, look no further.

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band

Nothing can be more clear about the difference between vinyl and CD than this gem from 1970.

I never really liked the Beatles growing up, thinking of most of their songs as vapid pop--having only been exposed to their hit songs like "She Loves You" and "A Hard Day's Night."  Eventually my father made me listen to Abbey Road, the eponymous white album, and (his favorite) Rubber Soul.  It didn't take long for the stranger songs to grow on me, weird kid that I was.  Furthermore, John Lennon seemed like the most inaccessible of the Beatles.  There was Paul, who had the amazing voice and was always writing romantic nostalgia songs.  There was George, who transformed the guitar into ethereal beauty.  And there was Ringo, who was...well, Ringo--made fun of a lot, but always far more important than everyone led on.  John was different somehow.  I could always tell when he was playing piano because of the way he hits the dark chords as if he were playing everything bright and sunny--like something bouncing happily on your chest while it devours your heart.  As for his guitar, I never really paid much attention given the superstar George was.

I remember first listening to this album on CD (with its bonus tracks) and thinking, a decent album but not something I'd listen to all the time.  Certainly it didn't seem as important an album as Imagine.  Some deep dark stuff, the John Lennon who probably needs prozac and should get on in his life.  Still, it is considered by Rolling Stone to be #23 in the greatest albums of all time or whatever, not that I take much stock in that sort of thing.

When I found John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band on vinyl at a reasonable price, I did not hesitate to pick it up.  Still relatively uncommon by vinyl standards, it has not gone through tons of reissues or changes in the sound.

Vinyl really makes a difference.  On "Mother," John's screams always sounded a bit affected and over-the-top to me in digital.  In the vinyl world, the quiet of the background instruments gives his yowling a quality that can make your spine tingle.  This kind of desperate quality carries over throughout all the other songs, most notably "Love," a song which makes me truly appreciate Phil Spector.  The fade-in of the piano is a gimmick that works, makes you almost think the song is over, then comes back in just at the right time--and it is Phil on piano, surprisingly, not John.  Any doubt I had about John-the-guitarist is eliminated in "Well Well Well," a song which was also made me instantly recognize and appreciate Ringo as a stand-up musician.  And the way the album ends, on "My Mummy's Dead," brings the entire experience on such a down note and ties it back together to the beginning.  Screw bonus tracks, this is really the way the music begs to be heard.

Finally, there is the jacket art.  There are no liner notes, not even a list of songs, only a picture of John and Yoko under a tree on the front and John as a child on the back.  There is nothing more that needs to be said, the music is what is speaking for itself.  Pure John Lennon, in a way that he has never sounded better, before or after.