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.