Tuesday, October 27, 2009
I don’t know who gave me this album, or who recommended it but I had a vinyl copy in my teens and have listened to it consistently since then. To start with I really didn’t know what to make of it. “Snot against my pants” indeed! But there are few records you keep going back to and never seem to tire of. This is one them. There’s are others – Grievous Angel, Pet Sounds, The Stone Roses, The Best of the Shadows (the black album), Blonde on Blonde and Blood on the Tracks, Exile or Sticky Fingers. These are all amazing records. Brilliant, shiny things that transport you to another planet. Records that make you wonder who these people were who made them. What special forces joined together to create this brilliance? What were these guys thinking? And why has it been so hard to recreate that brilliance (in Gram’s case it’s pretty obvious). I think FC is my favorite. It still has bits that remain unexpected, that surprise. That’s what’s frustrating about Love. The albums leading up to FC are decent but not brilliant. The ones that followed it were mixed (and I’m being nice to some of them). They were of their time definitely – and haven’t aged well. I think it’s interesting listening to albums from bands from the mid-60’s – especially on Elektra – that they are so electric even when they cry out for acoustic guitars in the mix (the early Love albums are like this, the Clear Light album, there’s a bunch more) but then came FC. It’s almost all acoustic – and it’s got strings. It’s produced like a Frank Sinatra record. If Frank had made a psychedelic, mariachi album. There’s something about it that hasn’t dated. Maybe it’s because it’s so familiar – or maybe it’s because so many people have ripped it off. Who hasn’t played those chords at some point and thought – cool…just like Arthur Lee.
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