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Love - Forever Changes


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What do you think of Forever Changes by Love? Have you heard it? I realise this is probably outside what people on here usually listen to but some might have heard it anyway... Lithium perhaps? Anyway this album is amazing and according to me it's the best album of 1967, which is often considered the "best" year in music...So, opinions please!

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Damn right, I've heard it. :) And I love it too! It's my type of music - it's like an American version of Oddyssey and Oracle; it has that psychedelic baroque-sound that always work very well. The Spanish trumpet on "Alone Again Or" is orgasmic. :wub: It's definitely an essential album for music-interested people.

I agree that 1967 is the best, or at least one of the best, years in music: The Velvet Underground and Nico, The Doors, Disraeli Gears, The Who Sell Out, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim, Are You Experienced?, Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, Safe as Milk, and that's just a fraction of all the wonderful albums that came out that year. God damn, I'd give anything to experience that year. :lol:

Edited by Lithium
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Wow, I have to check this out, if you think it's the best album of 1967!

I'll also have to listen to some that Lithium has suggested, as I haven't listened to them before - Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim, Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, Safe as Milk.

I'd give anything to experience that year too. :P

Edited by LCG
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It's mostly acoustic, pretty folky and a bit psychedelic with wonderful melodies through the whole album... At times it's reminiscent of a Morricone soundtrack sound-wise... It's amazing.

And just so you know that it's not just me (and Lithium); the album was ranked 40th on Rolling Stone's greatest albums list (Appetite was #61), not that these lists usually makes sense but anyway. :P

From allmusic (5/5):

Love's Forever Changes made only a minor dent on the charts when it was first released in 1967, but years later it became recognized as one of the finest and most haunting albums to come out of the Summer of Love, which doubtless has as much to do with the disc's themes and tone as the music, beautiful as it is. Sharp electric guitars dominated most of Love's first two albums, and they make occasional appearances here on tunes like "A House Is Not a Motel" and "Live and Let Live," but most of Forever Changes is built around interwoven acoustic guitar textures and subtle orchestrations, with strings and horns both reinforcing and punctuating the melodies. The punky edge of Love's early work gave way to a more gentle, contemplative, and organic sound on Forever Changes, but while Arthur Lee and Bryan MacLean wrote some of their most enduring songs for the album, the lovely melodies and inspired arrangements can't disguise an air of malaise that permeates the sessions. A certain amount of this reflects the angst of a group undergoing some severe internal strife, but Forever Changes is also an album that heralds the last days of a golden age and anticipates the growing ugliness that would dominate the counterculture in 1968 and 1969; images of violence and war haunt "A House Is Not a Motel," the street scenes of "Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hillsdale" reflects a jaded mindset that flower power could not ease, the twin specters of race and international strife rise to the surface of "The Red Telephone," romance becomes cynicism in "Bummer in the Summer," the promise of the psychedelic experience decays into hard drug abuse in "Live and Let Live," and even gentle numbers like "Andmoreagain" and "Old Man" sound elegiac, as if the ghosts of Chicago and Altamont were visible over the horizon as Love looked back to brief moments of warmth. Forever Changes is inarguably Love's masterpiece and an album of enduring beauty, but it's also one of the few major works of its era that saw the dark clouds looming on the cultural horizon, and the result was music that was as prescient as it was compelling.
Edited by Soulseller
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And just so you know that it's not just me (and Lithium); the album was ranked 40th on Rolling Stone's greatest albums list (Appetite was #61), not that these lists usually makes sense but anyway. :P

It was placed that high? I thought it was placed closer to 100, although I may be confusing it with Oddessey and Oracle. I really need to read through that list again.

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And just so you know that it's not just me (and Lithium); the album was ranked 40th on Rolling Stone's greatest albums list (Appetite was #61), not that these lists usually makes sense but anyway. :P

It was placed that high? I thought it was placed closer to 100, although I may be confusing it with Oddessey and Oracle. I really need to read through that list again.

According to wikipedia at least :P It's been a while since I read the actual list...

edit: just looked through the list and Forever Changes is indeed 40th, Odessey and Oracle is number 80.

Edited by Soulseller
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Guest RonMexico82

I have it and it is great but I think if anything it is overrated by music purists. Give me The Doors, The Beatles or Jimi Hendrix over it any day.

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I have it and it is great but I think if anything it is overrated by music purists. Give me The Doors, The Beatles or Jimi Hendrix over it any day.

Well I can certainly understand why you would prefer other 1967 records to this, considering the quality of what was released... I don't really like The Doors, except for a song or two, but both Sgt. Pepper (even if I don't think it's the Beatles' best record - Revolver, Rubber Soul and Abbey Road are better) and Are You Experienced? are almost as good imo...

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Absoloutley mind blowingly insanely good album! I fucking love it! Arthur Lee was a genious! Love were such an influential band, hendrix stole his whole look from Lee, aparently jim morrison really looked up to him, you can even hear the rythem section influence in some of the early 90s 'madchester' music, stone roses etc, listen to the groove of the bass and drums in the daily planet and lets not even mention how the stones ripped off she comes in colours. Its tough to pick a fav track, you set the scene is a fantastic closer, Lee sounds like orbison in some parts. The sparse use of electric guitars on the album is another thing that makes it so fucking cool like on live and let live, sends shivers down my spine. The Red Telephone my favourite track on the album, my favourite track by Love aswell, well its a tie between that and Signed DC - what a fukin tune! SO far ahead of its time. I really wana see the dvd Lovestory. Ive seen a bit online, looks fascinating, it chronicles the story of Love, interviews with Arthur Lee, johnny ecols and loads more. Best album of 67? Probably. What a fantastic year for music, Safe as Milk, Forvever Changes, Pepper, Doors, Hendrix, Velvet Underground.... What a list. As far as im concerned Love tops the list of best albums of 67. Forever changes, what a classic album.

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