Customer Reviews

Forever Changes (Dlx) (Mlps)

5 star:		(73)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I was introduced to this album at thirteen by junior high buddy Bill Loftin, who was somewhat more musically advanced than I. We would sit for hours transfixed by a sound that was different from anything else then being played. "Alone Again Or" was the hook, but "Forever Changes" grew on me until it became firmly implanted in my mind as one of the best albums ever recorded. Now we all can think of albums that we liked when young that we can no longer stand and wonder how we ever did. This album, despite what some critics say, is one that stands the test of time. The song-writing duo of Arthur Lee and Bryan MacLean are at the peak of their collaborative genius here. Sure, some of the song titles are outrageous and some of the lyrics seem to have been written merely to rhyme; i.e. "All the snot is caked against my pants, it has turned into crystal. There's a bluebird sitting on a branch, I guess I'll take my pistol..." But interspersed with all the seeming nonsense are many serious and cryptic lyrics which give the listener pause. Arthur Lee was "punk" before punk was ever thought of and the music much more agreeable. My favorite cuts are the title song, The Red Telephone, Live and Let Live, You Set the Scene, ...Between Clark and Hilldale (a GREAT song musically), and Old Man. Bryan Maclean once said in an interview that the old man in the song was fictitious. Maybe so, but entirely believable. A lucky kid indeed is one whose life is enriched and horizons expanded by a worldly man such as Maclean wrote about. I don't agree with those who say this album didn't age well. In my estimation, "Forever Changes" continues to stand out from its contemporaries as a masterpiece of 1960s underground music.

Okay, here's the deal...I will not repeat all that pretentious "masterpiece" stuff about this album but I will try and tell you why this album meant a lot to me when it came out and why it is one of the great albums. Here are six reasons to buy this album:

1. Love is the only group that used Bela Lugosi's vampire castle as a back drop for two album covers.

2. The hidden force behind "Forever Changes" was Neil Young, who almost took credit as a producer because he worked with Arthur Lee on the songs up until the moment the band took the songs to the studio and recorded them.

3. Arthur Lee used William Burrough's "cut and paste" technique for lyric writting on most of his songs. This is what gives the album a surreal feel.

4. Bryan McLean was the first composer to bring Braizilian rythyms to the ears of the mainstream.

5. This album almost didn't get cut. Love was in a complete mess at the time. Most of the members weren't even talking to each other. Following this session the band broke up and Love will always be remembered as about the only group that quit when it was still at the top of it's game.

6. All band members went on to live in obscurity: One member is in jail, one is dead, two have disappeared from the face of the earth and one is roaming around South America with a guitar. This is a good reason to support Love. None of these guys hung around for a reunion tour when their shelf life was expired..

Thank you Love for an album that I can sit in a rocking chair at age 69 and drop acid to.

For over 20 years this has been my link to a time that affected me greatly but which I did not participate. One often wonders how the Woodstock Generation really felt. Was it really 'Groovie', mellow and just a stoned out trip. This album lets you know the experience was a lot more complex then a simple Dylan lyric or a Hendrix guitar hook. The music is as complex as an ex-teeny bopper singles writer Brian Wilson put to wax on Pet Sounds, even entering the area of the Lovin' Spoonfull's 'Hums of the Lovin' Spoonfull and the Byrd's Sweetheart of the Rodeo' on 'Bummer in the Summer'. Much of the album has the subtlety of Rennaissance era Kinks. Forever Changes doesn't seem to have a direct link to any other album of the period lyrically. The occassional comparison could be made to Dylan, but socially I'd compare it more to 'Beggar's Banquet'. Oh yeah, the horns are really cool too.

I don't claim to know a bloody thing about other Love Albums. Yes, I've heard them, and forgot them almost as quickly. This is truly lightning in a bottle, much like Rod Stewart's 'Every Picture Tells A Story' or even better 'Moby Grape'. Occasionally the gods of music just show up in a studio and possess the bodies therein.

I feel there might be 100 albums made that are must owns. If I had that list in my hand this cd would be in my shopping cart on the first trip to the store.

Where do I start? Maybe I should explain the title of this review. It really is tragic that only five stars can be given, because this album deserves a lot more than that. Simply put, the best album I have ever heard in my life, and my favorite of all time is "Forever Changes." 11 tracks that combine impeccable lyrics, smooth music, and an almost disturbing amount of beauty can be found on here. I bought this album the same day that I had the most devastating incident of my life, and it helped me profusely. It's funny that a band called Love could avoid the subject for the extreme majority of this LP.

Anyway, Arthur Lee believed that he was going to die at age 26, (He was only 22 at the time this was released, but that's not important.) and wanted this album to showcase his final words on Planet Earth. He's actually still alive today, but he still put out this flawless album while that fear of death loomed over him. The result is an enigmatic set of tracks that will completely captivate anyone with good taste in music (Sorry, Eminem fans, you aren't included.).

The album opens up with a beautiful stream of guitars providing us with the opening of "Alone Again Or," a Bryan McLean track, and one of the most simplistic on the album. The mariachi horns and 2-part harmonies play up to this tracks enjoyability level, and sets the stage for the beauty that is to follow.
Following that light-hearted track, instant darkness is acheived with the ominous-sounding introduction to "A House Is Not A Motel." This track is a lyrical showcase, probably having the most depth in that aspect of any of these songs. For proof I give you the final verse:

"By the time that I'm through singing the bells from the schools of wars will be ringing. More confusions, blood transfusions. The news today will be the movies for tomorrow, and the waters turned to blood, and if you don't thing so, go turn on your tub."

That verse rendered me speechless on first listen. Next, "Andmoreagain" brings us verses of romance and majesty to soften the apocalyptic images of the previous track. For most of my friends who have the album, this is their favorite track, and not without good reason. It's a beautiful love song, sure to sooth out any anger you may be holding.
"The Daily Planet" is an acoustic rocker, and is the hardest song on the album. Here, Lee used double-tracking in ways not utilized before, by singing two different things over each other. Another ingenious decision by an ingenious frontman.
Following that, the most simple song on the album "Old Man," gives us more romance to quell our confusion of the previous track. It is the second of two Bryan McLean tracks, and, like every song on here, is bursting with beauty.
Next comes a disturbing portrait of death and darkness in "The Red Telephone," featuring lyrics of lost hope, a droning harpsichord, and a greatly disturbing ending (They're locking them up today. They're throwing away the key. I wonder who it'll be tomorrow, you or me.)
Following that track another lighthearted recovery track is given (recurring theme) in "Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark & Hilldale." This song was the reason I bought the album, and it is one of the two best songs on the album.
Next, "Live And Let Live" transports us back to where 'The Red Telephone' left off. It's another dark track that you will grow to love even more on repeated playings.
Following its predecessors, "The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This" is another relief track, but by now you can't help but think, maybe this happiness is just a facade. Maybe there is no hope, and it's just here to draw us in. Anyway, it succeeds and things take a much lighter turn from here.
Now, most people would say that the first rap song is 'Rapture" by Blondie, but to those people I say "Be gone." This may sound a bit racist to some of you, but there is no way that rap was started by a white girl. Anyway, Lee recorded the next track, "Bummer In The Summer," over ten years before "Rapture" was released. Listening to this track, you will hear that this is in fact a rap song, and until I find a rap song released before 1967, I will regard this as the first rap song recorded.
Finally, the album closes with what will become your favorite track if you play the album enough, "You Set The Scene." It is the most revealing track, as Lee openly speaks of his prediction of death with a mature acceptance. The whole album builds up to the final half of this song, and it delivers right here. The perfect (yes, perfect) climax to a perfect album.

So, in review, if you want to hear the best album of all time, then purchase "Forever Changes." You shouldn't be disappointed, but if you are, get help.

Some of the other DJs at WFMU laugh at me when I say this is one of the few albums I can listen to from beginning to end. With a CD, one doesn't even have to turn the record over. It's loaded with mysteries, small perversities (it was L.A. after all) & desperation that demonstrate the hollowness of those love beads everyone was wearing. Of course,The Doors & the Velvets & Neil Young were hip to the San Fran scam, too, but not with this quality of anger & sweet sadness. & it's not just Arthur Lee; the late Bryan Maclean does more than swell on "Forever Changes." The string arrangements are excellent - only Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks" can compare. I still ask myself the question: "I wonder who it will be tomorrow, you or me?"

Bob Rixon, WFMU

I grew up exposed to the Beatles, Dylan, etc. By the time I got to high school and college I was fully immersed in the rock heyday that was the late 1960s. Somehow I never became alerted to Love and their masterpiece Forever Changes. I've seen Love described as the missing link betwen the Byrds and the Doors and consider that to be somewhat accurate. However, there's also a lot more to their music than that. Influences of Spanish guitar and brass, and San Fransisco style psychaedelia figures prominently into their songs. There in a thin layer of datedness on some of the production arrangements but after a few listens those give way to the absolute beauty of the songs. All of the songs are outstanding, but none really dominate the others. Accordingly, this is one of the best albums to play from start to finish that I've come across. It just flows similarly to "The Doors" and "Exile On Main Street". Arthur Lee's voice works wonderfully with the musical style and his lyrics are a conundrum that leaves one pondering the lines swirling through their head. The closest musical contemporary would have to be the Doors but Love's musical is much more upbeat and less brooding. This album is recommenable to anyone interested in rock, but especially those with late 60s leanings. If you've never heard this album before, you're in for a treat.

Love's "Forever Changes" was an album that I had often read or heard about, but never listened to. Because of the hype and mystique surrounding the album, I decided to give it a try. After owning this CD for several months, all I can say is, "Forever Changes" really does live up to its' reputation as being one of the finest rock albums ever recorded. In terms of originality, song-writing, production, craft, and delivery, "Forever Changes" is easily as good as "Sgt. Pepper" or "Revolver." And although I liked this album instantly, it just gets better and better with repeated plays. Once everything sinks in and one fully grasps the complexity of the songs and their arrangements, one fully appreciates this album in all its glory.

Because Love was from L.A. and the band was an infuluece/rival of the Doors, I was expecting Love to sound something like The Doors. But this was not the case. Love's music actually encompassed several styles, so it would be hard to pigeonhole the band. They were a rock band, but their music also incorporated elements of folk, jazz, even classical.

You know how it is with a lot of albums; There are three or four good songs, a few okay ones, and a then some filler. But then there are those albums where every song is as good as the last, where the album is sort of like a best-of all by itself -- Like Nirvana's "Nevermind," Guns N' Roses "Appetite For Destruction," or the Beatles "Abby Road." Every song on "Forever Changes" is a highlight--every song is beautifully written and is a work of art.

The sound of the album is best described as folk-rock tinged with orchestration. But the music is never bogged down by the orchestration, like the Beatles "The Long and Winding Road." The orchestration is actually as light as a feather and serves to enhance everything and works in perfect synchronicity with the songs.

In the liner notes of the CD, Andrew Sandoval describes "Forever Changes" to be in a sense "the ultimate soundtrack to L.A.: the mariachi horns of the melting pot; the sirens and the accidents; the sweet strings and dissonant guitars. Arthur Lee and Love captured it all in a musical postcard." Love captured L.A. in the summer of love, warts and all, it was cynical and despairing, but also beautiful and majestic--and "Forever Changes" captures it all.

Arthur Lee is definitely one of, if not the most underrated songwriter of all-time. The first incarnation of Love was also the best. Arthur Lee and guitarist/songwriter Bryan MacLean had an incredible chemistry that sadly only lasted three albums.

If you're a fan of classic rock or are building a rock collection and want every classic recording, "Forever Changes" is a must have. It is simply that good and deserves to be heard.

I have listened to this album so many times it makes me dizzy. But every time I listen, I am moved. Any self-respecting music listener who does not own this better hurry up and get one. Amazon.com has it at a great price. You might try the 2 cd set, Love Story if you want more of Love, and you should. I don't care what any critic says about Arthur Lee, this music is classic, great, genius. The Love Story set includes the entire Forever Changes and is well worth the money. I encourage people who like classic rock music, who like great singing, to give the group Love serious consideration. If you like the Beatles, Jethro Tull, the Byrds, Jimi Hendrix, Simon and Garfunkel, the Doors, Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan, you will definately love Love. If you haven't been familiar with their recordings, you are in for a sumptuous treat for your soul and ears.

This is easily the American Sgt. Pepper,with all due respect to Pet Sounds.This is one of those cases where the original vinyl probably does sound better than the cd.Somebody really should do a remastering of this lovely (sorry) album. There are many truly bad psychedelic records out there,Forever Changes is one of the truly greats.Lyrics that are inscrutable,guitars that slash and chime,and horn arrangements inspired by (I swear) Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass. Oh yeah,you gotta love a song that starts out with our man Arthur cheerfully singing "Oh the snot has caked against my pants...it has turned into crystal...there's a bluebird sitting on a branch...I think I'll take my pistol..." Well you know the rest.

it's a very interesting album,i don't know why it is so unknown.the orchestra and the guitars are conceived perfectually.i prefer the last song,a visonary masterpiece.i can't understand why bands like the doors,that of the the same time made a mediocre album,are celebrated more than love.it's only rock'n'roll or fashion?