Customer Reviews

Love Is

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Repertoire label has just released a remastered version of this album and the sound quality is truly amazing, obviously taken from the first-generation master tape - makes the out-of-print versions by One Way and Polydor of Japan sound thin and weak in comparison.
A cursory glance through other reviews for these earlier releases show the potential buyer that this was an album you either loved or hated. No question that there are some filler tracks here - my advice is to program out "I'm Dying, Or Am I?", "Gemini" & "The Madman". What you're left with is one of the great unsung and underappreciated albums of the psychedelic era. Andy Summers' solo on Traffic's "Coloured Rain" alone is worth the price of admission. Add in a unique interpretation of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" and a soulful take on the Bee Gee's "To Love Somebody", among others, and you've got an indespensible relic of the late '60's.
4 out of 5 stars for the aforementioned filler.

By the way, Repertoire also issued Eric & the Animals' penultimate album, "Every One of Us", at the same time - another strong recommedation.

I bought this album in the UK after trying to find it in the US in 1971.

If you are a fan of Eric Burden, and especially the later Animals, this is a great album. There are tracks such as River Deep, To Love Somebody and Gemini which are all great, showing not only the blues side but also the creative, experimental, psychedelic side of the group.

What I find most endearing about this album is it rawness-not unusual for this period of The Animals.

While the vinyl MGM album and my CD are indeed a bit flat in production sound, as were many of the MGM Animals albums IMHO, (think "needs extra bass and treble" on the stereo) in terms of performance, very fresh-almost like a "live studio album".

Love Is is one Animals album that continues with the cool introspective spoken word side of Eric shown on Winds of Change and Every One of Us, and The Twain Shall Meet. Another reviewer suggested deleting Gemini, and while admittedly 'op pop' in sound, I find I like the track.

To prospective buyers, this album doesnt contain any pop radio tracks you will recognize. Its still quite good for those of us who were introduced to Eric back when the Sun was Rising, and we were learning about the blues.

When I was a teen visiting England, my uncle played this album and I fell in love with it. After much searching I located it as a young adult, but my record player gave up the ghost so I was without it for many years. I was thrilled to discover it had been remastered and released on this CD.

Music is very subjective. And this is definately a work that you are either passionate about or think HUH? I just love it.
When I got this CD and put it on and heard it again for the first time in years I cried!

Colored Rain, River Deep Mountain High, and Ring of Fire are just incredible. Eric Burdon moves my soul!
This remastered recording is outstanding.

I've had this album since 1970 in one form or another.
I don't listen to it very often but when I do I am still amazed at it.
I have many many records, cd's, mp3s, reel to reel
tapes and cassettes. I'm obsessed with music, just about every kind of
music except Rap and Punk or Heavy Metal.
This album beats them all.
But it is also in a class all it's own.
There's many many great albums that you just put on and they sound great
whatever your doing. Some even help you do whatever.
This is not one of those albums. This is special.
Like the girl you keep away from your friends and only have
dinner with by candlelight and just look at eachother.

Forget HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN,
DON'T LET ME BE MISUNDERSTOOD and
WE GOTA GET OUT OF HERE.
The animals have left the planet.
Eric Burdon's voice is the only familiar thing here.
They have all been taken over by aliens.
You'll know what I mean when you hear those aliens in your head.

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS
This album requires special listening situations.

1 - ABSOLUTLEY NO DISTRACTIONS
2 - lay down
3 - most important listen with headphones.
Don't ruin it, you need headphones.
4 - in short don't do anything except listen.
5 - start listening with GEMINI, THE MADMAN

as Eric Burdon says in San Francisan nights,
"IT WILL BE WORTH IT"

optional, get high first, it gets even better.

If you follow my guidelines you won't be listening
to music you'll be having an experience.
Notes and voices and images will be floating around
in your head like you can't image.
And like Gemini, you'll feel both sides.
Beware though, after hearing this you'll be looking for a little
something extra from your music. More in the left speaker and
something different in the right.
You'll begin to question why can't there be more records produced
like this. I wouldn't want all records produced like this.
One is great.

Listening to this album with headphones
will take TOTO out of Kansas for awhile and that's always nice.

If you liked this EXPERIENCE then you're ready for the next;
THE TWAIN SHALL MEET,
same aliens but now their on a different planet.

If you can't relax or don't like headphones forget this album.
It would be like asking Jesus a question
and not paying attention to the answer. Why waste your time.

The Sixties zeigeist, at least on the face of it, was one of peace, love, and freedom. Love Is, originally released as a double vinyl album was Eric Burdon & the Animals' most ambitious effort and very much epitomizes that period. It's a recording that truly reflects its times with equal amounts of great musicianship and inspiration but a good deal of pretentiousness and overkill as well. River Deep, Mountain High is one of the most energetic cuts on the album as Eric pays tribute to the lovely Tina Turner with a great rendition of the song that she made famous. I'm an Animal is fun in a sort of dumb bar song type way while I'm Dying or Am I is basically a throwaway. I love Eric's version of Ring of Fire. It doesn't sound at all like Johnny Cash's original but Eric more than does justice to the tune even though there's some sloppiness (the harmony vocals don't always sound in tune and Barry Jenkins comes in a tad too early on drums on one of the choruses). Some reviewers have dumped on Coloured Rain but I have to disagree. This is a great version with an outstanding guitar solo (apparently by a pre-Police Andy Summers) and cool horns. The only negative note on it is again the harmony vocals. Although I've never particularly liked Eric's version of To Love Somebody, it's a sweet production job complete with soulful singers in the background and mellow guitar lines. As the Years Go Passing By is Eric's heartfelt tribute to the blues, "the ball and chain around every musician's leg." This minor key blues has it all: powerful vocal, smoking guitar solos, and real feeling. Whether you like Gemini and Madman or not depends on your personal taste. I have loved them since I first heard them on the vinyl release with all the psychedelic effects and trippy choruses. So this album is a mixed bag but I think that most of these "double-album" efforts during the Sixties tended to be part inspiration and part filler. George Martin once said that he felt that, looking back at the Beatles' White Album, the really good material would have made one great album. There is definitely one great album within the grooves of Love Is. You just have to be patient and stick with it.

I will never understand rock critics, especially the way they put a tag on a record or artist and manage to contaminate other critics with their wrong ideas. There are many many records in rock history which have been underrated, maybe sometimes rediscovered when some rock star casually let understand that "actually it was a big influence on me, even though I was the only one listening to it" and blah blah blah. "Love is" by Eric Burdon & The New Animals is one of likeliest to win this bizarre competition that will never be thrown (how sad critics are so reluctant to admit they were wrong). Try as a might, from the first time I listened to it back in 1977 (hey, I was just 7 when it came out!) to the last of the innumerable listens so far, I could never understand what was wroong with it, to dismiss it at best as lacklustre, out of focus and uninspired and at worst with the deadliest insult, "unlistenable". To me, this as a single collection stands as the absolute best of Eric Burdon as a vocalist and the music is so creative that it just bursts from your speakers as if alive, the band is very tight and very loose at the same time and the overall effect is totally mesmerizing. I like everything and I mean EVERYTHING this man has produced from 1964 to 1980 at least (plus his recent very good comeback album), but if I were to pick one for the Desert Island, it would be this one. Just think about the phenomenal covers, especially "River deep-Mountain high", or maybe you like experiments a lot and then you have "The Madman and "Gemini", but the track that will really blow your mind is the blues "As the years go passing by" with its moody beginning as an almost "normal blues" close to the version by Albert King, then Eric launches an incredible battle between a bluesy guitar and a very distorted one (one of the two is future Police Andy Summers!) that reaches an impressive climax only to be replaced by the out-of-this-world vocal return by Eric, who delivers one the most powerful blues vocal ever by a white man and then slowly fades away intoning "till the day I die" until it becomes inaudible and you feel like he's really dying. Listen to this record without preconceptions and you'll surely find many delights. Down with rock journalists!

Hats off to Eric!

Well, you know, if you remember the 60s, you weren't there and all of that. mumble, mumble

This was one incredible live band. Eric, Andy Summers, Zoot Money, the little dweeb who played the electric violin - this was one energetic, out-of-control band in the summer of 1968. I'm glad they got some of that energy down on vinyl and I only wish there was a lot more! (Live "Sky Pilot" with the on-stage explosions, bagpipes and roaring Eric, for instance).

If you purchase this, its essentially a time machine. You don't get concert performances like this anymore, to put it mildly. Eric could be somewhat overwhelming, but he sure was/is lovable, soulful and unique. What a set of pipes! - evidenced particularly here by "River Deep" and "Ring of Fire". (Jeez, didn't they have a usable take of Traffic's "Coloured Rain"? Eric got inside of, de-constructed and worked that one over to a "fair thee well"!)

Anyway, if you do like Amazon suggests and buy both this CD and "Every One of Us", which came out concurrently with this tour, you'll get an idea of how wild and woolly the summer of '68 was. And this was just 1/1,000,000th of what was happening musically that summer.

Word of warning - when you play this, some one in your house is going to hold their ears and complain: just the kind of musical effect I like!

One last note - no band this physically ugly would EVER get signed today -much to our everlasting regrets! These Animals definitely weren't the Backstreet Boys w/ Justin Timberlake fronting - these were moldy, hairy, patchy-looking blue collar gits from the industrial North of England, but they were "way into the music" and they as for real, baby.

Repertoire REPUK 1056 (2004) This re-issue of a long-lost and seldom heard classic has been very nicely restored and remastered. The sound is superior to even the latest Beatles' catalog re-releases. It appears that Repertoire went back to the original multi-track masters for this remaster, and the result is terrific! The sound is lively, strong, and has "punch" without being overwhelming (as so many modern-day releases are as if engaged in some sort of "volume wars"). This rejuvenated collection will not tax your ears, and you will definitely want to play it.

About the music: this final release from Eric and his Animals is a great glimpse into the psychedelia-meets-blues style of music which briefly appeared towards the close of the `60's. All of the covers on this disc are entirely Eric and the Animals' own and only loosely resemble the original versions. Of particular note is some fine guitar work on the Traffic cover "Coloured Rain" and the Deadric Malone penned "As Tears Go Passing By." Another tune certainly worthy of mention is the band's cover of the Dantalian's Chariot tune "The Madman (Running Through The Fields)": this tune, coincidentally, features Dantalian's Chariot members Zoot Money and Andy Summers - both of whom appear here again in the Animals covering their own song!

On the down side of this album is that it does not seem to feature Eric Burdon enough! This is all the more ironic - and disappointing - considering the band were now calling themselves "Eric Burdon and the Animals." Eric's talent simply seems to be underutilized in this incarnation of The Animals as compared to, say, Roger Daltrey's role in The Who, even though Eric is at least equal to Daltrey in ability and talent. Here, Eric is reduced to what seems to be merely a band member rather than being the cornerstone of the group as in earlier versions of the band.

On the whole, I love the energy and style of this album, and it is great to hear this truly outstanding restoration of recordings from one of rock and roll's most amazing and dynamic singers at this brief window in rock and roll history. If you are an Animals fan, you will certainly enjoy this one. In summary, for me, this album is a great little "nugget," and I certainly would recommend it. I give this one `two thumbs up!'

I was a musician when this was released; not good enough to break through but good enough to know the people who mattered. I heard about this album before it came out from producers in the most important studio of that time. This is Burdon proving to musicians that he could do an album as successful musically as he was commercially. It was astonishing then. Still is.

I have been looking for one song by the Animals for a long time. I found it on this album. All the other songs are great also, especially thier tribute song to Tina Turner. Love it. Really fast delivery too.