Customer Reviews

The Second

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Besides the well known Magic Carpet Ride the first seven songs are more or less as appealing, although more simple. One exception is Don't Step On The Grass Sam, a fine example of protest in their time. But wait! The best is yet to come! Starting from the eighth track, Disappointment Number (unknown), to the end is a medley that will slowly lift you off the ground and take you on a real carpet ride of rustic slide guitar and rippin' blues. A ten minute trip I highly recommend.

I'm a 13 year old floridian who's in to rock. I never thought I'd like my parent s generation of music. I was wrong. Steppenwolf has everything. A hard sound to a punk sound to a pop sound everything! guitar solos! BuyBuyBuyBuyBuyBuyBuy!

Steppenwolf the Second may be Steppenwolf's best overall album. It entirely features original material, without any ineffective tracks. This album is known for the excellent but overplayed Magic Carpet Ride, yet there were plenty of other highlights. The opening track rocks hard, and could have been another biker anthem along the lines of Born to Be Wild. There were plenty of other highlights including the rocking Don't Step On the Grass Sam, creative ballad Spiritual Fantasy, and well structured pop songs such as None of Your Doing and 28. 28 may have been partially hindered by Edmonton's sub-par vocals, but the song itself was a quality composition in lyrics, melody, and chord selection. A successful lengthy blues suite dominated the majority of the second side, before segueing into the hangover like final track, Reflections. This album is uniformly strong, and recommended for those who buy albums, rather than best-of compilations.

If I could have only one original Steppenwolf album to remember them by, it would be this second effort by them. Far from being a sophomore slump, this was a peerless demonstration of just how talented a group they really were. There is a reason that the sixties rock group Steppenwolf still sells so strongly some thirty years after their arrival on the sixties rock scenes with a quick succession of powerful heavy rock hits like "Magic Carpet Ride" and "Born To Be Wild". I've always admired lead vocalist John Kay's singing style, songwriting and lyrical talents, and his outspoken personal warnings against the dangers of drug excess with songs like "The Pusher" and "Snowblind Friend". He was anti-drug when it was anything but fashionable to so cautious and careful. And Kay also knew his way around a melody, and whether he was making insightful social commentary in a number of songs like "Monster" and "Draft Resister" or just plain old wailing in terrific, edgy songs like "Never Too Late (To Start All Over Again)" or "Twenty Eight", he used the combination of his lovely lyrics, driving melodies, and wild rock improvisation to create a whole rafter of memorable, insightful and very appealing rock songs. Most of them are here, and those that aren't you can find in their other albums. Steppenwolf quickly earned the undying support and admiration of their original fans, and are finding new listeners through terrific compilation albums like this must-own collection of their hits. Enjoy

I'm glad to see that people are still listening to and enjoying this album. Now sadly stereotyped as a biker band by the endless recycling of "Born to be Wild", Steppenwolf was really a sixties pop-rock outfit of the first order, every bit as delightful as Love, Buffalo Springfield, the Airplane and other California-based bands who are now lionized.

This album displays a mastery of tuneful songcraft. "28" is a forgotten gem that treads the fine line between bubblegum and garage. "None of your Doing" playfully echoes "In Another Land" off the Stones' Satanic Majesty's. "Magic Carpet Ride" never grows old, even after thousands of listenings. And the song suite on the second side (showing my age here) remains highly listenable and compares favorably with other side-length experiments of the time, like "Reflection" from Love's Da Capo album.

Steppenwolf is long overdue for the reissue/remaster treatment, perhaps pairing this one with "At your Birtday Party". No other sixties band has declined in reputation so undeservedly.

This is a cool album. I have the original vinyl, (worn so thin that it's almost see-thru in places), and the CD. I have to say that it sounds better if you hit the pause button after 'Don't Step on the Grass Sam', (where side 1 finished) and walk away for a minute or so before listening to the second half. Side 1 was (is) a straightfoward collection of catchy, well written pop/rock songs, that still sound fresh and interesting 33 years later. Side 2 however, only contained 2 pop songs (including the hit Magic Carpet Ride), and an ambitiously lengthy blues suite, containing everything from straight solo acoustic blues, to some of the funkiest B-3 organ ever comitted to tape. Listening to the whole CD in one go can result in information overload, but as a record of 2 halves, it works perfectly.

This second outing for one of the Sixties most original and raucously independent group (of all those emerging in the tumult and upheaval of the times); Steppenwolf stood alone, showing their unique flair for defining and extending what was the beginning of heavy metal rock, all accomplished with their iconoclastic, staccato style. There never indeed was another band like Steppenwolf; so original and unique were both their songs and their instrumental accompaniments, not to mention John Kay's unusual vocal style, as well. All in all, a most creative and original force in the late sixties rock music scene.

Here they show why they became so famous so fast, with a song cycle disguised as several separate songs. Starting with "Faster Than The Speed Of Life" and continuing with "(You'd Better) Tighten Up Your Wig", they show the blend of self-deprecating humor and social commentary crystallized like so much methadrine in their songs, trudging on through excellent songs like "None Of Your Doing" and a flight of fantasy in "Spiritual Fantasy", ending the cycle with a wonderfully raucous "Don't Step On The Grass, Sam", a wry and satirical look at the silly and incompetent police efforts to stop widespread casual pot use.

The second cycle begins with a tender albeit humorous look at what it really means to approach age thirty in a subculture that distrusts anyone over that age. Followed by their monster hit, "Magic Carpet Ride", and a nice amalgam of several stories with a story with four interrelated melodies from Disappointment Number (Unknown all the way through the resurrection and reflection at the end of the album. This is a terrific album, and one any real rock fan would want to have in his or her anthology of rock's best. Enjoy!

Forget Born To Be Wild and Magic Carpet Ride. Cue this up at #8 and you will find 20 minutes of the best blues/rock ever performed. Steve Miller's Children of the Future a close second.

There is little better than this.

j

You know I truly don't care how much time has gone by, *this* is the reason people love the music from the 60's. This second album by Steppenwolf is the reason we look back and remember how melodic and easy-going and just really REALLY superb the rock and roll from the 60's was.

I think the best thing about Steppenwolf's second album is how the lead singer is in excellent shape with his AMAZING voice where he sounds like he's crying while he sings, and to me it's absolutely terrific when someone sings with THAT kind of emotion because you know it's totally real and not some attempt to give the listener some bogus feelings like all those commercial bands out there today. Nope, this kind of rock and roll comes from deep within. To me, that makes Steppenwolf a very soulful band.

I'm absolutely impressed with the quality of the music. For 1968, it still sounds quite fresh and easily way and beyond your average rock band.

The second side of the album has the famous hit song that we all know and love (at least you *should* love it because it's a classic, despite being played a thousand times in a thousand different places) but what's amazing is how there's also a bluesy song on the second side that absolutely delivers as far as the lead singers emotions go. INCREDIBLE vocal job on the blues I must say.

Then, the rest of the songs on side two is actually just one super gigantic jam with guitar, harmonica, keyboards, but most of all, and probably more specifically, a showcase of different vocal melodies takes place, and each vocal melody just as great as the previous one. You'll probably agree once you hear it. It's bluesy jam rock done right.

Side one features some shorter pop songs and more honest, emotional vocal performances. You MUST own this Steppenwolf album.

This album displayed the diversity and ambition of a very distinctive band definitely of their time. I was captivated by the medley on the second side that I seem to recall John Kay saying in an interview at the time was intended to trace the history of rock and roll up to that point, starting with the blues origins, accelerating with Leslie speaker aural tricks and funky Beatles 'Taxman' style guitar. In fact, when I heard Abbey Road the next year I was struck by the fact that the album was structured almost exactly like this one - first side being standalone songs, then two standalone songs at the beginning of Side 2 followed by a suite that follows on to the ending. I don't know if any of the Beatles had heard this album when they assembled their masterpiece but I think it's at least an interesting coincidence that the albums are so similar in that way. I still think the Beatles left Steppenwolf and just about everyone else at the time in the dust but nevertheless I give Steppenwolf credit for their ambition. Before this album I had only heard a few tracks such as their hits, "Born to be Wild" and "Magic Carpet Ride". Those were tremendous songs but when I heard this album I concluded that they were more than a band that just churned out hit singles.