Song Cycle

Van Dyke Parks | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 18, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Warner Bros / Ada
• ASIN: B000005JAT
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #19,873 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #69 in Music > Indie Music > Folk > General
  • #76 in Music > Pop > Oldies > Baroque Pop
  • #100 in Music > Miscellaneous > Experimental Music

Track Listings

1. Vine Street

2. Palm Desert

3. Widow's Walk

4. The All Golden

5. Van Dyke Parks

6. Public Domain

7. Donovan's Colours

8. The Attic

9. Laurel Canyon Blvd

10. By the People

11. Pot Pourri

Editorial Reviews

No Description Available
No Track Information Available
Media Type: CD
Artist: PARKS,VAN DYKE
Title: SONG CYCLE
Street Release Date: 05/29/1990
Domestic
Genre: FOLK

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the album that almost changed the face of pop!, July 26, 2003

By 

D. Stewart "duglas" (Glasgow, Scotland United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Song Cycle (Audio CD)

In 1968 Warner Brothers were preparing to make pop music history by releasing an album by a young musician and songwriter called Van Dyke Parks. Song Cycle's budget of $$,$$$ made it the most expensive album ever recorded back then. The Warner bosses weren't worried, they knew it was going to be the biggest thing since Sgt Pepper and probably bigger. They were wrong, they were very wrong.
When Song Cycle was released it just didn't sell. It had received unprecedented pre-release rave reviews saying it things like:
"The most important, creative and advanced pop recording since Sgt Pepper";
"a work of creative genius";
"the most vital piece of musical Americana since Gershwin".
Parks also had an impressive pedigree as a musician on The Byrds '5D' and the first Tim Buckley album; songwriter for Harpers Bizarre and others; a musical arranger on Disney's 'The Jungle Book' and most famously as a collaborator with Beached Boy Brian Wilson. Despite the advance press and the pedigree it's hard to see how on earth Warners thought this was going to be a real big seller. It is undoubtedly a work of unique vision and ambition. Truly a masterpiece but with zero "radio friendly" 3 minute sound bites packed with catchy hooks. Even today Song Cycle is not an easy listening experience but it is a challenging and ultimately rewarding one.
I can think of no other record like it.Song Cycle is a musical travelogue, a sonic trip across the America of Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Busby Berkeley musicals and John Ford Westerns. It has moments of real beauty such as 'The All Golden' and 'Donavan's Colours' but just as you're beginning to feel like you know which direction you're moving in, it whisks you up like a hayseed in the wind and then lands you somewhere completely different.
Warner Brothers reaction to the lack of sales was a strange but entertaining one. They started to run a series of adverts in the press stating they didn't care they, 'lost $$,$$$ on the album of the year', because it was a great album and people shouldn't worry about them, as they could afford it as they were making lots of money from lesser artists. Then they offered people the chance to send their worn copies of the album with one penny to Warners and they would send back two new copies, 'one to educate a friend with'. After all they had so many copies pressed up.
Whether or not this reaction by Warners was a bluff or not they have stuck by Van Dyke Parks, continuing to finance his self indulgent, uncommercial but often wonderful fare. The latest of these releases being a collaboration with Brian Wilson 'Orange Crate Art'. For me 'Song Cycle' remains his finest work.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A tape he made, suffice it to say it didn't make the grade, December 28, 2003

By 

Girl.Scout.Heroin (replacing my toilet) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Song Cycle (Audio CD)

This is a really trippy, funny, and bizarre album. Not trippy in the vein of say California contemporaries Jefferson Airplane or the Dead. NO. Way better and much more surreal. Comparison is pointless. Song cycle is immaculately orchestrated, yet detatched, and free of any "hippy bandwagon" fodder. I couldn't care less about connections to Americana or Gerschwinism. This album is a much more psychedelic and abstract than anything to come from a bunch of long haired LSD enthusiasts in their VW vans. What was this dude on?
Musically, the orchestration is way out there. All the rules and standards were thrown out. Read the credits. Look at all of the unusual instrumentation and droves of players who got the challenge of their lives. Imagine their reaction upon seeing the notation before them in the studio. Then perhaps they were even more bewildered (amazed, disgusted?) to hear the final product, complete with the processed vocals and innovative studio effects. Parks sounds like a hallucinating midget. The lyrics are equally odd. This is the most psychedelic album to come out of the USA! Not by a goateed tye-dier, but a better-groomed guy who'd look square at the love-in. Quite brilliant, indeed.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Californiana (Once upon a time there were orange orchards), May 26, 2004

By 

Steven P. Lynn (Outside Tucson, Arizona) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Song Cycle (Audio CD)

I couldn't get any of my friends to sit through this when it came out. It's sales at the time indicated the kind of reception the album got across the board, but this is classic Americana/Californiana music and I will not forget my fellow Californians who laughed at it.
The music here is dense, idiosyncratic, and difficult to get through, although it is much more lyrical than given credit for. It is easy to understand why Warner Brothers thought it would be an immediately famous debut. It was; it just did not get any airplay or reception. This album and the excellent "Orange Crate Art" with Brian Wilson proclaim a vision of golden California pre/post World War 2, and being a native and having grown up in the 1950's and 60's I understand perfectly well the semi-urban,semi-rural feeling of Los Angeles in that era. Pasadena was high-powered in a quaint kind of way, Santa Monica and the coastal stretches were untrammeled, and the desert was WAY out there.
People like my grandmother lived in neighborhoods, and knew their neighbors. The residents of Hollywood had bungalows and gardens. The car was not critically important. Mostly, Southern California had a community atmmosphere. This music reflects all that.
Joan Didion would like the presentation on these two albums. The atmosphere would suit her, I think.