Tag: psychedelic rock

beck - modern guilt
CD

Beck: Modern Guilt (2008)

To start, this was not the Beck album I thought I was going to write about.  I went into the morning happy to revisit an old friend, a sunny, chill psychedelic folk album that reminded me of gots lazy days and warm introspection.  Well, that album was Morning Phase, an album I apprarently don’t own despite really enjoying.  Instead, I have Modern Guilt, Mr. Beck Hansen’s brief but listless 2008 effort that starts promising but ultimately leaves almost no impression once it’s over. Continue reading “Beck: Modern Guilt (2008)”

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beatles - abbey road
CD, Vinyl

The Beatles: Abbey Road (1969)

There’s a sense of the mythic in that opening bassline, the way it connect the drum.  It’s all sex and slink, a dirt revelation of the youth of 1969, 79…2019.  Abbey Road is the true last gospel of The Beatles, and  the true gospel of The Beatles, the last time the band would truly ever “Come Together,” and it’s little wonder it’s so glorious a send off, despite it being released after Let It Be.   Continue reading “The Beatles: Abbey Road (1969)”

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beatles - magical mystery tour
CD, Vinyl

The Beatles: Magical Mystery Tour (1967)

Man, 1967 was a busy year for The Beatles.  Only a few short months after Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band came the ill-advised television special Magical Mystery Tour.  If you’ve ever seen the film, it’s a poorly contrived mess; a huge departure from the fun of A Hard Day’s Night and Help!.  Fortunately, the new songs that accompanied the film were still pretty damn great, and so we can still hold our head high with Magical Mystery Tour the album, even if the second side is filled with previously released singles. Continue reading “The Beatles: Magical Mystery Tour (1967)”

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beatles - sgt pepper
CD, Vinyl

The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

Retired from touring in 1966 and given the freedom to explore other avenues of creativity, The Beatles regrouped and went into full-on experimental mode, crafting a vaguely conceptual album about a fictitious band with which they could embrace new technologies and make music unfettered (to a point) and untethered (to a point) from the musical zeitgeist their previous work created.  Thus was born Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the only album to ever inspire a film starring Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees.  If that’s not a legacy, I don’t know what is. Continue reading “The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)”

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beatles - rubber soul
CD

The Beatles: Rubber Soul (1965)

This is where it starts.  When I think about The Beatles, I think about Rubber Soul.  I think about the sudden jump in production experiments, the way albums stopped being collections of songs and started becoming albums.  The jump from your frolicking boys on Help! to the grown, curious men on Rubber Soul is perhaps the biggest creative leap in the band’s discography.  The main thing on everyone’s mind is still women, but I don’t know if a better batch of songs have ever been crafted about the subject, at least as it pertains to the pursuit of said subject from a young, curious man’s perspective. Continue reading “The Beatles: Rubber Soul (1965)”

ChrisLeave a comment