The first time I ever put my ears to this album was a couple of weeks ago. I was bustling around my room, busied in literature related nonsense and it wasn’t until the third track before
confusion took me back to my computer screen --I was nearly certain by some mistake I’d dragged a lost Beatles album of B-sides onto my playlist.
Curiously this wasn’t the case.
By the time that I’d let the whole album run through, I’d decided that somehow the Rolling Stones had forced
Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and
Yellow Submarine to crossbreed resulting in this defective submarinish offspring.
I’ve always been fond of
Sgt Pepper’s but have never been taken in by
Yellow Submarine –in fact, I’ve always been agitated by the Yellow Submarine album.
Later that day I browsed the internet to find out that Yellow Submarine wasn’t released until ‘69 so my crossbreeding theory went kaputz.
To the relief of my confusion I found that Lennon and McCartney had been involved in the recording of this album.
From what I can tell, they were responsible for backup vocals in the first track.
But from the sound of the album I’d guess they had more of a hand in it than that.
The epitome of this disaster lies in the chaotic hoopla of “Sing This All Together (see what happens)”. This track nearly drags on for eight minutes mimicking jungle sounds then accelerating into a fit of screams that seemingly progresses from chaotic to erotic which is then echoed by graceless blasts from woodwind.
No doubt under the hypnotic spell of the Beatles (as I assume everyone was in ’67) “She’s a Rainbow” comes across as a catchy ditty with a bright mellotron melody, bright lyrics, and bright violin –a brightness that I wouldn’t say is typical of the Stones. This tune charted at 25th on the Hot Billboard 100.
As this period of Rock and Roll was in the groove of a psychedelic sound many bands were out making a name for themselves with this resonance. The Doors were breaking through with the release of their first album, Jefferson Airplane were enjoying success with “Plastic Fantastic Dancer”, and “White Rabbit” and David Bowie was laughing it up with “The Laughing Gnome”....
The only song that has the Stones captured in some distorted psychedelic way is “2000 Light Years From Home”. With an eerie wavering mellotron in the distant background and the soft and mysterious vocals hanging on to every syllable like they’re Jagger’s last, this is the best the Stones ever did with a psychedelic sound.
To sum-up the sound of this album: If the Beatles were to trap the Rolling Stones in a Yellow Submarine for months while incessantly playing their Yellow Submarine album over and over and then open the port holes and slowly drowned them while demanding them to play their instruments and sing –this would be the result.
confusion took me back to my computer screen --I was nearly certain by some mistake I’d dragged a lost Beatles album of B-sides onto my playlist. Curiously this wasn’t the case. By the time that I’d let the whole album run through, I’d decided that somehow the Rolling Stones had forced Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Yellow Submarine to crossbreed resulting in this defective submarinish offspring. I’ve always been fond of Sgt Pepper’s but have never been taken in by Yellow Submarine –in fact, I’ve always been agitated by the Yellow Submarine album. Later that day I browsed the internet to find out that Yellow Submarine wasn’t released until ‘69 so my crossbreeding theory went kaputz. To the relief of my confusion I found that Lennon and McCartney had been involved in the recording of this album. From what I can tell, they were responsible for backup vocals in the first track. But from the sound of the album I’d guess they had more of a hand in it than that. 
The epitome of this disaster lies in the chaotic hoopla of “Sing This All Together (see what happens)”. This track nearly drags on for eight minutes mimicking jungle sounds then accelerating into a fit of screams that seemingly progresses from chaotic to erotic which is then echoed by graceless blasts from woodwind. 
No comments:
Post a Comment