Track Listing

1. Alone Again Or
2. House Is Not A Motel
3. Andmoreagain
4. Daily Planet
5. Old Man
6. Red Telephone
7. Maybe The People Would Be The Times
8. Live And Let Live
9. Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This
10. Bummer In The Summer
11. You Set The Scene
12. Hummingbirds
13. Wonder People (I Do Wonder)
14. Alone Again Or
15. You Set The Scene
16. Your Mind And We Belong Together
17. Your Mind And We Belong Together
18. Laughing Stock

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12203 in Music
• Released on: 2001-02-19
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered

Amazon.co.uk Review
One of rock's most overlooked masterpieces, this third album by the L.A. folk-rock outfit led by inscrutable singer-songwriter Arthur Lee sounds as fresh and innovative today as it did upon its original release in 1968. With David Angel's atmospheric string and horn arrangements giving the work a conceptual underpinning, Lee explores mainstream America's penchant for paranoia ("The Red Telephone") and violence ("A House is Not a Motel") with songs that are as sonically subtle and lilting as they are lyrically blunt and harrowing. Add two gems by Love's secret weapon, second guitarist Bryan Maclean ("Alone Again Or" and "Old Man") and you've got one of the truly perfect albums in rock history. --Billy Altman

CD Description
One of the first pop albums to become a cult classic, Love's 1967 masterpiece, FOREVER CHANGES, is the pinnacle of the L.A. freak (the locals' preferred term over "hippie") scene.Singer/songwriter Arthur Lee's lyrics are increasingly fragmentary and paranoid, foreshadowing the band's eventual drug-fueled collapse. Yet these drop-dead hip tunes are set in arrangements featuring Herb Alpert-style mariachi horns, lushmiddle-of-the-road strings, and other tropes of the easy listening scene, creating a more unsettling sense of tension than if the songs were given the usual heavy rock instrumentation. Every single track is a stone classic, although secondsongwriter Bryan MacLean's contributions, the haunted "Old Man" and especially the simply gorgeous opener "Alone Again Or", deserve special consideration. FOREVER CHANGES belongs high on any halfway serious list of the greatest pop albums of the '60s.

Customer Reviews

At least the music will never die
I wanted to write this review for Amazon UK because while this album was slow to take off in the US , the Brits seemed to embrace it much more easily and it is no coincidence that Arthur Lee and Love devoted a lot of tours throughout Britain to perform this album. Whether this album is one of the greatest of all time or not, or sold poorly in the beginning , or ranks with the Beatles best or the Beach Boys or whoever, is of little importance. I believe it is a rock master work and add my opinion with the rest of the enthusiastic reviewers on this site only in hope of encouraging others to listen. It's reputation is enough to make many curious to give it a try. The album is largely acoustic as was much of Love's early recordings , and while Love's lead guitarist John Echols does let loose here and there don't expect anything like what the Jimi Hendrix Experience or Cream were serving up at the time. I believe the albums strength is in the lyrics of Lee and Maclean and the unique way they are delivered. The approach is not verse chorus verse. There is a lot being said on these songs as befits performers who have something to say and want to say it in the normally constrictive confines of a rock and roll album. It doesn't matter if every line is not the most profound statement. Lee was writing about what he knew (alienation ) or what others related to him ( soldiers home from Vietnam telling him blood mixed with mud turns grey in color ). As has been mentioned here, Lee has said he believed this album was " his last words to the planet ". It is a psychedelic album in a sense but that label alone is too limiting. Roger Waters used to get annoyed when Pink Floyd's music was described as being about "outer space"- it was all about "inner space", he said . In the end the best recommendation you can give a recording is the staying power it has. I've listened to this album far too many times to accurately know and I never get tired of it, I'm quite sure I never will.

Forever A Classic
Barely denting the charts when released in late 1967, Forever Changes has become heralded as an absolute classic and is in the Top 100 (at least!) of any Top Albums poll once cares to mention.

The secret of its continued success is down to several factors, the main ones probably being its excellent songs and beautiful arrangements. Arthur Lee's songs are idiosyncratic, unconventional but memorable pieces, often not formulaic verse-chrous-verse affairs. They are backed by the band - usually by superb intricate acoustic picking with occasional bursts of electric lead - then augmented further by brilliant string and brass arrangements. The result is a sound as big and pioneering as that of other innovative albums of the time such as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band and Pet Sounds.

A major difference between those LPs and Forever Changes though is the occasional social comment and overall sense of dread in Lee's lyrics. No other album quite captures the mixture of beauty and despair of 1967 in the United States quite like this masterpiece.

All of the songs featured are good though particular highlights for me are the lush Good Humour Man, foreboding Red Telephone and grand finale which is You Set The Scene. The LP's most famous song, the excellent, oft-covered Alone Again Or is one of two songs written by rhythm guitarist Bryan MacLean - all of the others are by the talented Mr Lee.

This remastered and expanded version of Forever Changes includes seven extra tracks and alternative versions. One of the most interesting of these pieces is Wonder People which has a riff similar to Tom Jones' It's Not Unusual. The only fully recorded song from the Forever Changes sessions which didn't feature on the original album, one can only assume that Arthur considered it too jolly for the mood of the LP.

Forever Changes is a superbly arranged masterpiece which demands repeated listening to this day. An absolute classic which is a must for any serious music fan's collection.

Quite Simply: The best album ever made!
It's always refreshing to find that the favourite album from your teens has withstood the test of time. Love, along with the Doors, were at the forefront of the West coast sound of the late sixties but didn't find the latters commercial success. Don't expect an album of hippie ideology. Find instead lush melodies, blistering rock guitar, beautiful memorable songs, strong lyrics and an album that sounds as fresh and relevant as it did in 1969. Still guaranteed to raise the hairs on the neck. Today you can hear echoes of this album in such work as that by the Manic Street Preachers and others. A beautiful, timeless classic.