Product 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.

Track Listing

1. Alone Again Or
2. A House Is Not A Motel
3. And More Again
4. The Daily Planet
5. Old Man
6. The Red Telephone
7. Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale
8. Live And Let Live
9. The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This
10. Bummer In The Summer
11. You Set The Scene

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11061 in Music
• Released on: 1997-01-27
• Number of discs: 1

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

Customer Reviews

Bought for the single Alone Again -OR
Alone Again Or is one of those fantastic songs you hear on the radio which stops you in your tracks. I found it frustratingly odd that the DJ never or hardly ever told us what it was called or who it was by so it was with some difficulty that I tracked it down to this album. From here I was wowed by the reviews. Everyone gives it 5 stars and calls it the best album in the world ever, so I think... I love the track, they all love the album, let's buy it.
I can't take away from the song. Alone again Or is still a fantastic track, but I haven't yet convinced myself that I've found the right version as it doesn't sound as good here as I was expecting, however the rest of the album is dire, pants, rubbish. Sorry folks I was really disappointed. You'd have to be a 60s completist and run out of Captain Beefheart and Small Faces to be looking keenly at this. So if you love the only track you've heard, I'm sorry to say it seems to have been a one-off.

How to do it justice?
I really don't want to write this review, I know I won't be able to do this album justice!

So let's be short and sweet. Everything about this album is definitively rock and roll. The band had almost self destructed, Arthur Lee thought his time was up, Neil Young pulled out of producing after one track, the art work is instantly recognisable and it has never had the universal success to match its critical acclaim.

As for the songs, where do I start? Stylistically varying from rock to funk to folk to world, the music is a tour-de-force, each song a masterpiece. The bands 'other' songwriter, Bryan Maclean's two offerings are as good as anythign Lee pens, and fit in perfectly.

I just can't do it justice, you'll just have to listen yourself. If you have all the time in world, maybe you could sum it up?

As for the bonus tracks - other than Lee shouting at Echols guitar solo effort - each is worth it's place, especially Your Mind and We Belong Together, which could be a highlight to any album ever written!

Unique timeless and indispensible
This one has been on my desert island list since 1967. It is an acoustic/ electric/ mariachi/ flamenco/ psychedelic classic of the highest order. Every moment is glorious snd no drugs needed.
A couple of months after my wife died in 2002, Arthur Lee came to Newcastle with the final incarnation of Love - just when I needed him most. I saw the 'Forever Changes' gig in 2003 and in 2004 I took my new (and continuing) love to see Love at Newcastle University. The place was packed with undergraduates and 50-somethings. The kids new all the words!
In his final years Arthur Lee and Love performed brilliantly and he was a contender for the title of 'Coolest Man on the Planet'. Buy both the studio and the live version of this album.
Thank you Arthur Lee wherever you are now.