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The Zombies — 4

ALBUM: Odessey & Oracle (1968, RE: 2017)

MVC Rating: 5.0/$$$$$

Although Frank Zappa, whom I reviewed in my previous post, skewered the psychedelic scene, he might find the Zombies a little more difficult to do that to than others in this genre.

Why? Because the Zombies were good, and ‘Odessey and Oracle’ is an album that transcended the psych genre with its whimsical, melodic songs and cohesion.

The songs are perfectly arranged. The only glitch in the works is the album’s name spells “Odyssey” wrong. (Maybe they meant to do that but it sure kept my spell-checker busy.)

The most familiar and probably the best song here is ‘Time of the Season’ with it’s memorable refrain:

What’s you name? Who’s your daddy?

But there’s not a bad song in the bunch. It is a little on the short side but that’s better than too long– as in Iron Butterfly’s monotonous In a Gadda Da Vida, to name a random psych album from that era. The title song was 17 minutes –a whole album side, whereas 17 minutes of Odessey will get you six songs per side.

Notable songs on here include ‘Changes,’ ‘This Will be our Year,’ and, my personal favorite ‘Hung up on a Dream.’

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British Rock Classics (various) — 623

MVC Rating: 3.0/$$$

This 1979 Sire compilation is for those who strive to be completists but fail due to laziness or distraction. Or a lack of that OC gene. This one had some classic material from smaller  names and not-so-classic music from larger names.

And yes there were big names on this two-record set: Beatles, Rod Stewart, Elton John, Bee Gees, Cream, just to name a few.

The Zombies  ‘She’s Not There’ is a classic.  The Beatles with Tony Sheridan singing My Bonnie — not so much.

The Cream’s ‘Anyone for Tennis’ is just, well, odd.

The Troggs ‘Love is all Around’ is just right.

The Bee Gees song is so absurdly dramatic, I love it. Reminding us no phones on death row.

The Kinks rock out on an early song available on  a plethora of Kinks compilations.

And Fleetwood Mac on a pretty strong blues song called  Homework, long before there were Rumors of radio domination.

Truth is that people like me would buy these in the  Bargain Bin for $2.99 and cull the best five or six songs for a mixed tape.

Trivia: Sonny Bono of Cher fame wrote the song Needles and Pins performed on this album by the Searchers.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.