1001 Album Club

The first Monkees album with substantial songwriting and instrumental performances by members of the group itself, rather than by session musicians and professional songwriters. After a struggle for creative autonomy with their record label, the group had been allowed to record by themselves and to their credit we all find it enjoyable.

The Beau Brummels’s album Triangle is a leap forward into a more creative side of the band. It incorporates fantasy elements and surreal characters into an album full of lyrical imagery, complex arrangements and beautiful melodies. All this from a teen idol band that appeared on American Bandstand and the Flintstones.

One of the best West Coast folk-rock/psychedelic bands, Love may have also been the first widely acclaimed cult/underground group. During it’s brief period with the initial line up Love released three albums in three years. The second side only contains one long jam session song. Does it ruin the album? Lets discuss.

Armed with three virtuoso guitarists and five members who could all sing and write, Moby Grape had the greatest commercial potential of any San Francisco band in 1967. They quickly blew it all thanks to internal tensions, the acid-intensified psychological collapse of guitarist Skip Spence and Columbia’s hysterical hype, which included releasing five simultaneous singles…

Safe as Milk is the debut album by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, released in 1967. A heavily blues-influenced work, the album featured a 20-year-old Ry Cooder, who played guitar and wrote some of the arrangements.

The band that included Stephen Stills, Neil Young, and Richie Furay gives us an interesting array of songs, but it feels more like a songwriting collective.

Electric Music for the Mind and Body expand upon the band’s “new psychedelic medium”, embracing all facets of the members’ influences and melding them into various forms and we meld our opinion into a unifying rejection of this album.

Some would call it the crowning achievement of the Beatles works and their entire career and some would call it the first misstep into a the silly and misguided side of the Beatles.

Nico’s Chelsea Girl is a delicate atmosphere and emotionally stirring album. Full of great players and classic songs. Haunting…

Again we have another Samba / Bossa Nova Gilberto Album? Some of us find the 60’s pop great and some of us wish the Gilberto’s would just go away.

Nina Simone was one of the most gifted vocalists of any generation. She was a singer, pianist, and songwriter who bent genres to her will rather than allowing herself to be confined by their boundaries. We can’t praise this album enough!

Perhaps know most for starting the careers of three of rock’s most famous guitarists, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck, The Yardbirds show us a transitional time with the young up and coming Beck’s fuzzed out guitar.

Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton was Eric Clapton’s first fully realized album as a blues guitarist and the group seems to absolutely despise it. We talk a lot about what the group calls “Dad Blues”.

A special aspect of The Elevators’ sound came from Tommy Hall’s innovative electric jug. The jug, a crock-jug with a microphone held up to it while it was being blown, sounded somewhat like a cross between a minimoog and cuica drum. Let’s be honest some of us hate the jug.

The duo spent almost three months in the studio and this is the first time they would have creative control. The result is a well crafted album with some classic songs ; but we don’t think ever song is a classic on this one.

Considered the artistic breakthrough album for the Rolling Stones, it was the first to consist entirely of original Mick Jagger–Keith Richards compositions. Some could say that this is were the Stones start their ascension into rock and roll legends.

Often cited as one of rock music’s first concept albums, the album is a satirical expression of frontman Frank Zappa’s perception of American pop culture and the nascent freak scene of Los Angeles. Here comes the real psychedelic music.

Midnight Ride marked just about the pinnacle of Paul Revere & the Raiders’ and most of the music on Midnight Ride was written and credited to the entire band, but it’s hard to even get opinions about this album because it seems to be the perfect example of an average album.

In the spring of 1966, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears might have represented a genuinely new sound, but we mostly agree that aside from the two singles the material is pretty thing. I don’t want to be anyway near this “in crowd”.

One of the premiere English rock band’s of the british invasion in the 1960’s but they were banned from the US for years. Are they better than the Beatles? Let’s talk Kinks.

You want to talk about an interesting band. You want to talk thinking outside the box, heck outside the country. You want to know avant garde rock starts. Lets talk the Monks!

After difficulty finding the right chemistry in the New York Columbia Studio A , Dylan took the advice of Bob Johnston and moved the sessions down to Nashville with professional session musicians and we get another side of Dylan.

Moody, bluesy, and melodic, Fred Neil was one of the most compelling folk players to emerge from Greenwich Village in the mid-’60s.