1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 101. Love – Forever Changes (1967)

I mentioned in my brief discussion on Buffalo Springfield’s album that things were starting to sound more Seventies than Sixties, and this album is another step towards the pleasantly unchallenging guitar-based toolings of the likes of The Eagles. Vaguely folk-rock, mainly because acoustic guitars still appear, but the specifics of folk and country aren’t really present. This is a step on the evolutionary chain, and I think in part due to band member Arthur Lee’s growing disillusionment with the Flower Power movement. I can understand that – a burst of optimism in the “Summer of Love” that peace and love will prevail, and there are still civil rights riots, war in Vietnam, Six Day War and so on.

There was one single released from this album - Alone Again Or - which to me sounds like it has Spanish flamenco inspiration but is apparently based on a piece of music by Provofiev. There are more classical and flamenco guitar elements that appear elsewhere on the album. Alone Again Or is probably the most memorable piece, apart from Red Telephone, which is a little bit like Pink Floyd/Syd Barrett’s Bike, a series of atonal verses about a series of disparate things, although whereas Bike was about innocent love, Red Telephone is an altogether more cynical affair.  And maybe that cynicism is the Seventies element, a decade where the music is either pure escapism or angry protest. I think. We shall see.