Love - Forever Changes

180-gram 45 RPM double LP

1/4" / 15 ips analog master to DSD 256 to analog console to lathe

Ranked No. 40 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums list

Love anticipates late 1960s turbulence with prophetic songs, dark themes

Any discussion about the finest psychedelic rock record ever recorded is incomplete if it doesn't grant consideration to Love's Forever Changes. Ranked by Rolling Stone as the 40th greatest album ever made, and named by Mojo the second-greatest psychedelic set in history, the effort is an internationally recognized seminal work of art.

Nearly unlimited headroom, vast instrumental separation, transparent clarity, artifact-free atmospherics, and faithful balances appear out of jet-black backgrounds. The music appears to float on clouds, with the woody tones emanated by the acoustic guitars and brassy signatures of horns emerging with lifelike detail. Turn it up as loud as you want; the sole limitation will be your system's potential.

Commercially ignored upon release in November 1967, Forever Changes confronts the alienation, paranoia, violence, and strife that would soon plague the countercultural movement and send the Summer of Love into a tailspin. Apart from its lyrical themes and prescient malaise, the record's enduring nature equally owes to intertwined arrangements sewn together with Latin guitar-picked lines, finessed folk harmonies, mariachi-inspired horn charts, and subdued strings.

Much of the contrast owes to leader Arthur Lee's mental state and pertinent observations. Lee, whose suppressed romanticism often surfaces even amidst the blackest shadows and most cynical moments, believed he would soon die, and hence channeled everything from lasting hopes to acid-addled decay to the chilling testimony of a Vietnam veteran in his narratives.

Alternatively sad and beautiful, the album-opening and flamenco-inspired "Alone Again Or" establishes the mood for what follows. Vocals overlap and soar; tempos rise and fall; surrealism trades places with reality. Forever Changes thrives both because of and in spite of a surfeit of labyrinthine chords and difficult notes that never repeat. No wonder that, in the twilight of his troubled career, Lee performed the record in its entirely during concerts met with overwhelming critical acclaim.

Side 1

Alone Again Or

A House Is Not a Motel

Andmoreagain

Side 2

The Daily Planet

Old Man

The Red Telephone

Side 3

Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale

Live and Let Live

The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This

Side 4

Bummer in the Summer

You Set the Scene

Customer Reviews (5.00 Stars) 2 person(s) rated this product.

Best pressing of this lp full stop posted on 05/15/2020 5 Stars Reviewer: Frank No need to look anywhere else for the best pressing this is the best Stunning . One of the greatest LPS of all time buy before out of stock

Love LOVE. posted on 09/15/2016 5 Stars Reviewer: SS This is the best vinyl release of this classic 1967 album that I have ever heard. If you love records and LOVE then don't wait and order it today!

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