Love - Forever Changes (180 Gram) (LP)

The third and final album by the original Love lineup, Forever-  Changes regularly draws epic praise. Rolling Stone described it as "elegant armageddon" when listing it as #40 in the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" and, placing it in the context of the late '60s in another rave review, called it, "one of the most distinctive masterpieces in that era of masterpieces." A landmark work that's the L.A.-based psychedelic folk-rock pioneers' most fully realized studio effort, it was produced by band co-founder/frontman Arthur Lee and The Doors' engineer/producer Bruce Botnick, and released by Elektra in early '68.

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, lush middle-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 second songwriter 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.

Love: Arthur Lee, Bryan Maclean (vocals, guitar); John Echols (guitar); Ken Forssi (bass); Michael Stuart (percussion).

Includes liner notes by Ben Edmunds.
FOREVER CHANGES is also included in its entirety on the 2 disc set LOVE STORY 1966-1972.

• Format: Vinyl
• Genre: Rock
• 180 Gram

---

Tracks