1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die - #87. Love - Forever Changes (1967)

Love - Forever Changes (1967)

Label – Elektra
Producer – Arthur Lee / Bruce Botnick
Art Direction –William S. Harvey / Bob Pepper
Nationality – USA
Running Time – 42:52

Track Listing (standout tracks listed in bold)

1. Alone Again Or
2. House Is Not A Motel
3. Andmoreagain
4. Daily Planet
5. Old Man
6. Red Telephone
7. Maybe The People Would Be The Times
8. Live And Let Live
9. Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This
10. Bummer In The Summer
11. You Set The Scene

Another really good album. I have liked both albums by Love that have been on the 1001 list. When “Forever Changes” was released in 1967 it only made only a minor dent on the charts, rising only to #154 on the Billboard charts. (It did however reach the Top 30 in Britain.) But time has treated it well – and is often considered as one of the finest and most haunting albums to come out of the Summer of Love. The first thing that stuck our to me was the sound. This record just has a great sound to it. There are nice, sharp electric guitars on the tunes "A House Is Not a Motel" and "Live and Let Live," but most of the record is built around interwoven acoustic guitars with strings and horns punctuating the melodies. “Forever Changes” is most probably Love's masterpiece. The songs are simply good! The songs at time do sound dated – mainly with some topics of the era in which it was recorded - but not so much that you can’t enjoy them. Studio musicians performed nearly all of the tracks due to the regular line-up's alleged ‘inability to function’.
The album was the first to be produced by Arthur Lee, with assistance from Bruce Botnick. Originally, the album was to be produced by Botnick and Neil Young, but Young bowed out due to his commitments to Buffalo Springfield. However, Young did stick with the album project long enough to arrange the track "The Daily Planet" – one of the standout tracks on the record.
It’s enduring impact cannot be denied. The most notable praise came in 2003 from the British magazine, NME, who rated “Forever Changes” #6 on their list of greatest albums of all time!! In 1998 Q magazine readers voted Forever Changes the 82nd greatest album of all time. In Joe S. Harrington's “Top 100 Albums” it comes in at #69. Rolling Stone magazine ranked it 40th in its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time in the December 11, 2003 issue. Mojo magazine ranked it the second greatest psychedelic album of all time, while in 1995 it made #11 in Mojo's list of the 100 Greatest Albums Ever Made. It ranked 83rd in a 2005 survey held by British television's Channel 4 to determine the 100 greatest albums of all time. Finally – “Forever Changes” was praised by the British Parliament in 2002 as being one of the Greatest Albums of All Time.

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You can purchase the CD here