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Wednesday, August 05, 2015

#0094: The Byrds - Younger Than Yesterday [***]

I dunno whether it's cuz it's summer or cuz the previous album was so bad but I kinda liked this.  Singable, short tunes, lovely harmonies, little bit of strange loopiness for the hippies and we're done.

The Byrds did right by me a while back by doing exactly the same thing with Tambourine Man, and I never forget a good deed.

I'm kidding, I don't owe the Byrds a brass ha'penny.  Each album must stand on its own merits, or at least its own merits as they relate to *my* experience.  This is, after all, a personal blog cataloguing my not even fully-formed opinions.  These are knee jerk reactions from someone who has never claimed to be even an amateur music journalist.

Now even though this is a pleasant album, it is nevertheless kinda samey.  You could probably chang through a few of these tunes sat round a beach fire.  So You Wanna Be A Rock n Roll Star kicks it off with a latin flavoured cascade of harmonies telling me that if I wear tight trousers, brush my hair and sell my soul to the label then everything will be all right.  It's tongue in cheek cynicism at best and in this key and tempo, even the tepid bitterness of the message is lost in that groovy sixtiesness.

The album bobs along quite happily from there with my attention drifting in out, I confess but it's not the kind of drifting that happens when I'm bored.  This is more a pleasant meandering, as if one was strolling through a park in the 60s and various groups of hippies are sat around on the grass, playing guitars and singing on the grass[1].  Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers in their hair and between groups, as you pass out of earshot of one and into range of the next, this is when your focus is swept up in the mood itself rather than the specifics of the songs.

There are a few minutes where it gets a bit too chaotic and surreal for my tastes but on the whole I'm certain I'll return to this[2].


[1] - of course the repetition was deliberate.  Tch.
[2] - cuz I already have ;-)