Original released on LP Warner Bros - Seven Arts WS 1749
(US 1968, July 18)
As the second long-player by the Grateful Dead, "Anthem of the Sun" pushed the limits of both the music as well as the medium. General dissatisfaction with their self-titled debut necessitated the search for a methodology to seamlessly juxtapose the more inspired segments of their live performances with the necessary conventions of a single LP. Since issuing their first album, the Dead welcomed lyricist Robert Hunter into the fold - freeing the performing members to focus on the execution and taking the music to the next level. Another addition was second percussionist Mickey Hart, whose methodical timekeeping would become a staple in the Dead's ability to stop on the proverbial rhythmic dime. Likewise, Tom Constanten (keyboards) added an avant-garde twist to the proceedings with various sonic enhancements that were more akin to John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen than anything else coming from the burgeoning Bay Area music scene. Their extended family also began to incorporate folks like Dan Healy - whose non-musical contributions and innovations ranged from concert PA amplification to meeting the technical challenges that the band presented off the road as well. On this record Healy's involvement cannot be overstated, as the band were essentially given carte blanche and simultaneous on-the-job training with regards to the ins and outs of the still unfamiliar recording process. The idea to create an aural pastiche from numerous sources - often running simultaneously - was a radical concept that allowed consumers worldwide to experience a simulated Dead performance firsthand.
One significant pattern which began developing saw the band continuing to refine the same material that they were concurrently playing live night after night prior to entering the studio. The extended "That's It for the Other One" suite is nothing short of a psychedelic roller coaster. The wild ride weaves what begins as a typical song into several divergent performances - taken from tapes of live shows - ultimately returning to the home base upon occasion, presumably as a built-in reality check. Lyrically, Bob Weir (guitar/vocals) includes references to their 1967 pot bust ("...the heat came 'round and busted me for smiling on a cloudy day") as well as the band's spiritual figurehead Neal Cassidy ("...there was Cowboy Neal at the wheel on a bus to never ever land"). Although this version smokes from tip to smouldering tail, the piece truly developed a persona all its own and became a rip-roaring monster in concert. The tracks "New Potato Caboose" and Weir's admittedly autobiographically titled "Born Cross-Eyed" are fascinatingly intricate side trips that had developed organically during the extended work's on-stage performance life. "Alligator" is a no-nonsense Ron "Pigpen" McKernan workout that motors the second extended sonic collage on "Anthem of the Sun". His straight-ahead driving blues ethos careens headlong into the Dead's innate improvisational psychedelia. The results are uniformly brilliant as the band thrash and churn behind his rock-solid lead vocals. Musically, the Dead's instrumental excursions wind in and out of the primary theme, ultimately ending up in the equally frenetic "Caution (Do Not Stop on Tracks)." Although the uninitiated might find the album unnervingly difficult to follow, it obliterated the pretension of the post-Sgt. Pepper's "concept album" while reinventing the musical parameters of the 12" LP medium. (Lindsay Planer in AllMusic)
Frank Zappa loved '50s doo wop music. He grew up with it, collected it, and it was the first kind of pop music he wrote ("Memories of El Monte," recorded by the Penguins in 1962). "Cruising with Ruben & the Jets", the Mothers of Invention's fourth LP, is a collection of such music, all Zappa originals (some co-written with MOI singer Ray Collins). To the unexperienced, songs like "Cheap Thrills," "Deseri," and "Jelly Roll Gum Drop" may sound like an average doo wop song. A closer look reveals unusual chord sequences, Stravinsky quotes, and hilariously moronic lyrics - all wrapped in four-way harmony vocals and linear piano triplets. A handful of songs from the group's 1966 debut, "Freak Out", were rearranged ("How Could I Be Such a Fool" and "Anyway the Wind Blows" give the weirdest results), and old material predating the Mothers was recycled ("Fountain of Love"). "Love of My Life" and "You Didn't Try to Call Me" became live staples. (François Couture in AllMusic)
It's 1968.
Imagine the average consumer of 101 Strings-brand mood music settling into his
or her easy chair to enjoy the latest offering, "Astro Sounds From Beyond the
Year 2000". The cover art seems a little odd, but a softly burbling moog could
add a hint of hipness to an otherwise relaxing aural massage. Then track one
kicks in with freaky treated guitar, a heavy rock drumbeat, and dissonant sound
effects. Immediately the record is ripped off the turntable and replaced with
Romantic Songs of the Sea to soothe away the upsetting memory of 101 Strings
gone horribly wrong. This fantasy scenario must have played out often enough in
real life that 101 Strings, under a hail of complaints, stopped offering
"experimental" albums. But for those who enjoy camp classics and
colossal marketing blunders, "Astro Sounds" is a fun and far-out instrumental
album that, in places, rocks nearly as hard as any psychedelic pop group of the
era. (Greg Adams in Allmusic).
The second post-Roger Waters Pink Floyd album is less forced and more of a group effort than "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" - keyboard player Richard Wright is back to full bandmember status and has co-writing credits on five of the 11 songs, even getting lead vocals on "Wearing the Inside Out." Some of David Gilmour's lyrics (co-written by Polly Samson and Nick Laird-Clowes of the Dream Academy) might be directed at Waters, notably "Lost for Words" and "A Great Day for Freedom," with its references to "the wall" coming down, although the more specific subject is the Berlin Wall and the fall of Communism. In any case, there is a vindictive, accusatory tone to songs such as "What Do You Want From Me" and "Poles Apart," and the overarching theme, from the album title to the graphics to the "I-you" pronouns in most of the lyrics, has to do with dichotomies and distinctions, with "I" always having the upper hand. Musically, Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Wright have largely turned the clock back to the pre-Dark Side of the Moon Floyd, with slow tempos, sustained keyboard chords, and guitar solos with a lot of echo. (William Ruhlmann in AllMusic)
