šŸ’æ How Good Is It Really šŸ’æ Forever Changes

Wu-Tang Clan storm to the top of the leaderboard with a scarcely believable 9.49:

Leaderboard

After HGATRā€™s peer pressure week itā€™s time to give something back to @Funkhouser . Yes, at last, itā€™s Love - Forever Changes. How good is it really?

image

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
0 voters
1 Like

Best track:

  • Alone Again Or
  • A House Is Not A Motel
  • Andmoreagain
  • The Daily Planet
  • Old Man
  • The Red Telephone
  • 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
  • Bummer In The Summer
  • You Set The Scene

0 voters

Close the poll now I reckon. 10/10 and Iā€™ll be back later to tell you why.

5 Likes

Next week will be the 50th HGIIR thread and we will have a guest host. Register your interest here if you want to go into the guest host draw:

1 Like

Wonderful album, great title, great artwork, classic opener, classic closer, itā€™s got it all.

I think I only really know Alone Again Or and never got round to exploring beyond that but it is a banger

Was fortunate enough to catch Arthur Lee do this album twice in 2003, firstly in the tiny Gaelic Club in Sydney and then later that year at Glastonbury. Just lovely lovely stuff. This is a TEN all dayā€¦

Have given it a proper listen on a couple of occasions over the years but it didnā€™t click, seemed fine just a bit of a shrug and I now have no memory at all of even what sort of music it is.

Iā€™ll give it another go though before voting or deciding not to vote.

1 Like

Never got the love for this. Iā€™m sure itā€™s a good album given how highly itā€™s thought of, but does nowt for me.

2 Likes

Gonna listen tomorrow. Last few times I tried it it was like some kind of Austin Powers pasticheā€¦

Itā€™s a really great record - vibrant, melodic and exciting but with that suggestion of being in the brink of breaking down into something a bit wilder.

Personally I slightly prefer Odessey and Oracle for my late sixties melodic psychedelia and either of the first two 13th Floor Elevators albums (especially Easter Everywhere) for the more visceral thrill, but Forever Changes is still wonderful. A high 9.

Thatā€™s the only track I know as well and thatā€™s only because I have the Damnedā€™s cover on a playlist. Looking forward to finally giving the album a play

1 Like

Absolutely perfectā€¦ apart from that lyric about snot. 9/10.

1 Like

I came to this album pretty late on (6 or 7 years ago probably). I only knew Alone Again beforehand. The first few listens really didnā€™t go well as it felt quite dated to start with. But I slowly became obsessed particularly with You Set the Scene which is by far and away my favourite song on the album, and the rest of it slowly grew on me. I rinsed it a lot for a good few months but havenā€™t listened to it much recently. (No slur on the album, my listening habits just changed.)

Think itā€™s probably a 9, but need a refresher to make sure.

It is damn good though. Think I tried another album by Love which didnā€™t gel at all, but canā€™t remember which one now. Did they ever come close to matching this?

I reckon, when it all comes down to it, and if you really really wanted me to answer, Iā€™d say this was my favourite record. Itā€™s almost definitely the one Iā€™ve listened to the most.
When I was 15/16 in about 2000, I was coming out of my massive Britpop phase and listening pretty much exclusively to Nirvana and RATM. Then me and my mate James read one of those Q (I think) hundred greatest albums of the last century lists and he said that he had a copy of FC somewhere his dad had given him and we should give it a go. That exact moment is probably responsible for about 75-80% of my music taste now. From the very first listen I was absolutely captivated by this bizarre, brooding, joyous, astonishing thing.

The fact that Arthur Lee was 21 when FC was written is absolutely mind-boggling to me. The mix of the mundane, the spiritual, the emotional, the surreal and the abstract in the lyrics is incredible and there are still lines you really notice for the first time years after first listening. At itā€™s heart, Forever Changes is a psychedelic pop record. Through all the intensity, the dark themes, the turbulence surrounding itā€™s recording, itā€™s a melodic masterpiece and the songs will stay with you for hours, days afterwards.

Alone Again Or is one of the strongest album openers of all time, and You Set The Scene is THE best closer (beating Jungleland into a close second). Maybe The People Would Be The Timesā€¦ is lyrically wonderful and playful and stands out as probably my favourite on there. Yeah, there are a couple of individual tracks that drag a little (Old Man and The Good Humour Manā€¦ for me) but as a whole entity itā€™s perfect.

I saw Arthur Lee do FC in full in Exeter in 2004 and it remains the best gig Iā€™ve seen. It was in a pretty small venue and the connection between artist and audience was incredible to experience. I grabbed a setlist afterwards and he signed it for me (my friend only had a Ā£5 note available and he refused to sign it cause he didnā€™t want to ā€˜get arrested for disrespecting the queen or some shitā€™) and itā€™s one of my most prized possessions.

Forever Changes is chameleonic in itā€™s suitability to soundtrack things for me. Happy occasions, sadness, depression, sunny days, long walks, short drives, it fits every mood and thatā€™s a testament to both its complexity and its simplicity I think.

Got to do some work now but that sums it up a bit for me. 10/10, obviously.

35 Likes

Thereā€™s a bit at the climax of this just after 6 minutes, where heā€™s repeating the word ā€œtimeā€ and then just yells ā€œYEAHā€ and itā€™s such a triumphant thing, always loved that.

2 Likes

The horns at the end of that song are fucking majestic.

2 Likes

One of the greatest ever songs.

Itā€™s a 10 from me. Just an incredible album from start to finish

Main gripe is my copy a ā€˜special editionā€™ so straight after ā€˜You Set the sceneā€™ is a naff demo which slightly spoils the moment

1 Like

The album is the definition of gorgeous. Although it was born during ā€˜the summer of loveā€™, and drenched in psychedelia, thereā€™s a really dark, foreboding undertone to the album which I love. Itā€™s a 10. One of the top 20 albums of the 20th century. Itā€™s just a masterpiece. Saw Arthur perform it in its entirety back in 2003 and I still canā€™t believe I witnessed it.

4 Likes

5/10. Tried to get into it a few times but I just find it boring and cheesy

2 Likes