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

Just a beautiful collection of songs one of my favourite albums for sure. The album cover. 10/10 for me
I was lucky enough to see him in 2004 at the wolverhampton Robin play it in its entirety . incredible always stuck with me

1 Like

10 from me. Glad to see the love for You Set The Scene which is an absolutely perfect closer.

2 Likes

Itā€™s one of those songs that just gets better as it goes along. Thereā€™s something about the way it ends that just sets me off. I find it almost impossible not to start the album again after hearing it.

1 Like

I always forget how much I bloody love the red telephone. I think itā€™s because it has such an unassuming name, but it really is quite lovely.

Iā€™m really enjoying giving this another few goes today. Such an addictive listen. Nowā€¦ 9 or 10?

1 Like

as far as I can remember nothing comes close in the same style, but Four Sail has a few tracks in a slightly different vein that I liked individually as much

This is a really cool song imo:

1 Like

THEYā€™RE LOCKING THEM UP TODAY
THEYā€™RE THROWING AWAY THE KEY
I WONDER WHO ITā€™LL BE TOMORROW
YOU OR ME?

4 Likes

I love the bit in the alternate version where he just canā€™t keep it in any more.

ā€¦then you feel your heart beating rum pum pum pum

Iā€™m really glad this has been picked now. I return to it every Summer, it doesnā€™t make sense to me at any other time. Sometimes youā€™ll hear an album thatā€™s part of the classic canon and not know what the fuss is about but I appreciated this one straight away.

I can understand if anybody found it too twee though Arthurā€™s lyrics add a bit of acid and curdle it all slightly, those first few lines of The Red Telephone, Jesus Christ. I have a big soft spot for expansive arrangements and folksy fingerpicking, that side of Love is more my taste compared to the psychedelic garage band stuff and itā€™s the perfect ratio of the two on here, start to finish I think it flows brilliantly. Maybe the People Would be the Times, You Set The Scene and Andmoreagain are wonders but Alone Again Or is so perfect Iā€™d feel perverse not choosing it.

Of course the album should end at You Set The Scene but I think the extra tracks on the early noughties reissue are great, particularly the delicate Hummingbirds and the big Summery pop of Wonder People. Laughing Stock though, the last gasp of this lineup before they fell apart, a wild pocket sized masterpiece

4 Likes

Iā€™ve never heard this album, but this is a top write up.

1 Like

Nah sorry, had to give up on track 6.

Itā€™s a 3 from me. I guess others would give it a ā€˜1ā€™ for that but while I donā€™t like it but itā€™s not fucking U2 or Ed Sheeran FFS.

2 Likes

Such a special record to me this. One that no doubt means more to me than any other ever will.

Discovered it as a 17 year old after reading the NME review of the reissue in 2001 and downloaded it from Napster. I remember the user I was downloading it from sent me a PM saying how amazing the album is. Iā€™ve never been more blown away by an opening song on an album than Alone Again Or. It sounded so mysterious, eerie and otherworldly in itā€™s mix of sunny, but dark and mysterious, psychedelia. Vivid memory of the hairs on my arm standing up and I couldnā€™t believe what I was hearing when it got to the horn solo halfway through. Such a perfect track. Many other goosepimple moments like the opening lines of The Red Telephone and the album closer You Set The Scene (that horn solo again :sparkling_heart:)

As lucid that memory is of first listen, it was only on an mp3 and through crappy computer speakers, so I always think what that first time would have sounded like on a proper format and through good speakers. Still, even at the time it felt like a life-changing moment, as it does to this day. My tastes for the remainder of my musical formative years would pivot around this album.

It was also around this time that I started smoking quite a bit of weed and those horns solos and eerie melodies really seemed enhanced after a smoke.

Saw Arthur Lee on the Forever Changes tour in 2003 at Manchester Academy. Absolutely amazing show. Hearing those strings and the horns live was like a religious experience. You could see in the faces of everyone there how important it was to finally be able to see him perform those songs in this way.

Then saw him again a year or so later at Leeds Irish Centre when Johnny Echols (Loveā€™s original guitarist) rejoined the band. Small and intimate, and more akin to the garage-rock early phase of their career. Was perfect to see both these performances, which were so different, before Arthur died soon after. While leaving the Irish Centre I saw him at the merch stand and was going to go over but I decided against it as I knew I would just be a bumbling, nervous wreck and make a fool out of myself. I probably shouldā€™ve though in hindsight.

Nailed on 11/10 for me this one.

*Da Capo (the album that precedes FC) is well worth checking out to anyone who loves FC but has never checked out their other albums. The first side is very strong and has strong hints of the direction they would take on FC. Second side is just one long jam which Iā€™ve never really paid any attention to tbh. Their (eponymous) first album is a great Nuggets-esque garage-rock record too

6 Likes

^this. I like Four Sail too, and Arthur Leeā€™s solo record Vindicator is great.

2 Likes

I gave it a 4. Alone Again Or is decent, but the rest of it I donā€™t like at all. Iā€™ve tried this album a few times over the years, but clearly not my thing. Obviously a very special record to lots of people though, so Iā€™m not gonna dive into a big critique.

1 Like

Due to a glitch in that 1001 album generator thing Iā€™ve listened to this twice. Once I gave it 4/5, the other time I gave it 3. Average that out to a 7.

Listened to it a couple of times in the past year or so, really enjoyed it both times. Canā€™t really remember much about it, though. Will revisit it again this week before voting.

one I instinctively want to give a 9 or 10 to, but to be honest I havenā€™t listened to it for a long old time, so going to put it on now and report back. Will give it a provisional snot caked against my pants/10

1 Like

Realised Alone Again Or is one of those tracks that is so overused in films & tv that even though it is a great song it just ends up kind of being rather than eliciting any kind of emotional connection. It sits alongside White Rabbit and For What Itā€™s Worth as a generic overused signifier of something vaguely counter culture.

Also it doesnā€™t really matter how good the other tracks the band has made are, that one track has just kind of perfectly captured what the bands sound is and that makes every other track just feel a bit pointless. I get the same with Os Mutantes, although in that case the first two tracks (Panis Et Circensis & A Minha Menina).

Another in the bracket of if I had heard when I was 16 Iā€™d probably love.

Abstain but I get the love.

I think Iā€™ve enjoyed this the most of the ā€˜classic canonā€™ albums weā€™ve done but it does suffer from what all those albums suffer from (to my ears) that itā€™s been so influential and imitated that it now sounds a bit passĆ© through no fault of itā€™s own. It also has that horrible hard panning of instruments that a lot of 60s albums have (at least on the version I listened to, maybe thereā€™s a mono version)

Alone Again Or is such a good song though. I was surprised to see it was written by one of the other blokes, I thought Love basically was Arthur Lee. Like a few others, I donā€™t know what to make of those snot lyrics. Was it a thing in the counter culture movement to blow your nose on your jeans? Pretty good song otherwise

1 Like

Thereā€™s a quote about that in the liner notes of the reissue

ā€œWe were in the studio, I passed out, slobbered on my pants, and woke up. It had crystallized. I wrote about it.ā€
Arthur Lee

1 Like

Ended up going for a 10. It doesnā€™t move me quite like maybe the other 10s Iā€™ve dished out (most recently Funeral), but itā€™s just such a great listen and probably out of all my favourite albums, itā€™s one Iā€™m most likely to listen to. I think lyrically itā€™s all over the place - some of it is inspired, some slightly baffling, some maybe just there to rhyme. But that just makes me like it more.

I like the fact that the snot lyric has such a matter of fact meaning. Similarly I looked up why the red telephone was so-called. Itā€™s because they were in a house with a red telephone. Of course. I was kind of expecting it to have some historical revolutionary significance, but itā€™s weirdly pleasing that itā€™s just because it was there.

Maybe Iā€™m just simple. Anyway, feel like 10 is right.