Anyone who loves Vintage Rock knows 1968 was a pivotal year for music. So many monumental albums came out that year, it would take volumes to cover them all. We decided to narrow it down. As it is, each one of the five following albums has received the royal treatment for its golden anniversary with deluxe super duper expanded editions featuring a multitude of mixes, outtakes, unreleased songs, live tracks, videos, swag, the works. So relax, kick off your shoes, burn some incense, turn on the blacklight, and join us for a trip back in time to the days of the Beatles’ The White Album, the Kinks’ The Village Green Preservation Society, The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Electric Ladyland, Small Faces’ Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake, and Love’s Forever Changes.
***
The first time I dropped the needle on The White Album it was Christmas Day, 1968. The double album came out the month before, though I was too young to notice. Then my parents surprised me with a stereo from JCPenney and two albums they were told were “cool” — The Doors’ Waiting for The Sun and The White Album. With these records in my collection, I put away the 45s and Chipmunks records, and started a lifelong obsession with album-oriented rock, or AOR as it’s known to hip insiders. Read More >
***
You could say The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society is the quintessential British rock album by the quintessential British rock band. For the Kinks, the album’s sophisticated, quaint feel for tradition and a simple life that includes farm animals and photos of friends didn’t translate well with the public at large. It might have also had something to do with the record coming out at the same time as the Beatles’ The White Album and Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland. Read More >
***
It should be obvious by now that 1968 was a banner year for the long player. Van Morrison strolled through the masterful Astral Weeks; the Kinks honed their most organic work on The Kinks Are The Village Green Society; the Zombies pushed their songwriting to its most blissful, thanks to Odyssey and Oracle; Small Faces spewed forth a nonsensical, joyous concept they called Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake; the Rolling Stones got down and dirty on Beggar’s Banquet; and the Beatles released a vast double set, which became known, due to its minimalist packaging, as The White Album. Then there was the Jim Hendrix Experience’s third release, Electric Ladyland. Read More >
***
Even as it can be said that the individual members of the Small Faces went on to bigger and better things, the group itself managed to nudge things delightfully forward with their succinct brand of mod pop. Their roots deeply entrenched in the elasticity of R & B, Small Faces quickly reoriented their sound with “Itchycoo Park,” a foray into the psychedelic jungle of 1967, and their first and only hit in America. In order to remain vibrant and relevant, they spent a year developing a loose-fitting concept album in step with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, S.F. Sorrow, and Tommy. Guided by a wacky form of Uniwinese narration courtesy of its creator, comedic linguist Professor Stanley Unwin, and a cavalcade of ornate instrumentation and subtle, cleaver arrangements, 1968’s Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake is a wild departure from Small Faces’ early repertoire — a fairy tale about a mirthful chap called Happiness Stan who is searching for the lost half of the moon. Read More >
***
If ever there was an album one should justifiably light up to, Love’s Forever Changes takes the cake (which you might want back if you’re smoking the right stuff). Awash in whimsical acoustic guitars and orchestral embellishments — and lightning rods of electric guitar for dramatic effect — Forever Changes is a triumph of musical credibility for the flower power revolution. The music is at once touching and distant, held steady by an uneven combination of patience, elegance and melancholy. Rhino celebrates the 50th anniversary of this truly essential album with a Deluxe Set that includes four CDs, a DVD, an LP and a booklet with liner notes and photos. There are four mixes of the album’s 11 songs — stereo, mono, alternate and 24/96 high-definition stereo, along with a disc of singles and outtakes. Read More >
