Love
Forever Changes
Rhino Records
It always seemed like a good idea to include a few questions
about Love’s Forever Changes album for those taking the driving exam in Los Angeles. It is such an
evocative slice of life in the City of Angels that there’s no way around it for those who live there. Singer Arthur Lee was a
walking melting pot, someone whose background and musical tastes felt like they
were as endless as the freeways that circle the city. Within the original
eleven songs are all the illusions, excitement, paranoia, promise and, well,
love that bring millions to move to Southern California to this day. By the time the band went into the studio in 1967 to record their
third album, though, all was not well within their world. The sessions started
with hired hands coming in to replace the band, with Lee acting as ringmaster.
Luckily, things changed fast and Love got back on track, and on songs like “A
House Is Not a Motel,” “Live and Let Live” and “The Red Telephone” they
captured an entire culture in several minute masterpieces. Right there with Lee
was Bryan McLean, writer and vocalist on “Alone Again Or” and “Old Man,”
someone too often overlooked on what made Forever Changes the sound of forever.
For this new reissue, there’s an alternate mix of the entire album, as well as
ten demos, remixes, unissued songs and, if that’s not enough, a version of “Wooly
Bully.” Staggering.
RSS Feed 
Last week I was on my way home from work and was in the area of the low-power University of Richmond (Virginia) station (WDCE) and I heard most of the LOVE album with
*7 and 7 Is*.
Talk about a blast from the past.. seems like I hadn't heard that stuff in nearly 30 years.
Bosco
http://home.infionline.net/~tbsamsel/
"doin' the Rhumba Boogie down the South American way"
I'm embarrassed to say that I heard this record for the first time in 2007. I've worked in record stores over 30 years, consider myself at least a hick musicologist, and I somehow spent my whole life ignoring LOVE. One night at the shop I worked at, I slipped on a used CD of Forever Changes and spent the next 40 minutes wondering...about a lot of things. It was one of those rare times where I felt improved by a record. So I bought the best of collection, took it home, listened to it, and was not very moved by what I heard. I thought, "Ha! It's the ALBUM, not the band or the songs or the career..' - the album exists as its own domain, and must be surrendered to accordingly. So traded the best of in for a copy of Forever Changes and have been changed forever ever since.
Also embarrassed that I never heard Blood On The Tracks until 2007, but that's another story...
Bucks Burnett
http://namedroppermedia.com