Arthur Lee RIP

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

I am sad. His set at Glastonbury 2003 was one of the best I've ever seen, and fitted the atmosphere perfectly. We don't usually do pop star deaths on Poptimists and that isn't really the intention of this post anyway - there's a perfectly good thread in the Other Place for that.

But it occurred to me that Love are one of the few canonical 60s acts it's hard to pinpoint any kind of Poptimist consensus on. I have no idea how people feel about them. So go on, talk here about whether you like them or not.

For the record, Forever Changes is one of the only widely-revered canonical 'classic' albums that I think is actually as good as it's cracked up to be.

Comments

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I bought Forever Changes when it was repackaged a few years back (ok - 5 or 6 I suppose) because I thought anyone who had influenced the House of Love must be good, because I felt I 'should' get into late 60s stuff; and probably because I liked a track Tom had put on a compilation tape a good while before that. I didn't get it first time of listening, but it was one of the few CDs in my office so I played it over and over one afternoon and suddenly realised that I thought it was wonderful!!

Funny story: One Christmas I got this on CD for my dad who was 'around' for all that late 60s stuff and definitely buying records (including I thought Love, but that may have been one of the ones he nicked off his brother). He looked really dubious about it, hadn't heard or liked it at the time it came out, and didn't take to it when trying it out now, but six months later told me he had been listening to it non-stop in the car!

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

shakey mo on ILM had some ultra-purist -- and to me highly lame -- theory that FC was not as good as other love bcz lee had "sold out" to the "man" by having strings on the LP

obv my line was that "selling out" often makes music better rather than worse -- exception: THE CLASH, who did nothing BUT sell out and were always the worse for it