101. The Electric Prunes - I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)

Artist: The Electric Prunes
Album: I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)
Year: 1967

Never heard of The Electric Prunes before stumbling across them in the pages of the 1001 Albums... book, but by the description found therein, they sounded like a band I'd like. Indeed, they were very much a pleasant find.

A garage rock band that went for an echo-ey, spacey sound created by guitar tremolo, The Electric Prunes felt to me like a cross between The Sonics and Jefferson Airplane. There's that punchy and chaotic kind of sound like The Sonics purveyed, but a dreamy, fuzzy psychedelic pop sound in the manner of Jefferson Airplane as well.

This album starts off with its best song, the title track. Talk about a lost classic, this very well could be considered the proper start of shoegaze right here: rippling tremolo, vocals buried in the mix, strong focus on melody and all. If that's all this album had to offer, it would still be worthwhile in my opinion, but there are many other tracks that provide similar charms. "Onie" is a charming, dreamy ballad, "Get Me to the World on Time" brings back guitar reverb again with cavernous percussion, while "The King Is in the Counting House" is an absolutely absurd send-up of British folk--it doesn't sound too far from Kinks territory.

Good album with a variety of styles, certainly worth checking out.

Rating: Worth a listen