Artist: The Zombies
Album: Odessey and Oracle
Year: 1968
I'm so glad this album was included. I had been waiting for it throughout 1967, having forgotten it didn't come around until the next year...so I was a little bummed when '67 ended with no Zombies. But here it is!
Odessey and Oracle is a low-key masterpiece, a highly melodic piano-driven pop album with one absolutely dynamite scorcher of a song. That one would be "Time of the Season," one of the most famous songs of the psychedelic era. It's a great song, but feels like kind of an afterthought on this album amongst the more "fragile" material that comprises the rest of the album.
I don't think I've heard another album with the sheer melodicism that this one possesses. Just about every song here is brimming with pretty melodies that some later band has managed to rip off (listen to "Beechwood Park" and then to Superdrag's "I'm Expanding My Mind" for an example). "Care of Cell 44," "Hung Up on a Dream," and "This Will Be Our Year" are all great pop tunes, but there really are no weak tracks here.
I truly believe this album is the zenith of psychedelic pop. It shows off the genre at its most pretty and vulnerable, and the results are striking.
Rating: Indispensable
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