Mamas & Papas - If You Can Believe Your Eyes & Ears
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Mamas & PapasBrand: MAMAS & THE PAPAS
Edition: Music CD
Format: Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 1998-02-24
Music Label: Mca
Soundtracks:
- Monday, Monday
- Straight Shooter
- Got A Feelin'
- I Call Your Name
- Do You Wanna Dance
- Go Where You Wanna Go
- California Dreamin'
- Spanish Harlem
- Somebody Groovy
- Hey Girl
- You Baby
- The In Crowd
Free Music Notes for If You Can Believe Your Eyes & Ears
Free Music Review: Nothing like it before - EVERYTHING like it since
Hit: 5 Stars
In an era where groups were categorized as 'Vocal', 'Motown', 'Folk', 'Girl Group', 'British Invasion', and 'Rock and Roll', along came The Mama's and the Papa's (at the time, resplendent with their apostrophes). What, exactly, do you call them? Part of the magic of the band was that you couldn't label them with anything that existed at the time - they really did carve their own niche... then immortalized it in the 2 years they were together. Their effect was profound, even leading to a 4/4 time drum beat that's colloquially referred to as 'Mamas and Papas'. The Classics IV would name a song after them; Peter, Paul and Mary would dedicate an entire verse to them in their hit "I Dig Rock and Roll Music"; Donovan would write a song for Cass. The group was as adept at others' material (a full HALF of this album is comprised of tunes by other artists), as they were at their own.
California Dreamin' - an ageless classic which made Rolling Stone's top 100 of the best songs ever recorded, and with good reason. A haunting, minor-chord revelation, the song takes the beachy California confections of the early 1960's and gives them folk's depth and mood. And, by the way, the second verse ends with "you know the preacher LIGHTS the COALS, he knows I'm gonna stay (get it, it's cold outside, the preacher lights a fire for the wandering troubadour who's dreamin' of California - the Beach Boys cover of this song sported a video that illustrates this point with some clarity).
Straight Shooter - Rock and Roll, pure and simple. Driving, groovy, and downright sexy towards the end (listen carefully for Cass's grinding 'half of that belongs to me' at the end of the song).
Got a Feelin' - One of the first four songs the group ever composed, the liner notes of the album refer to the song as 'feathery'. I really can't improve on that.
I Call Your Name - Cass' first showcase on the album, it defines the Mama's and Papa's brilliance (for the most part) at recording other's tunes, and Papa John's ability to rearrange a song and make it completely different. The Beatles' rock and roll standard becomes an almost ragtime love song, if you can believe your ears...
Do You Wanna Dance - another cover tune, late of Bobby Freeman AND the Beach Boys, it is arguably the group's best version of someone else's song - so good, in fact, that Dunhill - the group's record label - would mine it for a single TWO YEARS AFTER THE FACT. The beauty and sincerity of this song is BEGGING to appear on a soundtrack of a romantic comedy. Brilliant beyond words.
Go Where You Wanna Go - simple, cool, four-part-harmony fun. The first single - though preemptively - released from the album, it was quickly pulled in favor of California Dreamin'. The 5th Dimension would later cover the song and send it into the American Top 20, thus launching THEIR career.
Monday, Monday - won the group the Grammy in 1966, and with good reason. It's a symphony. In stereo, the one speaker will produce Cass, John, Michelle, and the strings, while the other will feature Denny's lead, the harpsichord (!) and percussion. It is technically awe-inspiring, simple and complex at the same time. Michelle thought it was pretentious at the time, and potentially career-limiting. Never has an artist been so happy to be so wrong. I can hear this song 1,000 times - and have - and can still find something new to love about it.
Spanish Harlem - on par with Do You Wanna Dance, Denny's vocals are pristine and plaintive, with the girls' harmonies behind him evoking the balcony to which he's singing. A love song lovers' love song.
Somebody Groovy - another of their first four tunes, it - along with the rest of the album - demonstrates the group's ability to be good time rock n' rollers. It's got a great beat, and you can... well, you know.
You, Baby - The Turtles are targeted in this cover, and I'm hard-pressed to decide who's won. The boys do it a little faster; the Mama's and the Papa's do it a little more rock-er. One of the few times the group would take on another artist's tune and match it closely, rather than re-invent it entirely.
Hey Girl - A great answer-back pop tune that should've appeared on more of the millions of compilations than it has. An early showcase for the girls' voices.
The In-Crowd - Watch Cass take a soul tune and make it her own. The other side of the coin from I Call Your Name, here Cass is finally unleashed on a song, her barreling contralto owning every note.
I still cannot imagine, after all the greatest hits re-do's, that California Dreamin' and Monday, Monday actually appeared on the same album together ORIGINALLY. Universal in its acceptance, If You Can Believe is to the Mama's and the Papa's what Pet Sounds is to the Beach Boys, and Sgt. Peppers is to the Beatles.
Yes, there was Abba, the Carpenters, the Sunshine Company... but FIRST, there was The Mama's and the Papa's.
Buy this album. Right now.
If You Can Believe Your Eyes & Ears Poster
Upon its release in 1966, the Mamas and the Papas' debut LP If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears introduced a fresh new sound that would permanently alter the face of contemporary popular music. Leader John Phillips' visionary producing, arranging and songwriting abilities combined with the quartet's breathtaking harmonies to make music that was both effortlessly accessible and creatively adventurous. The album quickly topped the Billboard album chart, bringing folk-rock into the pop mainstream and making Phillips, his then-wife Michelle Phillips, Denny Doherty and Cass Elliot into instant multimedia celebrities. In the years since its release, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears has come to be regarded as one of the finest pop albums of the '60s and one of the best debut releases ever, as evidenced by its ranking at Number 127 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears was the product of Lou Adler's visionary production, Phillips' savvy studio mastery and the foursome's extended period of musical woodshedding in the Virgin Islands. The months of meticulous rehearsals paid off in the group's ability to emerge as a fully-formed musical unit right out of the box, delivering such instant classics as "California Dreamin'," "Monday, Monday" and "Go Where You Wanna Go" to the willing ears of record buyers and radio listeners.
At the time of If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears initial release, the presence of a toilet in the periphery of the album's cover photo caused faint-hearted moral guardians to pressure the group's record company to excise the offending fixture from subsequent pressings of the album. Sundazed's new vinyl edition of If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears restores the rare, long-missing "toilet" cover, and features the album's superior original mono mix. It's also mastered from the original analog tapes, and pressed on high-definition vinyl--the better to maintain the same joyous sense of discovery that listeners felt when first hearing this timeless gem in 1966.
As they developed and incorporated more of their own social lives into their music, the Mamas and the Papas became the model for other dysfunctionally self-involved groups like Fleetwood Mac. But none of that is evident on their 1966 debut, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears; rather, it's the quartet's dreamy vocal interaction that is the highlight here. "California Dreamin'" is a touching honeymoon of a song; and its follow-up, "Monday Monday," is much the same--though it comes this close to overwhelming sappiness. "Spanish Harlem," "In Crowd," and Mama Cass Elliott's lead on the Beatles' "I Call Your Name" are just as enjoyable. Though the accompanying music on this album was not the focus, it's every bit as strong as the vocal arrangements, with Larry Knetchel, Joe Osborne, and Hal Blaine handling the chores here. --Randy Silver
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