The Byrds - Fifth Dimension
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Free Music Notes for Fifth Dimension
Free Music Review: I Hear a New World
Hit: 5 Stars
This is a hard one to grade. It is an unusually great album with some unusually chipped edges. This is the perch in the sixties (1966) from which the greatest psychedelia emerged, when groups were still using the conventions of the pop song for conveying their drugged stirred consciousness. "Eight Miles High" is perhaps the greatest example of that, a tight three and half minute channeling of John Coltrane and Ravi Shankar. Even today, after a million listens, I get a sense of leaping into uncharted space everytime I hear this song. And despite the Beatle's fiddling with Indian music this is really the supreme monument of "raga rock". The Byrds achieve their infusion of Indian music without hauling in Ravi Shankar himself, for McGuinn manages to ring majestic Indian style riffs out of his famed Rickenbacker guitar. The Byrds have managed to absorb Indian music into their own vocabularly rather than merely aping it ala George Harrison. This is the Byrd's hardest hitting pyschedelic album, McGuinn's guitar punching out raga licks in a manner that he will never again quite equal. Some of the more neglected of Byrds classics appear on "Fifth Dimension". "I See You" for instance is dreamy, slightly haunted psych at its best with some fine slightly unhinged guitar licks. "What's Happening? " manages to imbue confusion with a certain grandeur, McGuinn's guitar giving Crosby's musings an almost metaphysical dimension . The acid folk of "John Riley" (in particular) and "Wild Mountain Thyme" similiarly shimmer with a certain agreeable unworldliness.
On the debit side there are obscenities like "Captain Soul", the weaker version of "Why", and the must have been a lot more interesting when they were stoned "Lear Jet Song". Fortunately the cd bonus tracks has the essential original version of "Why", another of the great raga-rock tracks. And for those who haven't heard them to death the slightly twee "Mr Spaceman" and "Fifth Dimension".
From the "warm slanting sun through the cave of your hair" in "I See You" to McGuinn's guitar volleys in "What's Happening? " the best of this album is simply the best in rock music.
Free Music Review: Godfathers of Alternative Rock
Hit: 4 Stars
1966's "Fifth Dimension" album by The Byrds is, along with their subsequent 1968 foray into country music on "Sweetheart of the Rodeo", the most radical and least commercial album of their career. It is also, next to 1969's "Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde", the hardest-rocking album they ever made. With the departure of Gene Clark, McGuinn and David Crosby had to scramble to fill the songwriting void. Fortunately, the breathtaking and historic single "Eight Miles High", largely composed by Clark, was there to anchor the album and jumpstart the psychedelic movement. Its modal, free-jazz style guitar solo by McGuinn and the sheer heaviness of the arrangement and production made it an intimidating purchase for teenagers weaned on The Beatles' concurrent "Rubber Soul" album. Of course, the kiddies loved McGuinn's early attempt at countrified rock, "Mr. Spaceman" and this helped sell the album. Other acid-rock gems here include the frenzied "I See You", McGuinn's metaphysical "5D" and Crosby's pointed "Why". Of course, there are mellower moments for those who enjoy the folk roots of The Byrds: "Wild Mountain Thyme" and "John Riley" are lovely, orchestrated traditional songs, and "I Come and Stand At Every Door" is a moving song about a child killed in Hiroshima. Unfortunately, the album filler hurts the overall impact of the album. Crosby's melodramatic take on "Hey Joe", an ill-advised attempt at rhythm and blues called "Captain Soul", Crosby's hippie philosophizing on "What's Happening! " and the sound-effect laden "2-4-2 Fox Trot" are embarassingly dated. However, the bonus tracks on this well-remastered CD are fascinating alternate takes of "Eight Miles High" and "Why" recorded at RCA that give insight into the development of these classics. This adventurous album will not be to everyone's taste, but it is an essential purchase for not only Byrds fanatics, but pop musicologists, fans of 1960s rock, and those interested in alternative rock.Free Music Review: Pivotal & brave...
Hit: 4 Stars
Sitting in between "Mr Tambourine Man" & "Turn! Turn! Turn!" (albums through which the Byrds asserted and consolidated their position as international pop stars) and "Younger Than Yesterday" (an album which firmly established them as a "new-wave"/"progressive" West Coast band), "Fifth Dimension" captures them in major transition mode.With its curious mix of smooth folk-pop ("Wild Mountain Thyme" & "John Riley"), straight R&B ("Hey Joe" & "Captain Soul"), new and now dated recording techniques ("Mr. Spaceman" and "2-4-2 Foxtrot"), political commentary ("I Come And Stand At Every Door"), drug references ("What's Happening! " and "5D") and brilliant innovation ("Eight Miles High" and "I See You"), this record perfectly captures the diverse influences swirling around the music scene in early 1966. And... while the end result now appears unfocused it clearly reflects the problem facing creative pop groups of the time: how to assimilate these new, untested and rapidly developing influences into any form of cohesive, commercially viable whole.
The Beatles did it much better with "Revolver" but the Byrds came an admirable second with "Fifth Dimension": more flawed, less polished and much less satisfying but, at the time, equally important in that it showed that a group previously filed under "mainstream pop" was no longer bound by its past or the expectations of its record buying public. Alongside Revolver's "Tomorrow Never Knows", "Love To You" and "I Want To Tell You", Fifth Dimension's "Eight Miles High" and the wonderful "I See You" sent a clear message that the music world was in the process of radical change. The impact of these tracks on fans expecting more of the same - i.e. tuneful, properly structured three minute pop songs - was serious confusion but, the impact on their musical peers was enormous. If the Beatles and the Byrds - two of the most popular groups in the world at the time - could get away with putting such radically new music on mass market albums, then so could they. Within a year the musical landscape had changed forever but, what followed in the UK and the USA owed a great deal to the bravery of both groups in pushing their music into new and potentially far less popular areas.
As such, "Fifth Dimension" stands out as a pivotal record... not as good as their subsequent West Coast masterpieces - "Younger Than Yesterday" & "The Notorious Byrd Brothers" - but braver and in many ways much more important.
Free Music Review: Start here...
Hit: 5 Stars
Think about the sixties music scene.The British Invasion.Surf Rock.Folk Rock. The Byrds and a few other California bands managed to take the "roll" out of rock 'n' roll and presnt something new. A harder-edged sound (compare with the earlier Byrds hits) with lyrics that were concerned with subjects other than dancing and surfing the perfect wave. Start your rock collection here, then get the first Love album (Arthur Lee & co.) and Fresh Cream. these will put into perspective everything that happened in rock before and after.The Beatles should have wished they had made records like 5D. Thanks,bye.Free Music Review: McGuinn and Crosby's finest hour.
Hit: 5 Stars
Reeling from the abrupt departure of songwriter/genius Gene Clark, the Bryds came back with a vengeance on this seminal work. In the white light of contemporary guitarists like Hendrix, Clapton and Jeff Beck, Jim McGuinn's incendiary 12-string solo on "Eight Miles High" has never received its due credit, and yet it remains the definitive fusion solo of our time. John Coltrane's ghost was in that studio sippin' a cool one with Django Rheinhart. No subsequent guitar god short of John McLaughlin has ever come close to burning up a guitar neck like McGuinn did on "Eight Miles High". David Crosby seemed to be in perfect sync with McGuinn with compositions like "I See You" and "What's Happenin'? " The Byrds went into a new zone with "5D" that carried over to the jazzy compositions on "Notorious Byrds Brothers"