The 4th Album following the excellent 5th Dimension which continues the inclusion of psych rock and weird effects into their folk rock roots. The electrification begins at the start with ‘So you want to be a Rock n Roll star’. ‘Have you seen her face’ is the stand-out track for me and just sounds like I thought the Byrds sounded. With bouncy, happy guitars, love lorn lyrics, it is perfectly Byrds and 1967.
CTA 102, not sure what it’s about (a Radio station maybe?) but I’m sure it is not the quasar, has loads of mucking around with sci-fi sound effects and it just does not work for me.This is the beginning of the end of the album from here in apart from the obligatory Dylan cover, ‘My Back Pages’ which provides inspiration for the title of the album. I’m not clear in my mind why the Byrds would be so heavily influenced by Dylan but they do Dylan well.
I’m going to have to get on these 1001 albums quicker than I am doing, I notice the new book of this series has loads of new ones in it, so I’m never going to get to the end. I’ll do my best.
Favourite Track – My Back Pages (Dylan) and Have You Seen Her Face
Released – Feb 1967
My Rating – 7.0