Album Reviews

If any Byrds music deserves to be heard stripped of its vocals, it's the exploratory jazz and raga influenced instrumental tracks produced for the Fifth Dimension sessions. Having fallen under the influence of Ravi Shankar and John Coltrane, the band spent long nights in the studio jamming, finally producing its epic “Eight Miles High” along with the rest of the album, some of which was not quite as accomplished.

Baby boomers no more appreciated Sam Cooke’s slick conquest of the Jewish supper club set when it was first recorded and issued on RCA Victor in 1964—the same year Cooke died—than they did Bobby Darin’s. To some teens at the time, “You Send Me,” and “Splish Splash,” were theirs, but this dated style Copacabana review was their parents’. In retrospect, the million plus seller “You Send Me,” was much closer to easy listening than to rock’n roll, and while Darin’s foray into the teen market with tunes like “Splish Splash, and “Dream Lover,” was explicit to the point of being exploitive, Cooke’s chart success with songs like “Chain Gang,” was far more subtly drawn. Perhaps that’s because, having already succeeded as a gospel singer with the Soul Stirrers, and as a soul star on the black “chitlin’ circuit,” he was less in need of pop stardom. Darin may have roamed, but it was within a more limited territory, until events of the ‘60s—musically and otherwise— shattered his slick showbiz pretenses.

There are probably many behind-the-scenes reasons why indie-rock/power-pop legends The dB’s just could not get their first two albums released by an American record company back in the early 1980s. Whatever the cause or the case, that outright crime for fans of all things jangly power pop and indie rock has long been overdue for amending. Thankfully, a new reissue series by independent record label Propeller Sound Recordings has gone a long way to make up for that unfortunate ’80s misstep. The second entry in The dB’s vinyl reclamation series is their 1981 sophomore LP, Repercussion. Read Mark Smotroff’s review to see why Propeller’s truly wonderful Repercussion LP reissue belongs on your turntable today. . .