Mr. Tambourine Man by The Byrds (1965)
As you probably know by now, Bob Dylan was a fairly important musical man. He took the old folk tunes (back then they were the new folk tunes) and added levels of depth that Woody Guthrie et all never quite considered. What he didn’t do (at least before 1965) was turn his music into electric twelve string driven harmony fueled pop.
I hope you didn’t respond to that with “Thank god someone did!” or anything similar. Because naturally, anything remotely “pop” is an abberation to music. Unless you actually care to listen to things. In which case you very well could like The Byrds’ first album. But don’t go thinking it’s anything like Zimmerman just because half of it was written by him. They’re far more like The Beach Boys. What would a bunch of Californians know about a poor boy from Minnesota anyway?
Every song on the record is underpinned by the Roger McGuinn’s trademark twelve string guitar. I guess it jingle jangles. Each is further underpinned by the exact same drum (and tambourine!) beat, which is similarly jingle jangly. The band probably tried to make the vocals jingle jangle as well, but apparently that’s not possible. Regardless, every song sounds the same: sweet, syrupy, saccharine.
Which is great if you like that kind of music. And horrible if you hate it. That should probably go without saying. It is worth noting though, that the original songs are generally better than the covers. Perhaps this is because they added to the surface of each piece while ignoring the depth. After all, The Byrds basically played to make Columbia records a few bucks; unlike the folk singers of old (or still relatively new). Or perhaps it’s just because I’ve been spoiled by the original versions.
It doesn’t quite pay to be so dismissive of pop bands (especially when pop rock was at its generally accepted peak). After all, this is basically the first electric folk album. And it was a little ahead of its time, what with the guitars being protopsychedelic (which is a funny word) on some songs, but it would be a whole year until they explored that more fully. As it is, this is a straight up cash in pop record. The elements of folk don’t really distinguish it from anything else at the time.
As such, this is really for completionists more than anyone. Well, historians too, I suppose. And fans. But if you were a Byrds fan you would have no excuse for not owning this album. If you were a Bob Dylan fan you’d probably hate it (but own it anyway so you can hate it more). For anyone else you can probably skip it. There were better pop albums from the 1960s. There were better pop albums from The Byrds. The jingle jangle is hardly necessary anyway.
Minnesota! Does this one have Eight Miles High? I’m still somewhat at a loss as to how the Byrds’ guitarist can make one note so distinctive that I hear it and go “That’s the Byrds”.
cars: No, that would be Fifth Dimension. As I said, they became much worthier on later records. And Roger McGuinn was an incredibly underrated guitarist (considering The Byrds were fairly overrated). But the interesting question is is this distinctiveness a good thing?