The sixty-seventh album: #67 The Mamas & The Papas - If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears
Listening to this album, I hear shades of the Beach Boys' harmonies, with female vocals adding to a 'hippy' feel of the album. There are times where this sounds really good, and there are some good songs on the album. The covers are adjusted to their sound, but I'm not sure that always works for me. For example, "Do You Wanna Dance" is robbed from the energy that makes the original listenable, not giving me much to work with and boring me far more. I see how they want to go for the orchestral sound, but it's a bit too slow and doesn't enhance the song for me.
Songs written for their own voice work better, but still don't feel inspiring or give me much confidence. But, I mean, then we get to California Dreamin, where (as we discussed in a past songs entry) it all comes together and does work. The harmonies sound good, the lyrics work and the message comes across well. It grabs you more, in part, I think, because it's more confident. It leads into a few more songs that work like that where the energy is there, but it's a mixed bag and on the whole, that leads to the album falling down for me.