Hard_To_Please's Full Review: If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears [Remaster] b...
You’ve most likely seen other members starting a review with the obligatory ‘Write-Off Ahead’ warning, so I will dispense with a lengthy apology for bogging down the Epinions’ servers with yet another W/O submission. Instead I’ll share two important lessons I’ve learned tonight that perhaps we can all benefit from.
The first lesson is that procrastination is sometimes more than an adrenaline-rush. Sometimes it leads to embarrassment, humiliation, and scorn. The “All-Time Favorite Album Write-Off” organizer, awoolcott, generously gave us an entire month to prepare! Did I spend the month researching, writing rough-drafts, revising, etc? Hell no! If I aced Advanced College Calculus by procrastinating, why would I start an “All-Time Favorite Album” review the day before it was due?! The reason procrastination failed me this time will be described below. The alert reader will take notes so as not to make the same mistake.
The second lesson is that our memories tend to be less accurate over time. That fact in itself is neither good nor bad---it is simply a fact of life. Sometimes memories are better left unexplored- perhaps those childhood memories which we have relished for years as recollections of pure joy are better left unexamined and are not meant to be held up to the light of our current day standards. I will expand on Lesson #2 later as well. (I’ll refrain from the urge to administer a pop-quiz afterwards.)
Hopefully by now you’ve noticed the category I’ve selected and realized that I’ve chosen The Mamas and The Papas’ album, “If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears” as my All-Time Favorite album. Before I describe the album, I need to get some of the obligatory paperwork out of the way by posting the names of the other W/O participants. In order to kill two birds with one stone (or in this case, 19 birds), I will start by sharing the brilliance of The Mamas and The Papas’ lyrics and revealing the identities of my brilliant cohorts by replacing all pronouns in selected M&P songs with the names of the other participants. (Replacing the original pronouns with Epinions’ ID’s is the only bastardization of the original songs I’m guilty of, so please do not give me undue credit for the deep meaning and achingly beautiful, but haunting words so poignantly penned by the tortured geniuses of M&P.)
Monday, Monday
Monday, Monday, so good to paulbg…
Monday mornin’, it was all pogomom hoped it would be…
Oh Monday mornin’, Monday mornin’ couldn’t guarantee…
That Monday evenin’, pogomom would still be here with paulbg…
I Call Your Name
I call MsBayLady’s name but she’s not there…
Was Jenninca to blame for bein’ unfair…
Doesn’t IrishMa4 know caravan70
can’t sleep at night since janesbit1’s been gone… magenta321 never weeps at night, JENNI1396 can’t go on…
Doesn’t Gr8Dane know Vollmann can’t take it… markmillard doesn’t know who can… KCFemme’s not gonna make it… Driver4t5’s not that kind of man…
Got a Feelin’
Got a feelin’ that Menomonee1’s wastin’ time on Hypotenuse…
Got a feelin’ that BroadwayBaby’s been untrue…
I got a feelin’ that awoolcott’s stealin’…
All the love I thought I was givin’ to you-
Baby it’s true…
The joke’s on you…
‘HARD TO PLEASE’ REVEALS HIS THOUGHT PROCESS
While under normal circumstances, if I told you what was going on in my mind, I’d have to kill you---I will make an exception in this case. (Mainly because if I didn’t justify my embarrassing choice, I’d have to kill myself.)
When I found myself once again naively agreeing to a Write-Off, I initially thought it would be no big deal to come up with my “favorite” album. After all, there are thousands to choose from, right?! First I had to decide which genre to pick from. That’s when I first began to realize that perhaps I had bitten off more than I can chew. Since I get into Heavy Metal, House/Techno, Country, Jazz, Easy-Listening, Alternative, Ska, Blues, Pop, R&B, Soul, and a half dozen other variations of music, I was overwhelmed by the array of albums begging to be my chosen favorite. As I started to toss my CDs around in a frenzy of panic, I mentally noted the names flashing by my bloodshot eyes: Metallica, Lords of Acid, Kenny G, Mariah, Pink Floyd, Aphrodite’s Child, Nugent, Enigma, Zombie, Faith Hill, Toni Braxton, and countless others joined an ever-growing pile around my nervously pacing feet.
And then it struck me!! My All-Time-Favorite was certainly the very first album that I ever owned. After all, I was at the peak of my taste and intelligence at age 7, so my very first choice must have been the pinnacle of musical brilliance and the epitome of orgasmic awakenings in my soul (although I must admit that the real orgasmic awakenings actually didn’t peak for another decade.)
Yes, my first purchase after receiving my Close-N-Play turntable is the subject of my review. As I recall, it took six visits from the tooth fairy before I could afford this treasure ---and I was so eager, I had to yank the sixth tooth prematurely! (Tragically, premature yanking would haunt me for many years afterward!)
Sadly, my mom had long ago sold my All-Time-Favorite-Album at a garage sale---no doubt for a price substantially less than the worth of a half-mouth full of baby teeth. I vividly recall the indescribable anger I felt when the 22 year-old Hard To Please (now a half-decade past his orgasmic peak) discovered that “If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears” had been sold to some unappreciative jerk simply because he was savvy enough to barter a package deal which included my sacred collection of MAD magazines along with my All-Time-Favorite-Album. My mom has felt the full wrath of my fury for over a dozen years since that fateful day--- I have never failed to remind her of her supreme betrayal whenever the opportunity arises.
But I digress… so unlike me!
FAST-FORWARD TO THE PRESENT
(**We will no longer be discussing the number of years since my orgasmic peak**)
I was unsuccessful in my attempts to strong-arm my mom into coughing up the $15 it would cost to replace my All-Time-Favorite-Album (although she did offer to give me back my baby teeth.) So I was forced to sacrifice the cash I had allotted for a cheap Monday night date and head to Best Buy in a desperate search for my favorite album. Ironically, the overwhelming sense of relief I felt when I discovered that the CD was in stock was almost immediately replaced with the nagging doubt that perhaps choosing an album I hadn’t heard in three decades as my All-Time Favorite was, to put it mildly, asinine!
But I squelched my uneasy feelings and when I arrived home with my trophy, decided that I had a few more days before I actually had to remove the cellophane and listen to it---after all, if it was the best thing that ‘7 year-old HTP’ had ever heard, it would certainly still be the best thing ‘Present Day HTP’ had ever heard! Once again however, my feelings of smugness were quickly dashed when I realized that I hadn’t even checked to see if Epinions even had a link to “If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears”!
Well, I could barely “Believe My Eyes” when I discovered that there was no link for my subject! I believe most of you can relate to the utter despair one suffers when realizing that you have no place to post the review burning a hole in your gut. I considered posting to “M&P’s Greatest Hits”, but decided that my submission must be absolutely on-topic so that it would be as pure and good as little HTP before he was tainted by the evil influences of 70’s music.
Even though I had heard many horror stories about the futility of requesting a product addition and the tendency of Advisors to ignore the little people, my instincts told me that Epinions would not let me down.
Even though there were only several days remaining before the scheduled posting time, I wrote Music Manager and Advisor, Lee Topar, and explained my dilemma. He wrote back promptly and said he would do his best.
As I popped in my CD tonight and sat down to begin the review, I was crestfallen when I saw that there was still no link. Just as I began to curse Lee and call him the A-word (and I don’t mean Advisor!), I heard an email come through. Once again, I couldn’t believe my eyes or ears when I opened the message from Lee telling me that my link and album image would be added tonight! (As I write this, it is still not uploaded so I am operating on pure faith at this point.) I’m not sure that procrastination is worth the dry heaving caused by an overwhelming sense of doom, but I’m an optimist till the end, and will hopefully avoid actually puking until the W/O deadline arrives in two hours.
Unfortunately, my optimism is fading fast as I listen to the remaster of The Mamas and The Papas’ album, “If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears”. The music that sounded so full, rich, and vibrant to a young tike’s ears (even on a Close-N-Play) now sounds tinny, hollow, and weak on a stereo system worth at least two thousand baby teeth!
Time to remind myself of why I chose this as my favorite album…
WHERE WERE YOU IN 1967?
I was standing in a Woolworth’s store holding an album which encapsulated all that I thought was cool and groovy. (If Lee has come through for me, you can see the cover I’m describing.) Even at my tender young age, I sensed a certain hip-ness about two chicks and two dudes sharing a bathtub. (And yes, I actually peppered my 2nd-grade conversations with the words ‘chicks’ and ‘dudes’. To be so young and so cool at the same time was almost more than I could bear!) To see the assortment of blonde hair, goatees, eye-make-up, and tight jeans crammed into one bathtub stirred feelings in me I had never before experienced.
Strangely, the toilet on the album cover was halfway covered with an airbrushed label listing three of the album’s songs. I sensed that while the tub represented cleanliness and goodness, the toilet represented urination and was therefore too disgusting to be shown. As my regular readers know, that moment of realization has affected the rest of my life. (Quick flash-forward again-- <I apologize for yanking you around so much>-- the remastered album displays the toilet in all its’ stained glory and the liner notes explain that the original release caused so much controversy that the producers were quickly forced to cover the offending receptacle with a ‘sticker-like box’.)
As soon as I bicycled home and started to play my very first album, I was magically transformed into the man I hoped to someday become. As the beautiful Michelle Phillips and Cass Elliot harmonized with the handsome Denny Doherty and John Phillips, I was transported to a land that I had only dreamed of before---jasmine incense, beads, fringe vests, bell-bottoms, and The Summer of Love. Over the summer, I turned more and more of my fantasy into reality and by October, I could be found most evenings in front of the mirror swiveling my pre-pubescent, bell-bottomed hips and shaking my hairless, fringe-vested chest to the dozen songs contained on this masterpiece.
In addition to the songs I bastardized earlier, this album also contains the following classics:
Go Where You Wanna Go California Dreamin’ Spanish Harlem Somebody Groovy Hey Girl You Baby The In Crowd Do You Wanna Dance Straight Shooter
The range in style among these songs varies from pure folk-rock to bluesy, bawdy bursts of feel-good energy. After all these years, it is nearly impossible to resist humming along as the silken-voiced ladies blend seamlessly with the sexy baritones of the men.
But all in all, I have found the whole evening sadly disappointing. If I were to rate the album based on sentimental value, it would obviously rate five stars. However, by today’s standards, this album is rather boring and bland, the sound is somewhat shallow and superficial, and the lyrics are fairly weak and banal.
This brings us to the point where we tie together the lessons we have learned. (#1) Procrastination is bad—I am now forced to rate my All-Time Favorite album with only three stars- a contradiction that only a fool can appreciate. (#2) Memories do not always live up to reality. Times change and hopefully we progress over time. For example, I no longer wear fringe-vests and bell bottoms (in public at least), I would now settle for one less body in the tub, and I’m no longer obsessed with the forbidden fruit of a censored toilet (well not as much at least!) Plus, it’s hard to listen to ‘Mama Cass’ without constant subliminal thoughts of how she supposedly died in the 70’s by choking on a ham sandwich.
The deadline has approached so I hope that I have a category and a pic to accompany my entry. I now must go pop in my current favorite album, Limp Bizkit, and then call my mom and apologize for twelve years of undeserved guilt, and then make the ham sandwich I have been craving for the past two hours!
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