Most albums with a “best ever” rep have been heard by millions. The sort that lurk around the top 100 rock albums lists made by Rolling Stone and Time Magazine. The biggies. The legitimate, but inescapable old guard. Thriller. Born To Run. Sgt. Pepper’s. Blonde on Blonde. London Calling. Then there are some that aren’t quite as well-known, but insist on appearance and recurrence. The Zombies’ Odessey and Oracle is just such an album. A stonecold baroque pop classic that we happen to have right here.
There’s a tumble of mythology surrounding Odessey – foremost, the band broke up before it was even released, so they never quite got their just desserts; also Odessey was misspelled by the album cover designer and the Zombies ran with it. But if you’re coming for the songs, there’s more than enough to fill your brainspace. “Care of Cell 44,” a swooning story song of broken and reunited love has emerged as an indie standard in recent years, having been covered by Elliott Smith and Of Montreal. The wistful “This Will Be Our Year” has been alternately a wedding song/prom theme/high school graduation party tune/ recovery meme, but mostly it’s just a plaintive piece gorgeously sung by vocalist Colin Blunstone. If you want to be hopeful, this is your anthem.
The one we all know is “Time of the Season,” the choogling album closer that sounds almost nothing like the rest of the album – it’s all groove and swagger and sex. Written by the group’s de facto leader Rod Argent, it features Blunstone right up in your ear, cooing devilishly. The song only emerged as a hit when it was released as a third single, after urging from legendary sideman/producer Al Kooper, who was working as an A&R rep at Columbia Records at the time. “Time of the Season” is a steamy shock, marking a startling transition from the swooning Abbey Road pop of “A Rose For Emily” or the downtempo elegance of “Beechwood Park,” but it’s been wildly misinterpreted in popular culture for years. My woeful New York Mets used the song as a sort of rallying cry during their playoff run in 2006. Naturally, they lost.
There is one strand of avant-garde here: “Butchers Tale (Western Front 1914),” an accordion and theremin-led sonic experiment that reaches for something not as simply stated as most of Odessey. An anti-war protest with historical overtones, the song was (foolishly) released as the album’s first single. It flopped. Fortunately Kooper had some clout and found an audience for this. Find it for yourself.
(I desperately wanted to make 1 or 2 or 7 Zombie puns in this piece and I did not. Proud of myself.)
any Japanese music with female vocals coming soon?
Refraining from puns will win you no friends here, Sean. ;–)
a great album… too bad you don’t offer the mono version (which offers some startlingly different mixes/instrumentation) which i think is better than the stereo version, but you really can’t go wrong with either.
Does anyone know what’s up with all those volumes of “Original Studio Recordings”? Do these have content that is beyond the Zombies box set that came out several years ago?
@Sean I’ll check this out definitly on my next go around (Puns are always welcome though, as Alex said)
@JTO you’ve asked that on (at least nearly) every blog post since “ethiopium” please stop, it makes reading comments a bother.
if no one answered you the first time they are probably LESS likely to answer the multitude of other times. Either a) nobody knows (as it’s kinda a strangly unanswerable question with out for listening to every friggin thing that comes out . . . before it comes out) or b) a proper place to ask this would be at the forums of the Content adiminstrators.
@sean sorry my reply to JTO was longer than my reply to the Post, I didn’t intend it to be that way.
Care of Cell #44 was also covered by Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs on “Under The Covers, vol. 1″….which is, uhm, the first place I ever heard it.
I got married back in February. After the ceremony, my wife and I walked down the aisle together to “This Will Be Our Year.” It was perfect.
I know I’m decades late on this one, but this is damn good. Time of the Season is completely different in this context.
Sorry Nergal (for the multiple posts), but do you mean the emusic Message boards (or somewhere else)? (OK maybe I’ve got an obscure musical interest that not an obvious subject to cover on 17 dots.)
one of my top 10 albums of EVER.
“My woeful New York Mets used the song as a sort of rallying cry during their playoff run in 2006.” – they did? where was i? perhaps they should have stuck with “Mojo Rising”
JTO your question is ridiculous, do you really expect an answer to that? There is probably music that fits that description added every week, if not every day…
porieux – female vocals , yes of course; Japanese language female vocals not so much on emusic. I was just curious to see if there would be any coverage of any Japanese music new arrivals (anything (Japanese) anyone thought was particularly worth mentioning). Any way I’ve sent a message to the official 17dots email for a more helpful answer. Sorry to bother anyone.
Holy Shit sean, you picked a winner
Has anyone else read the emusic user reviews
“”Emusic rules!”
peterfrederics
Emusic all is forgiven. If we continue to get all time classics like this album, I for one am willing to pay more per track. Highly recommended,
”
Clap-Clap Woo Hoo
I officially love this album. What other classic albums do we have that I’d normally be too snobby to explore?
Just seeing this now p-clark. Do yourself a favor, if you haven’t already. The song “Telephone Line.”