0115. The Byrds
Fifth Dimension
When my music history teacher mentioned this album his main description was that it was made for "smoking pot to" (his punchline accompanying anything "alternative"). The only reason was probably that it contains a track called Eight Miles High (thus putting him in the same "enlightened" league as some sixties american radio broadcasters).
Silly people aside, Fifth Dimension is a relatively uneven psychedelic folk music album of original songs blended with covers and traditional folksongs. The big thing for this album though, is that they'd been cramped by their main writer, Gene Clark, leaving the band (his only contributions are on Eight Miles High and the instrumental jam Captain Soul - arguably the album's best songs ) and thus the others had to step in to fill his proverbial shoes.
Also this is their first album without any Bob Dylan-songs, but don't worry a couple of the songs still sound heavily influenced by him. Their cover of Wild Mountain Thyme however, has more than an echo of their hit from the previous year, Turn! Turn! Turn! (also a cover). I don't really know what to make of it, but it's okay anyway. By the way: I'd be a bit surprised if the final track, 2-4-2 Fox Trot (The Lear Jet Song), didn't serve as inspiration for at least one Hawkwind jam.
