Byrdmaniax is the tenth album by the American rock band the Byrds. It was released in June 1971 on Columbia Records at a time of renewed commercial and critical success for the band, due to the positive reception that their two previous albums, Ballad of Easy Rider and (Untitled), had received. The album was the second by the Byrds to feature the Roger McGuinn, Clarence White, Gene Parsons, and Skip Battin line-up of the band and was mostly recorded in early 1971, while the band were in the midst of an exhausting tour schedule. As a result, the band had little time to hone their new songs before recording commenced and thus, much of the material on the album is underdeveloped. The song "I Trust (Everything Is Gonna Work Out Alright)" was released as a preceding single on May 7, 1971, in the United Kingdom but it did not chart. Byrdmaniax remains one of the Byrds' most poorly received album releases, largely due to the incongruous addition of strings, horns, and a gospel choir which were overdubbed onto the songs by producer Terry Melcher and arranger Paul Polena, reportedly without the band's consent.
Overview
After the release of the Byrds' (Untitled) album, the band continued to tour extensively throughout late 1970 and early 1971 in support of the record. With the band's career experiencing a revival of commercial fortunes, the Byrds elected to continue working with Terry Melcher, who had produced the band's two previous albums. Unfortunately, the grueling pace of the band's touring schedule meant that they were under-prepared for the recording of their next album, with little or no time to develop the material that they intended to include. The album's pre-release working title was Expensive, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the bloated costs incurred during the recording of the album, but ultimately this was dropped in favor of the less opulent sounding Byrdmaniax.
Music
Among guitarist Roger McGuinn's songwriting contributions to the album was the modal acoustic ballad "Pale Blue" (co-written with drummer Gene Parsons). With its melancholy sense of longing, folksy instrumentation, and sensitive lead vocal performance, "Pale Blue" is often regarded by critics as being one of the most successful musical statements on the album as well as something of a lost classic among the Byrds' oeuvre. "Kathleen's Song" had, in fact, been recorded in June 1970 during the recording sessions for (Untitled) but had been omitted from that album at the eleventh hour, due to a lack of space. As a result, there are promo copies of (Untitled) known to exist that list the song (under the abbreviated title "Kathleen") on the album sleeve. The Byrds returned to "Kathleen's Song" in January and March 1971, undertaking additional recording work in order to ready the track for release on Byrdmaniax. The song found a second lease of life away from the confines of Gene Tryp, however, when its satirical lyrics found favor with America's radical youth, who were rebelling against the Nixon administration during the early 1970s. Unfortunately, the inclusion of these two songs, along with McGuinn and Levy's jaunty "I Wanna Grow Up to Be a Politician", caused the album to suffer from an overabundance of pastiche and whimsy.
The album's opening track, "Glory, Glory", was borrowed by drummer Gene Parsons from the repertoire of The Art Reynolds Singers, just as "Jesus Is Just Alright" on Ballad of Easy Rider had been. Despite featuring a striking piano part and strong gospel backing vocals, the song lacked the immediacy of "Jesus Is Just Alright", as producer Terry Melcher admitted in a 1977 interview: "We were aiming to cut another 'Jesus Is Just Alright', but we didn't make it. Larry Knechtel played piano on this cut but it was too fast. The whole thing was a mess."
In addition to the eleven songs included on the original LP, at least two outtakes from the album sessions are known to exist: a recording of Bob Dylan's "Just Like a Woman"—which had also been attempted during the (Untitled) recording sessions—and a cover of ex-Byrd Gene Clark's "Think I'm Gonna Feel Better".
Post-production
Following the completion of recording sessions for the album in early March 1971, the Byrds headed out on tour again, leaving Terry Melcher and engineer Chris Hinshaw to finish mixing the album.
| rev3 = The Encyclopedia of Popular Music
| rev3Score =
| rev4 = Entertainment Weekly
| rev4Score = B+
Byrdmaniax was released on June 23, 1971, in the United States (catalogue number KC 30640) and August 6, 1971, in the United Kingdom (catalogue number S 64389). The quadraphonic version of the album features a noticeably different mix to the standard stereo version.
The album peaked at number 46 on the Billboard Top LPs chart, during a chart stay of ten weeks, but failed to chart in the UK. A single, "I Trust (Everything Is Gonna Work Out Alright)" b/w "(Is This) My Destiny", was released ahead of the album on May 7, 1971, in the UK, to coincide with a European tour, but it did not chart. These foreboding plaster facemasks, which were created by artist Mary Leonard and photographed by Don Jim, have been regarded by some critics as an accurate visual representation of the lifeless music on the album and the declining state of the band in 1971. Meltzer concluded his withering attack by deriding the Byrds themselves as "a boring dead group." Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke remarked in 2000 that Byrdmaniax suffered not just from Melcher's inappropriate orchestration, but also from being a Byrds' album that is almost totally bereft of the Byrds' signature sound.
Byrdmaniax was again reissued in Japan in the Blu-Spec High Definition audio format on February 14, 2014. Bonus tracks Include the Mono promotional single version of 'Glory, Glory', a live version of 'I Trust', the previously released bonus tracks of 'Think I'm Gonna Feel better' and 'Just Like A Woman', and a newly uncovered studio song 'Nothin' To it'. The disc comes in a cd-sized gatefold paper sleeve album replica (Mini LP) with obi strip and booklet insert of notes (mostly in Japanese).
Actual track durations are given in the booklet insert.
Track listing
Side 1
- "Glory, Glory" (Arthur Reynolds) – 4:03
- "Pale Blue" (Roger McGuinn, Gene Parsons) – 2:22
- "I Trust" (Roger McGuinn) – 3:19
- "Tunnel of Love" (Skip Battin, Kim Fowley) – 4:59
- "Citizen Kane" (Skip Battin, Kim Fowley) – 2:36
Side 2
- "I Wanna Grow Up to Be a Politician" (Roger McGuinn, Jacques Levy) – 2:03
- "Absolute Happiness" (Skip Battin, Kim Fowley) – 2:38
- "Green Apple Quick Step" (Gene Parsons, Clarence White) – 1:49
- "My Destiny" (Helen Carter) – 3:38
- "Kathleen's Song" (Roger McGuinn, Jacques Levy) – 2:40
- "Jamaica Say You Will" (Jackson Browne) – 3:27
2000 CD reissue bonus tracks
Singles
- "I Trust (Everything Is Gonna Work Out Alright)" b/w "(Is This) My Destiny" (CBS 7253) May 7, 1971
- "Glory, Glory" b/w "Citizen Kane" (Columbia 45440) August 20, 1971 (US #110)
Personnel
NOTES:
- Sources for this section are as follows: