Word: sounding
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (Columbia). The name this group chose for themselves may sound a bit square and their topics-sex, drugs and what's wrong with the U.S. -are hardly novel. Yet the gut level lyrics and third stream rock accompaniment are inventive and challenging. The ring modulator and Durrott Synthesizer, electronic instruments, are used as if they were invented for this group...
LUMPY GRAVY: FRANK ZAPPA AND THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION (Verve). Long before the Beatles turned acid with Sgt. Pepper, the Mothers were setting a new rock trend with their first release, entitled Freak Out. This is Album No. 4, and their musical anarchy of electronic sound, dialogue, parody, rock improvisation and jazz has developed into a vastly complex style unparalleled on the rock scene. It's not for dancing. Just lend...
AERIAL BALLET: NILSSON (RCA Victor). While most rock singers sound like so many caterwauling cats conjugating the verb "to be," Nilsson, 25, sings with clear honesty and lack of pretense. He has composed a highly creative rock-vaudeville show with all the acts: a tap number, a cowboy ballad, a torch song, and an acrobatic display of vocal jazz scatting. Altogether an excellent performance despite an overlying, oddly out-of-place air of melancholy that sometimes threatens to spoil...
SONG CYCLE: VAN DYKE PARKS (Warner Bros.). Van Dyke Parks sings a surrealist's dream in a voice so innocent as to draw any listener into his experience. He has experimented with the usual recording technique by taping voice upon melody upon stereophonic sound effects, then mirroring it back at varying speeds until it becomes a collage of sound light-years away from a "live" performance. What does it matter if the lyrics are opaque at times? The effect is all shimmering beauty...
Those who wanted to could find less obvious signals bearing a slightly different message. Only one sentence in the platform's domestic-policy section appeared in boldface type: "We will not tolerate violence!" Somehow Nixon manages to sound more forceful and specific in emphasizing the need for law and order than in pleading for social justice. The targets of his acceptance speech are the "forgotten Americans, the non-shouters, the non-demonstrators." They are "good people. They're decent people. They work and they save and they pay their taxes and they care...