Tuesday, April 06, 2010

1101 - Mojo 118. Billy Nicholls - Would You Believe (1968)





















Track Listing

1. Would You Believe
2. Come Again
3. Life Is Short
4. Feeling Easy
5. Daytime Girl
6. Daytime Girl (2)
7. London Social Degree
8. Portobello Road
9. Question Mark
10. Being Happy
11. Girl From New York
12. It Brings Me Down

Review

A surprising album on this list, sometimes there's still stuff I haven't heard of and that I end up really liking. Billy Nicholls tries to make the UK Pet Sounds... he doesn't quite manage it but is not that far off.

Some of the orchestrations are a bit over the top, but even so it ends up being a terrific album with some of the most beautiful and also heaviest sounds to have shown up on this Mojo list up until now. Girl from New York, has a metaly fuzzy guitar which sounds pretty great and heavy.

Sometimes these long lost pop-rarities show up just to disappoint, but this is certainly not the case. A truly great piece of Psych-pop which we can cherish in a way they didn't in 1968. Great Stuff.

Track Highlights


1. Girl From New York
2. Would You Believe
3. London Social Degree
4. It Brings Me Down

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The Small Faces' Steve Marriott can be heard very prominently on "Would You Believe?", despite Oldham's attempts to drown them out with heavy orchestration. Oldham wanted this to be the British Pet Sounds but financial difficulties with the label caused it to be shelved (it only achieved an initial promotional run of 100 copies, as Immediate IMCP009) before it ever hit the streets.

Girl From New York:

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