A recent thread (can’t remember if it was the cheese one or the unfashionable artists one) got me thinking about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and how they had this glorious disco second coming in the 70s (see also: Bee Gees). Poking around in their back catalogue on Spotify, I came across their 1969 concept album, The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette, a wildly ambitious and personal (and stupendously uncommercial, I should think) take on US life and politics of the time.

It wouldn’t be true to say that they’d gone psychedelic, more that their careers were on the skids, they were chafing under the restrictions of their own history, and they’d taken advantage of the new creative and artistic freedoms that the psychedelic era made possible. The music itself is more in the neighbourhood of MacArthur Park and other Jimmy Webb epics, with a bit of Van Dyke Parks thrown in – and of course the occasional sitar or wah-wah pedal. Have a listen to the title track (complete with Hey Jude quotes) and you’ll see what I mean.

This got me wondering if any other pop stalwarts from the early 60s had taken a similar route. Turns out » Continue Reading.