Forever Changes

In 1966, Love released two albums: a self-titled debut album and Da Capo. Both were moderately successful, as were the singles "My Little Red Book" and "7 and 7 Is"; however, success was halted by bandleader Arthur Lee's refusal to tour. Lee expressed a fear of leaving the band's home city, Los Angeles. For Da Capo, Love had expanded from five members to seven in order to experiment with a more jazz-influenced style. However, shortly after the album released, Lee decided the experiment had run its course and fired saxophonist/flautist Tjay Cantrelli and drummer-turned-keyboardist Alban "Snoopy" Pfisterer. The Forever Changes lineup of Love comprised Lee, Bryan MacLean (rhythm guitar), Johnny Echols (lead guitar), Ken Forssi (bass guitar), and Michael Stuart (drums). By 1967, the band was facing major internal conflicts. Echols explained: "We were [before] totally united: living together, practicing together, and playing together. [...] But as more people started to recognize the group, there became these little factions. Arthur had his little clique, Bryan had his [...] They began to pull the group apart." Lee's relationship with MacLean, Love's other songwriter, was deteriorating. In a 1992 interview, Lee spoke of him and MacLean "competing a bit like Lennon and McCartney to see who would come up with the better song. It was part of our charm. Everybody had different behaviour patterns. Eventually, the others couldn't cut it". Love were also at odds with their label, Elektra Records. After recording Da Capo, the band attempted for a third time to sever their contract with the label. The resulting May 1967 agreement required them to produce one more album. Throughout 1967, Lee also grew envious of the success of fellow Elektra band the Doors, whom he had been integral in getting signed. However, it has been countered that the Doors were more willing to work on the road than Lee. Inspiration Lee's material for Forever Changes was drawn from his lifestyle and environment, which contrasted greatly from the typical hippie culture of the time. The songs reflected upon dark themes, such as paranoia, the Vietnam War, race issues in the US, societal breakdown, and the negative effects of drug use. In his 33 1/3 book on the album, Andrew Hultkrans explained Lee's frame of mind at the time: "Arthur Lee was one member of the '60s counterculture who didn't buy flower-power wholesale, who intuitively understood that letting the sunshine in wouldn't instantly vaporize the world's (or his own) dark stuff". With the band in disarray, and increasingly concerned over his own mortality, Lee envisioned Forever Changes as a lament to his memory. ==Recording and style==

Having already engineered the group's first two albums, Bruce Botnick was enlisted to oversee the production of the third album along with Lee. Botnick, who had also worked with Buffalo Springfield, invited Neil Young to co-produce the album, but Young, after initially agreeing, excused himself from the project. As Botnick recalled, "Neil really had the burning desire to go solo and realize his dream without being involved in another band". According to AllMusic, the band embraced "a more gentle, contemplative, and organic sound on Forever Changes," with much of the album "built around interwoven acoustic guitar textures and subtle orchestrations, with strings and horns both reinforcing and punctuating the melodies." Stephen M. Deusner of Pitchfork stated that Lee paired his "dark, discomfiting lyrics" with music that draws from rock, psychedelia, folk, pop, classical, and mariachi influences without being reducible to any of those labels. Love started recording Forever Changes in June 1967 at Sunset Sound Recorders. However, beginning with the early recording sessions, the band was plagued by internal conflicts and lack of preparation for Lee's intricate arrangements. Through Holzman's perspective, Botnick was an "album savior", guiding and motivating the musicians out of their trying period. To compel the band to refocus, Botnick and Lee enlisted Wrecking Crew session musicians Billy Strange (guitar), Don Randi (piano), Hal Blaine (drums), and Carol Kaye (bass guitar) to work with Lee, completing the rhythm tracks for "Andmoreagain" and "The Daily Planet" in a single three-hour session. According to the staff of BrooklynVegan, the tensions between Arthur Lee and Bryan MacLean "made for a unique energy" present on the album, said to be "[running] electric." The site described the album's production as "sweeping [and] baroque." NME wrote that the album is "joyous, uplifting and sweet in parts, while at the same time menacing, introverted and paranoid." == Title and artwork ==

The title of the album came from a break-up Lee had with his girlfriend. She said, "But you said you would love me forever?" and he replied, "Yeah well, you know, forever changes." The album's title has also been interpreted as meaning Love Forever Changes. The album's front cover, designed by Bob Pepper, shows the faces of all five members of the band in the shape of a human heart. Fans have also seen it as the shape of Africa. The back cover photo was taken by the band's manager Ronnie Haran, at Lee's house after one of the rehearsals. While taking photos, Haran accidentally knocked over and broke a flower vase. Lee picked it up and is shown holding it in the final product. Some have interpreted the broken vase and dead flowers as symbolizing the "death of flower power", though Lee denied that it had any deeper meaning. == Release, commercial performance, and aftermath ==

Released in November 1967, Forever Changes initially only achieved moderate commercial success. It peaked at number 154 in the US, the lowest showing of a Love album up to that point. == Critical reception ==

Contemporaneous reviews advertisement, January 27, 1968Initial reviews were positive. Writing for Rolling Stone in 1968, Jim Bickhart regarded Forever Changes'' as Love's "most sophisticated album yet", applauding the orchestral arrangements and recording quality. In Esquire, Robert Christgau called it an elaboration on Love's original musical style and "a vast improvement" over their previous recordings, because "Lee has stopped trying to imitate Mick Jagger with his soft voice, and the lyrics, while still obscure, now have an interesting surface as well." Pete Johnson of the Los Angeles Times believed the album could "survive endless listening with no diminishing either of power or of freshness", adding that "parts of the album are beautiful; others are disturbingly ugly, reflections of the pop movement towards realism". Gene Youngblood of LA Free Express also praised the album, calling it "melancholy iconoclasm and tasteful romanticism." Harvey Kubernik believed that the reaction to Forever Changes in Los Angeles was comparable to that of the Beatles' ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' in the UK. Retrospective acclaim After the initial reactions to Forever Changes died down, the album maintained a cult following, with Richie Unterberger calling it "the biggest cult album of all time, its following just growing and growing through subsequent decades and generations." Biographer John Einarson agrees, adding that "its reputation as one of the greatest albums of all time has been built almost exclusively by rediscovery and word of mouth." In a retrospective review, AllMusic stated that the album "became recognized as one of the finest and most haunting albums to come out of the Summer of Love," calling it "an album that heralds the last days of a golden age and anticipates the growing ugliness that would dominate the counterculture in 1968 and 1969." In a special issue of Mojo magazine, Forever Changes was ranked the second greatest psychedelic album of all time. In the January 1996 issue, Mojo readers selected Forever Changes as number 11 on the "100 Greatest Albums Ever Made". In 2002, members of the UK Parliament signed a motion declaring Forever Changes "the greatest album of all time". In a survey of 1960s folk rock, Richie Unterberger named the album his second favorite of the genre, but only 24th in terms of historical importance. == Reissues ==

Forever Changes was included in its entirety on the 2-CD retrospective Love compilation Love Story 1966–1972, released by Rhino Records in 1995. The album was re-released in an expanded single-CD version by Rhino in 2001, featuring alternate mixes, outtakes and the group's 1968 single, "Your Mind and We Belong Together"/"Laughing Stock", the final tracks ever to feature the Forever Changes line-up of Arthur Lee, Johnny Echols, Ken Forssi, Michael Stuart-Ware and Bryan MacLean (Forssi and MacLean both died in 1998). The Forever Changes Concert was released on DVD in 2003 and marked the first time many of the songs had been performed live. The set features the entire album performed in its original running order, recorded in early 2003 during Lee's tour of England, in which he was backed by the band Baby Lemonade and members of the Stockholm Strings 'n' Horns ensemble. The DVD features the album concert, five bonus performances, documentary footage and an interview with Lee. A double-CD "Collector's Edition" of the album was issued by Rhino Records on April 22, 2008. The first disc consists of a remastered version of the original 1967 album. The second disc contains a previously unissued alternate stereo mix of the album, plus ten bonus tracks. A Super High Material CD (SHM-CD) version of Forever Changes was released by Warner Music Japan in 2009, and a 24 bit 192 kHz High Resolution version of the album was released by HDTracks in 2014, and in the same year a hybrid Super Audio CD (SACD) version of the album was released by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab. A 50th anniversary deluxe edition box set was released by Rhino on April 6, 2018, featuring four CDs, a DVD and an LP. It contains remastered versions of the stereo, mono and alternate stereo mixes of the album, a disc of demos, outtakes, alternate mixes and non-album tracks, a DVD containing a 24/96 stereo mix of the album and a bonus music video, and a new LP remaster of the album, remastered by Bruce Botnick and cut from high resolution audio by Bernie Grundman. ==Legacy==

Forever Changes was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008 and added to the National Recording Registry in 2011. Rolling Stone ranked it number 180 on its 2020 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The album was also included in Robert Christgau's "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings, published in ''Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies'' (1981). It was voted number 12 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums 3rd Edition (2000). In 2013, NME ranked the album number 37 on their list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Publishers such as AllMusic and Slant Magazine have praised the album as well. In a 2005 survey held by British television's Channel 4, the album was ranked 83rd in the 100 greatest albums of all time. The album was included in the 2005 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. According to NME, the Stone Roses' relationship with their future producer John Leckie was settled when they all agreed that Forever Changes was the "best record ever". Robert Plant is an admirer of the album.{{cite news The staff of BrooklynVegan named the album as the best psychedelic rock album of the Summer of Love, and NME named the album as the greatest psychedelic album of all time. ==Track listing==

All songs written by Arthur Lee, except "Alone Again Or" and "Old Man" by Bryan MacLean. Details are taken from the 50th Anniversary Edition. Bonus track "Wooly Bully" written by Sam Samudio. 2001 Rhino bonus tracks A single disc collection, presenting the original stereo album, remastered, plus the following bonus tracks: '''2008 Rhino "Collector's Edition" bonus tracks''' A two-disc collection. Disc 1 presents the original stereo album, remastered, while disc 2 is a previously unreleased alternate stereo mix of the album, featuring the following bonus tracks: 2018 "50th Anniversary Edition" bonus discs A box set comprising four CDs, one LP and one DVD: disc 2 presents the original mono album, remastered; disc 3 is the alternate stereo mix; disc 4 is outtakes, single versions, demos, session highlights and non album tracks from the era; disc 5 is the original stereo album on vinyl, remastered and cut from high resolution audio; and disc 6 is a 24/96 stereo mix on DVD, featuring a bonus music video. ==Personnel==

According to the 2001 reissue CD booklet. Love • Arthur Lee – guitar, vocals • Bryan MacLean – guitar, vocals • Johnny Echols – guitar • Ken Forssi – bass guitar • Michael Stuart-Ware – drums, percussion Additional musicians • Carol Kaye – bass guitar on "Andmoreagain" and "The Daily Planet" • Don Randi – keyboards on "Andmoreagain" and "The Daily Planet"; piano on "Old Man" and "Bummer in the Summer"; harpsichord on "The Red Telephone" • Billy Strange – electric guitar on "Andmoreagain" and "The Daily Planet" • Hal Blaine – drums on "Andmoreagain" and "The Daily Planet" • Neil Young – arranger on "The Daily Planet" • David Angel – arranger • Robert Barene, Arnold Belnick, James Getzoff, Marshall Sosson, Darrel Terwilliger – violin • Norman Botnick – viola • Jesse Ehrlich – cello • Chuck Berghofer – double bass • Bud Brisbois, Roy Caton, Ollie Mitchell – trumpet • Richard Leith – trombone Production and design ==Charts==