Artist Rating: 91%
Peak Album Score: 25
Average Album Score: 18
Development Score: 10
- The shift from crappy blues covers to brilliant pop songs and then to a shimmering "Bach 'n' Roll" album is at least noteworthy...
Originality Score: 10
- The aforementioned "Bach 'n' Roll" kind of takes care of this, but it wasn't even the band's first or biggest revolution; their debut single, "She's Not There", was so majestically ahead of its time (a jazz-driven, minor key pop tune with multiple organ solos in 1964?!) that it just blew everybody's minds. Plus, most of the group's early singles really are as good as (or, God forbid, better than) The Beatles' contemporary ones.
Personal Bias Score: 28
- While it's a little cliché to sing the praises of great bands that should have been, The Zombies really earn that title. With all the talent of a Brian Wilson, the band hardly managed to get out one good official release. Nonetheless, their body of work is among the most thrilling of the whole rock era.
Begin Here (1965) - 59%
Just as bad as The Kinks debut, and substantially more underrepresentative of the group's abilities, Begin Here is a steaming pile of shit with the INCREDIBLE single "She's Not There" shoved in the middle. Give a listen to The Zombies' concurrent singles (of which there were many), and you'll be as mad as I am that they packed their album with awful blues covers instead of with beautiful, sophisticated pop tunes. Ugh.
Highlights: "She's Not There"
On the eve of the band's demise, they decided to head into the studio and record one of the greatest pop albums of all time. Good call, man. Colin Blunstone continues to be one of my favorite vocalists ever, with a smokey upper-baritone that makes these already beautiful songs twice as good as they'd otherwise be. And he proves himself diverse, too, as every song really does have its own vibe: classical elegance ("A Rose for Emily", "Brief Candles"), dark groovin' ("Time of the Season"), hazy catharsis ("Hung Up on a Dream"), heartwarming nostalgia ("Beechwood Park"), utter terror ("Butcher's Tale"), and just plain catchiness (the rest). Of course, so many of the album's best tracks are sufficiently sophisticated as to almost shame the ones that don't try to be (which might account for why it feels a little uneven towards the end - "I Want Her She Wants Me" doesn't sit so well close to "The Butcher's Tale"), but the songs are all brilliant, pop or not.
- Highlights: "Care of Cell 44", "A Rose for Emily", "Beechwood Park", "Hung Up on a Dream", "Butcher's Tale", "Time of the Season"
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BONUS: The Early Singles - 97%
Turns out, The Zombies were an incredible early-60's singles band, too (forget Begin Here). So I decided to review their early singles collection (however I won't include it on the master list or band rating, since it isn't an album). Unsurprisingly, it stands up to Odessey and Oracle. Nearly every song is utterly fantastic (ironically, two of the 'lowlights' were chosen for Begin Here) and ridiculously fun to listen to; in fact, this may be one of my most-listened to albums of all. If you thought The Beatles were the only thing the early-60's had going for it, give this a listen.
Highlights: "She's Not There", "Leave Me Be", "Tell Her No", "You Make Me Feel Good", "Nothing's Changed", "I Love You", "Is This the Dream"
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