Eric Burdon & the Animals "Winds of Change" 1967*****

"The Black Plague" by Eric Burdon & The Animals keeps revolving in my mind since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a lively account of a medieval epidemic, totally out of synch with the rest of the album which is full of warm Summer Of Love vibes. I wonder what prompted Burdon to write something like that. One thing's for certain, neither he nor any of us could have guessed we'd be living through similar times in the 21st Century.

I discovered this album in 1988, and it immediately made my all-time Top Ten. It's still a favorite of mine, though the fact that it reminds me of my freshman year in the university may have something to do with it: many new friends, parties, late nights out, political discussions and discovering a lot of cool music. My (slightly older) girlfriend of the time was a bit of a hippy chick with a penchant for psychedelic rock, she was the one who introduced me to this album. Of course I already knew Eric Burdon, I had even seen him live earlier that year and was impressed by his soulful and energetic performance. But this was a different side of him, mellow and often introspective. You see, in 1967 he had recently met a little chemical called LSD and embraced a whole new philosophy and sound. On opener "Winds Of Change" he half-sings/half-murmurs lyrics drawing a straight line from jazz and blues pioneers to new counter-cultural icons (Zappa, Dylan, Ravi Shankar). This, and the following "Poem By The Sea" feature violin, sitar, gong, reverb-heavy vocals and guitars, and special effects (splashing waves, rustling wind etc). The latter segues into a majestic version of "Paint It Black" that arguably surpasses The Stones' original. Saturated in John Weider's electric violin (reminiscent here of John Cale's viola in early Velvet Underground) it starts off slow and builds in intensity with propulsive drumming and a passionate and dramatic vocal performance by Burdon. Its performance (and the unveiling of the New Animals) at the Monterey Pop festival and film was one of its highlights. It's followed by "The Black Plague", one of the weirdest pop songs in a mainstream rock album. It's a Gothic piece featuring acoustic guitars, Gregorian psalms, chiming bells and the recitation of a tale reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe's Masque Of The Red Death: The Black Death comes to a Medieval town and the peasants' bodies pile up everywhere while the rich lock themselves behind the sturdy castle walls hoping they will keep them safe. As big a contrast as one can find to the sunny vibes of "San Franciscan nights", a paean to Haight-Ashbury "flower children" that caught the zeitgeist and became a Top Ten hit on both sides of the Atlantic. "Anything", another mellow ballad, is a love song - to a lover, or to a friend, or to the whole wide world; the new "experienced" Eric Burdon loves everyone and everything, he says so on the album cover. "Yes I Am Experienced" refers of course to psychedelic drugs. It comes as a direct answer to (his friend) Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced?" and adopts a similar musical style. "Man-Woman" is an everyday tale of (extra) marital love recounted over some funky drumming and sparse electric guitar, seguing into wistful ballad "Hotel Hell" embellished with Spanish guitars and melancholic trumpets. The album's second single is "Good Times", a catchy and beautifully orchestrated tune about "all the good times that's been wasted having 'good' times" - i.e. drinking booze instead of dropping acid. The closing "It's All Meat" is the meatiest track of the LP, a funky hard rocker about one-ness or something similar. I can see why cynics abhor this album's hippy-dippy philosophies, but I applaud Burdon for his earnestness. You can see he means every word and isn't just jumping on the 1967 "Peace & Love" bandwagon (yes I mean you, Mick and Keith!). Musically the album is quite bold, featuring complex instrumentation and trying out many different styles, though not always successfully. 

The Double CD Edition of "Winds"..." and "The Twain..."

There's a CD reissue adding two nice R&B rockers in classic Animals style ("Ain’t That So" and "Gratefully Dead") which, while good, sound out of place here. Another reissue (which I have, no bonus tracks) couples this with its similarly-sounding successor The Twain Shall Meet. Usually if I owned an album both on vinyl and CD form, I'd sell the vinyl (yeah, I know...OK? No use rubbing it in now!). These two Animals albums, though, are among the few that survived the great vinyl purge - that shows appreciation! At best this is a psychedelic masterpiece, at worst it's a time capsule that transports you straight to the "Summer of Love" - in any case I don't see how you can go wrong with adding it to your collection.

***** for Paint It Black, San Franciscan Nights, Hotel Hell, Good Times

**** for Winds of Change, The Black Plague, Anything, It's All Meat

*** for Poem by the Sea, Yes I Am Experienced, Man-Woman