If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears
| If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears | ||||
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| Studio album by The Mamas & the Papas | ||||
| Released | March 1966 | |||
| Recorded | 1965 – 1966 | |||
| Genre | Pop rock, folk rock, psychedelic pop, sunshine pop | |||
| Length | 33:42 | |||
| Label | Dunhill | |||
| Producer | Lou Adler | |||
| The Mamas & the Papas chronology | ||||
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| Singles from If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| Rolling Stone | |
If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears is the 1966 debut album by The Mamas & the Papas (spelled "The Mama's and the Papa's" on the cover). In 2003, it was ranked #127 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
The stereo mix of the album is included in its entirety on All the Leaves are Brown (2001), a 2-CD retrospective compilation of the band's first four albums and various singles, as well as on The Mamas & the Papas Complete Anthology (2004), a 4-CD box set collection released in the UK.
The mono mix of the album was remastered and reissued on vinyl by Sundazed Records in 2010, and on CD the following year.
If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears is one of the first albums to have several different covers. The first cover features the group in a bathroom sitting in a bathtub with a toilet in the corner. Copies with this cover were pulled from stores after the toilet was declared indecent. The remaining covers featuring the toilet have since become collector's items. with one copy selling at auction for $300 [1]. A second album cover was released with a scroll over the toilet listing the presence of "California Dreamin'" on the album. Two more songs were later added to the scroll/box over the toilet. Still later, a Gold Record Award blurb was added (in black) to the left of the group. Finally, a later album cover was released with a closely cropped shot of the band surrounded by a black border that removed any hint that the picture was taken in a bathroom. Cover art produced and shot by photographer Guy Webster.
The album received a positive retrospective review in Rolling Stone, where critic Rob Sheffield remarked "The Mamas and the Papas celebrated all the sin and sleaze of Sixties L.A. with folksy harmonies, acoustic guitars and songs that told inquiring minds way more than they wanted to know. And on their January 1966 debut, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears, they somehow made it all sound groovy." He described the album as a dark look at L.A. culture which sounds accessible and optimistic thanks in large part to Lou Adler's production. Bruce Eder wrote in Allmusic that the album "embraced folk-rock, pop/rock, pop, and soul, and also reflected the kind of care that acts like the Beatles were putting into their records at the time." He added that it had a stronger polish than The Mamas and the Papas' other albums, in part because it predated the personal conflicts which tainted their later works.The album was included in Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
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Wikipedia