Moby Grape (album)
| Moby Grape | ||||||||||
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| Studio album by Moby Grape | ||||||||||
| Released | June 6, 1967 | |||||||||
| Recorded | CBS, Hollywood, CA; March 11 – April 25, 1967 | |||||||||
| Genre | Psychedelic rock | |||||||||
| Length | 30:47 | |||||||||
| Label | Columbia | |||||||||
| Producer | David Rubinson | |||||||||
| Moby Grape chronology | ||||||||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |  |
| Rolling Stone | |
| The Village Voice | A– |
Moby Grape is the 1967 debut album by rock band Moby Grape. Coming from the San Francisco scene, their reputation quickly grew to immense proportions, leading to a bidding war and a contract with Columbia Records. The album peaked at #24 on the Billboard 200 albums chart in September 1967.
Production began on Moby Grape in Los Angeles in March 1967. Produced by David Rubinson, it took just six weeks, and $11,000, from March 11 to April 25, to record all thirteen tracks and a fourteenth that was intended for the album but for which lyrics were never written ("Rounder").
The cover photograph is by noted rock photographer Jim Marshall. On the original release, Don Stevenson is shown "flipping the bird" (making an obscene gesture) on the washboard. It was airbrushed out on subsequent pressings, but the UK re-issue on Edsel/Demon restored it.
The flag behind Skip Spence is actually a United States flag that Columbia Records decided to obscure through airbrushing, presumably due to the political climate of the times. On the original release, the flag is colored red. When the cover was revised to remove the offending finger mentioned above, the flag was changed from red to black, again presumably due to possible political interpretations (the association of the color red with communism). The Edsel vinyl (1984) and CD (1989) re-issues restored the photo to its original state, with Don Stevenson's displayed finger and an un-airbrushed United States flag. Other CD re-issues use the cover from the first pressing, with the finger intact and the flag tinted red.
Released on June 6, 1967, Columbia chose also to place ten of the thirteen songs on five singles released on the same day: "Fall on You"/"Changes", "Sitting By the Window"/"Indifference" (2:46 edit), "8:05"/"Mister Blues", "Omaha"/"Someday" and "Hey Grandma"/Come in the Morning". Of these five, only "Omaha" and "Hey Grandma" charted.
Nevertheless, as Gene Sculatti and Davin Seay write in their book San Francisco Nights, Moby Grape "remains one of the very few psychedelic masterpieces ever recorded." Justin Farrar considered that "(i)t's no understatement to hail the group's 1967 debut as the ancestral link between psychedelia, country rock, glam, power pop and punk." In addition, the 1983 Rolling Stone Record Guide said their "debut LP is as fresh and exhilarating today as it was when it exploded out of San Francisco during 1967's summer of love." In 2003, the album was ranked number 121 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
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