and never hit bottom and keep falling through just relaxed and payin' attention. Drifting along in space or down the rabbit hole or somewhere, "I opened my heart to the whole universe and found it was loving. It maintains some of the vibe of the previous folk-rock records, but something about the sideways lope of the chords and McGuinn's mystico-existentialist lyrics signal that "the High Sixties" is HERE NOW, bros & sisses. "5D (Fifth Dimension)" has a contribution from Van Dyke Parks somewhere, but I'm not sure what it is.
Jim "Raja" McGuinn is heroically trying to reinvent the sound of the electric guitar solo by playing off-the-wall "jazz" licks really feckin' loud on a 12-string Rickenbacher! You won't mistake the sound for the likes of Hendrix or the Who, in fact there is only one other record that jumps to my mind with a similar whiplash-cheapo mangled lead guitar sound, and that one's called "White Light / White Heat" (no foolin' - I'm sure Lou Reed was a closet Byrdmaniac too, but that's a whole nuther topic.) The crucial thing is that "Fifth Dimension" is a great GUITAR album - tastefully arranged folk standards are out and gonzo jazz-raga mangling is in. In fact a few tracks here are credited to the entire remaining quartet (McGuinn-Crosby-Hillman-Michael Clark if you're keeping score) which demonstrates a real change in their creative self-determination.Īs if this wasn't also signalled by the change from Western-block typeface to groovy colorful paisley for the band's name on the album cover - or the "magic carpet" the remaining four are standing on (and the paper cups of Kool Aid they are holding which may or may not be of the Electric Acid Test variety.) Crosby had only one co-writing credit on their second album (the unremarkable "Wait and See") and none on their first here there's one tune written solely by Crosby and four more where he's a co-writer. The Byrds' 3rd album is certainly inconsistent, and it's really short too (under 29 minutes in length.) But this is perhaps THE pivotal album in the band's career, as their previous records had a semi-prefab "POP GROUP" folky sound (in part courtesy of hired studio musicians) and featured a lot of traditional songs and covers (especially Bob Dylan tunes of course.) On "Fifth Dimension" they are leaving that behind and becoming a full-fledged and forward-thinking "ROCK BAND" whose influence would be as great as any band of their era.Īfter co-writing and singing on the early 1966 single "Eight Miles High" Gene Clark was out of the group, which was fortunate for David Crosby since he was able to step up and become a major voice in the band.
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