123. Iron Butterfly - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968)





















Track Listing

1. Most Anything You Want
2. Flowers And Beads
3. My Mirage
4. Termination
5. Are You Happy
6. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

Review

This is like the bestest album in the worlds! Not really, no. Although it certainly was the first certified Platinum album, with huge sales. Now it just sounds both extremely dates, pretty poor in terms of quality and very masturbatory.

If there is anthing you can associate with this album is masturbation, it's fun, but not ultimately satisfying. And the fucking crappy pretentiousness of the songs, particularly the title one is not backed up by any kind of talent. Thew lyrics are risible, my cat could do a better drum solo and it never stops! That said, it is also the best song in the album.

The other tracks are completely unremarkable, at least In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is remarkable, remarkably long, remarkably crappy but also remarkably enjoyable. It just goes over the edge of bad into the edge of good, but done with no self-counsciousness. These guys really thought they were the second coming. And that makes it even more risible, and there are touches of genius, the organ solo goes into Good King Wenceslas, the lyrics are a poor drunken effort to rite something meaningful. It oozes pretentiousness and it is lovable for all that. And you can't stop singing "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Honey...", It is infuriatingly catchy. But, as an album it does not work, all other tracks are run of the mill crap, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is crap but never run of the mill.

This is not an album that you'll either hate or love, it is a 17 minute track that you'll both hate and love. Buy it, if you must, at UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

Final Grade

5/10

Trivia

Hugh Hefner presents Iron Butterfly:



From Wikipedia:


* "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" was featured in the Simpsons episode Bart Sells His Soul, where Bart switched hymns in the church. It was renamed "In the Garden of Eden" by "I. Ron Butterfly". The song also features in the climax of the movie Manhunter.

* "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" was played extensively during the opening scenes in "The Tribe" (episode 16, first season) of the Criminal Minds series.

* "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" was included in American comedian Wayne Federman's electric ukulele rock medley, beginning in 1986. A version was shown on Comedy Central.

* When Iron Butterfly reformed in 1968 after a brief split, musicians rumored to have been interested in joining as lead guitarist include Neil Young, Jeff Beck, and Michael Monarch. Doug Ingle and Ron Bushy eventually decided upon Erik Brann.

* Led Zeppelin opened for Iron Butterfly. A year to the day later Iron Butterfly opened for Led Zeppelin.

* In the TV series Roseanne, Roseanne makes a reference to an Iron Butterfly concert. In another episode, John Goodman sings the song during a power outage.

* In a Christmas episode of Wings, Lowell is playing the drums (off-camera) in the hangar. Faye calls Lowell into the terminal and asks him what he was playing. Lowell replies: "That was the drum solo to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"

* The guitar riff is played by Ray Romano's cousin with his accordion in an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond.

* In the movie Freddy's Dead, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida plays during a dream sequence involving the stoner character Spence