161. Tim Buckley - Happy Sad (1969)




















Track Listing

1. Strange Feeling
2. Buzzin' Fly
3. Love From Room 109 At The Islander
4. Dream Letter
5. Gypsy Woman
6. Sing A Song For You

Review

Still slightly ill, thanks for all the get better comments! Assholes.

Grandfather of whiny boys comes back with another oxymoronic title, after Goodbye and Hello reviewed here earlier. Yes, he is whiny, his album titles are shit and he is slightly annoying, but he makes good music, or at least some good music.

In this album Buckley goes much more Jazzy than before, this isn't a shift for better or worse, just a shift. In fact I prefer Goodbye and Hello to this album but they both end up being quite good. This album is basically fucked by Gypsy Woman which is too long and self-indulging for its own good.

While Love From Room 109 is almost as long as Gypsy Woman it is much better lyrically and musically and ends up being one of the best tracks in the album. In the end it is a very pretty album, with some good writing and a guy who is sounding like Fred Neil a lot, only a bit more whiny. Buy it from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Dream Letter
2. Love From Room 109 At The Islander
3. Strange Feelin'
4. Buzzin Fly

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

To all you Goths out there here's the original Song To The Siren... not in the album I know, but there's nothing from it on youtube and this song isn't on any album on the list... live at the Monkees!:



From Wikipedia:

In 1968, Buckley recorded the jazzy Happy Sad, which was released the following year, and alienated a large portion of his prior audience. Dissatisfied with playing the same old material continuously, and disenchanted with the music business that he felt was restraining him from producing new material, he began to weave in new songs into his performances, featuring a more stripped down sound from his heavily orchestrated first two albums, and introducing a vibraphone player into his band. However, this attempted rejuvenation was a failure; becoming largely based on improvisation, his performances were less accessible to the audiences who saw him as a folk-rock poster boy. However, despite the relative criticisms that his performances were to receive, Happy Sad became Tim's highest charting album ever, peaking at #81.