119. The Byrds — The Notorious Byrd Brothers (1968)

Minus David Crosby

1. This is an interesting case — the fourth Byrds album on the list so far (which is a bit much, in my humble opinion) and the most cohesive, yet also lacking anything particularly stand-out. It’s a blessing and a curse; I like the trade-off of making a fully fleshed out album over a handful of great singles, but I’m also not going to return to the material here as often.
2. It’s interesting that this album comes from such a singular vision because by all accounts, its creation was anything but. One member of the band was fired (David Crosby — pretty important member!) and another left voluntarily during recording. The songs have a hodgepodge of writers, including Carol King (who co-wrote the two best songs here). The music itself uses a broad array of studio techniques. These things together should result in a scattered album, but everything here feels very intentional. It’s impressive.
3. I cheated and looked ahead, and we’ve got another Byrds record on the way. I also took a look at Wikipedia and found that by 1969, the only remaining original member of the band was Roger McGuinn. Very Billy Corgan/Smashing Pumpkins of him to continue the band as effectively a solo project!

One Essential Song:

Listen on Spotify: