Born To Be Burned

The Great! Society

Released on 1995-01-01 by Rhino
Main artists: The Great! Society
Genre: Rock

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An interesting if marginal collection of previously unreleased material from late 1965. Recorded at a pretty early stage in the band's development, this is largely comprised of demos that the group recorded during their short-lived association with the Autumn label. Both the songwriting and execution are pretty sketchy and tentative, sounding considerably closer to garage rock than their later psychedelic recordings. Certainly there's a fair amount of promise here, particularly in the songs by Grace and Darby Slick, which far outshine the basic Rolling Stonesy derivations by the band's other songwriter, David Miner. Miner, a below-average garage growler, unfortunately shared the lead vocal duties with the immeasurably superior Grace Slick, who already sounds searing and confident. But unlike Collector's Item, which contains some of the finest (and most unjustly overlooked) psychedelic music ever recorded, this is really mostly of interest to scholars and collectors. The material is far weaker here, and the ragaish Indian influences that characterized their most innovative work had yet to surface. It does include some songs that also appear on Collector's Item ("Born to Be Burned," "Daydream Nightmare," "That's How It Is," "Father Bruce"), but these versions are far more skeletal and less forceful. The highlight is their lone, rare single, which featured the first (pre-Jefferson Airplane) version of "Somebody to Love" and the flipside "Free Advice," one of the first examples of raga-rock.

© Richie Unterberger /TiVo

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Born To Be Burned

The Great! Society

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Free Advice (LP Version)