Odessey and Oracle
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| Studio album by The Zombies | |||||||
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admission |
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 Columbia Records Date Records
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Format (s) |
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Title (number) |
12 |
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running time |
35:18 |
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Studio (s) |
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Odessey and Oracle is the second studio album by the British rock band The Zombies and was released in April 1968 by Columbia Records .
Emergence
Most of the album was recorded between June and August in 1967 at Olympic Studios in south London. The band received previously due to unsuccessful contract renewal with their old label Decca Records and switched to Columbia Records . In contrast to their debut album Begin Here , which was more of a compilation of their early singles and also contained some cover versions, Odessey and Oracle was completely self-written.
In November 1967, the song Changes was finally completed in Abbey Road Studios . The band broke up before the album was released, so Odessey and Oracle was the Zombies' last album until their reunion in 1990.
The spelling mistake in the title ( Odessey instead of Odyssey ) goes back to Terry Quirk, designer of the cover .
Track list
page A
- 1. Care of Cell 44 (Rod Argent) - 3:56
- 2. A Rose for Emily (Argent) - 2:19
- 3. Maybe After He's Gone (Chris White) - 2:33
- 4. Beechwood Park (White) - 2:43
- 5. Brief Candles (White) - 3:30
- 6. Hung Up on a Dream (Argent) - 3:01
Side B
- 7. Changes (White) - 3:19
- 8. I Want Her, She Wants Me (Argent) - 2:51
- 9. This Will Be Our Year (White) - 2:08
- 10. Butcher's Tale (Western Front 1914) (White) - 2:47
- 11. Friends of Mine (White) - 2:17 am
- 12. Time of the Season (Argent) - 3:33
The album was re-released on CD by Repertoire Records in 2004 and contains 16 bonus tracks in addition to these twelve songs . These include titles such as Gotta Get a Hold of Myself (1966), Goin 'Out of My Head (1967) and Imagine the Swan (1969), which the Zombies only released on vinyl single at the time .
meaning
| source | rating |
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| Allmusic |
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| Pitchfork Media |
 
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Odessey and Oracle initially sold disappointingly, but in retrospect it is considered a classic and appears in many leaderboards. In the German edition of Rolling Stone the album ranks 87th of the 500 best albums of all time and in the English edition it ranks 100th. The German-language publication writes: "The unmistakable sound of the zombies was equal parts beat and rhythm & blues, and its main building blocks were Rod Argents bluesy, jazzy keyboards and Colin Blunstone's soft voice. [...] the result of this ingenious song dance [was] overwhelming. "
In the New Musical Express selection of the 500 best albums of all time, it ranks 145th. The magazine also selected the album as 32nd of the 100 best British albums.
Pitchfork Media lists Odessey and Oracle at # 47 in the Top 200 Albums of the 1960s. Care of Cell 44 ranks 98th and This Will Be Our Year 40th of the 200 best songs of the decade.
Care of Cell 44 , the first track on the album, was covered by Elliott Smith and Of Montreal , among others .
The song Time of the Season was belatedly turned into a hit single in the USA and later also covered by well-known artists such as the Dave Matthews Band or Sage Francis . He can also be heard in an episode of the television series The Simpsons and in the trailer for Ridley Scott's film Alles Geld der Welt .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Review by Bruce Eder on allmusic.com (February 1, 2019)
- ↑ Review by Liam Singer on pitchfork.com (February 1, 2019)
- ↑ 500 Greatest Albums of All Time on rollingstone.com (February 1, 2019)
- ↑ Rolling Stone: The 500 Best Albums of All Time (2003)
- ↑ The 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time on nme.com (February 1, 2019)
- ↑ NME 100 Greatest British Albums Ever! - 2006 on rocklistmusic.co.uk (February 1, 2019)
- ↑ The 200 Best Albums of the 1960s on pitchfork.com (February 1, 2019)
- ↑ The 200 Best Songs of the 1960s on pitchfork.com (February 1, 2019)