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I think "Butcher's tale" was a US single for Odessey and Oracle.
Great song, but a single?

Yep, I know I it was recorded before the album over a year of so. A friend of mine mail ordered it at the time and it was what we had to listen to but somehow did not correspond to what was written about the band at the time and when the record came out it seemed like it was done by another band.

To say the least it is atypical of the material on the records or what they were doing live. It does not sound anything like the Eno version of Marquee Moon the numerous live recordings and live shows I have seen. It sounds more like Suicide meets the electric eels.

That said I like the song a lot but as a first single it was a odd choice as it was extremely atypical of what the band was generally doing.

Marsupialized wrote:

DazeyDiver wrote:

Matthew Taylor wrote:I'll bite.

When the Jesus Lizard did the split-single with Nirvana, I was the Art Director at Touch and Go, they decided to use Puss as their song, even though the Liar had been released 4 months earlier.

I love those guys, they were pretty busy at that time, but I thought it was inexplicably weak.

wow really? what do you think should've been released in it's place?

Something previously unreleased, didn;t make sense to me either.
I guess they wanted to sell a bunch of Liar's if they could.

see, i took it as a sort of "introduction to the band" thing. nirvana puts something unreleased out with one of TJL's best songs = 12 yr old nirvana kids everywhere get a new fav band.

japmn wrote:I think "Butcher's tale" was a US single for Odessey and Oracle.
Great song, but a single?

Makes sense to me. I'm not a big Odessey & Oracle fan, but the Zombies had a little more gumption than most Sgt Peppers/Pet Sounds copyists, and the song demonstrates that pretty well.

"Time Of The Season" is best thing they ever did by far, but that Butcher's is great and really brought something new what was a very tired table before the Zombies had even arrived.

big_dave wrote:

japmn wrote:I think "Butcher's tale" was a US single for Odessey and Oracle.
Great song, but a single?

Makes sense to me. I'm not a big Odessey & Oracle fan, but the Zombies had a little more gumption than most Sgt Peppers/Pet Sounds copyists, and the song demonstrates that pretty well.

"Time Of The Season" is best thing they ever did by far, but that Butcher's is great and really brought something new what was a very tired table before the Zombies had even arrived.

Time of the Season is the weakest song on "Odessey and Oracle." It feels like they tacked it on because they forgot to do a breathy song with a long Keyboard solo in it, which is what people wanted from the Zombies. Doesn't fit the vibe of the album, though I do like it a lot as a single. Somebody at the US label released it as a hail Mary about a year after the lp and a couple singles pulled from it tanked. Naturally it hit but the band was long dead by then.

Currently obsessed with that album...

cesb wrote:

big_dave wrote:

japmn wrote:I think "Butcher's tale" was a US single for Odessey and Oracle.
Great song, but a single?

Makes sense to me. I'm not a big Odessey & Oracle fan, but the Zombies had a little more gumption than most Sgt Peppers/Pet Sounds copyists, and the song demonstrates that pretty well.

"Time Of The Season" is best thing they ever did by far, but that Butcher's is great and really brought something new what was a very tired table before the Zombies had even arrived.

Time of the Season is the weakest song on "Odessey and Oracle."

Que?

big_dave wrote:

cesb wrote:

big_dave wrote:

japmn wrote:I think "Butcher's tale" was a US single for Odessey and Oracle.
Great song, but a single?

Makes sense to me. I'm not a big Odessey & Oracle fan, but the Zombies had a little more gumption than most Sgt Peppers/Pet Sounds copyists, and the song demonstrates that pretty well.

"Time Of The Season" is best thing they ever did by far, but that Butcher's is great and really brought something new what was a very tired table before the Zombies had even arrived.

Time of the Season is the weakest song on "Odessey and Oracle."

Que?

You said it yourself. You're not a big Odessey & Oracle fan. We must agree to disagree.

I certainly don't see the Zombies as having been copyists at any level. They admit that the cover art was sort of an attempt to hip up their image, and I would say they were influenced by the Beach Boys as far as the some of the vocal arrangements go, but they're their own thing, and they made a record that in my opinion is the equal of those 2 era-defining so-called psychedellic behemoths.

Wouldn't say "Time of the Season" is the weakest, but there are definitely much better songs on Odessey. It would have made more sense that it was the first single released for the album, rather than "Care of Cell 44" (the subject matter is a bit odd for single material [maybe that was the point?]).

With regards to "psychedellic behemoths":
Pet Sounds > Odessey & Oracle > Sgt. Pepper's

On topic, Crass' first single is mind-bogglingly inexplicable.

Add Portishead to the list
They are releasing the song 'Machine Gun' off the new record as the single, it's ok but it's the very last one I would have chosen. There's a few almost poppy songs on it they that could have had a decent chance at being a hit, this track has no chance at all. It's the noisiest weirdest track on the record. Just a drum machine through a bunch of effects, that's all it is.

That's absolutely bizarre. They couldn't really have picked a less approachable single.

A lot of folk don't seem to like this album so far. I like it a lot, I think people just aren't prepared to sit and give something a lot of time these days.