We're Going for Spelling, Punctuation, and Hilarity! :::: GO :::: Music Print Food Comment pen&ink RANT! Top Ten pulp Ice-Cream old stuff Masthead FORUM SHOP tangMail About the Author Column Archive Grateful Dead: Anthem for the Sun 4.0 (rating key) if you like this you'll like: Pink Floyd’s Piper at The Gates of Dawn, Janis Joplin, Phish. REVIEW: Grateful Dead: Anthem for the Sun 5.4.2003 by Dusty Grateful Dead: Anthem for the Sun [reissue] [Warner 1968/Rhino 2003] Three words? could’ve been classic The Grateful Dead’s second album sees the band more confident and adventurous. Producing themselves, the Dead used their own live recordings as the basis of the songs, which they added to and embellished in the studio. The tragedy is that this beautiful and ingenious endeavor is executed by a band who had yet to master songwriting. "Born Cross-Eyed" and "Alligator" play back to back, and are the album’s strongest, most fun moments. But the opening suite "That’s it for the Other One" is just a long snapshot of self-indulgent hippie wanking. And everything here is too long, with song structures totally abandoned for the sake of endless jamming. The bonus materials don’t improve on any of it either, providing only live versions of Anthem songs, and one that is just 4 minutes of feedback (appropriately titled "Feedback"). Around the recording of American Beauty, it has been said that David Crosby taught the Dead to be better songwriters. Had Crosby’s services been available in 1968, Anthem for the Sun could have been an undisputed classic, rather than an unfortunate mistreatment of possible genius. Take a minute to fill out this nice form and give the nice columnist some nice feedback. Our columnists are volunteers, they do this for you, let 'em know you care. Your message of love: Your email address (optional): Disclaimer | Email Us | Dance! Text, images, design, and our groovy mojo are ©. Warning: require(): http:// wrapper is disabled in the server configuration by allow_url_include=0 in /home/public/columns/includes/footer.php on line 3 Warning: require(http://www.tangmonkey.com/includes/ads.php): Failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /home/public/columns/includes/footer.php on line 3 Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Failed opening required 'http://www.tangmonkey.com/includes/ads.php' (include_path='.:/usr/local/php/8.0.30-nfsn2/lib/:/usr/local/php/lib/') in /home/public/columns/includes/footer.php:3 Stack trace: #0 /home/public/columns/105210236158741.php(79): require() #1 {main} thrown in /home/public/columns/includes/footer.php on line 3