My father-in-law gave me his vinyl collection a couple years back — the boxes that weren’t ruined when the Susquehanna River flooded and filled their basement when my wife was a kid. He gave me lots of really great stuff, so I’m still making my way through it all. I put sticky notes on the albums I wasn’t familiar with so I’d have a visual reminder to check them out at some point, and one I recently pulled the sticky off of is The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands.
Steady Sounds posted a picture of a patron holding it a little while back, and when I went in shortly thereafter, I saw the album in the used section and asked Marty what he thought of it. He said that it really was made to sound like a battle of the bands, with varied tracks and styles. I gave my father-in-law’s copy a spin this week and enjoyed the whole thing, but it was the last track, “Earth Anthem,” that stopped me. Literally — I stopped what I was doing (I think I was folding laundry), went over to the turntable and played it again. Then I played it again. It didn’t just feel like a different group — it felt like it was from a different time. Like something recent that was supposed to sound like something old, if that makes any sense.
Check it out below. It’s simple, but it packs quite a punch, I think.
The Turtles — “Earth Anthem” [Spotify/iTunes]
You Hear That 