THE IDLE RACE THE BIRTHDAY PARTY LP on LIBERTY PSYCH JEFF LYNNE NICE 1968

$

27

Here is a NEAR MINT MINUS/EXCELLENT PLUS copy of the DEBUT LP from THE IDLE RACE titled THE BIRTHDAY PARTY. It is an original US pressing on the LIBERTY label, catalog #LST-7603 in STEREO sound from 1968. The LP is in NEAR MINT MINUS! condition w/some light non-sounding sleeve marks and should have excellent playback. The cover is original cardboard in EXCELLENT MINUS condition with some small corner bumps, some rubbing/ring dirt wear top rear. It is a NEAR MINT MINUS/EXCELLENT PLUS copy for you to own. It is an opportunity to purchase this LP by THE IDLE RACE and it is a gem for the JEFF LYNNE / BRITISH PSYCHEDELIC / PROG ROCK collector!! Email me with any questions and be sure to look at the pic’s. I DO NOT ACCEPT BIDS FROM OR MAIL TO SOUTH AMERICA, SOUTH AFRICA, ITALY & OTHER COUNTRIES. IF YOU ARE NOT FROM THE USA CONTACT ME BEFORE BIDDING! International bidders can email me for shipping rates. SHIPPING IN THE US IS $5.00 for MEDIA MAIL (IT IS NOT $4.00). US BUYERS PLEASE WAIT FOR INVOICE!  Thanks for Looking & Good Luck!

Music Review from AllMusic.com by Bruce Eder

The debut album by this unjustly overlooked band is a piece of classic British psychedelia that transcends its origins. Most British bands trying to achieve a psychedelic sound in those days simply played softly and sang in a very effete and poetic manner -- the Idle Race, by contrast, play hard here and don't sound effete so much as just cheerfully trippy, a lot like the Beatles of "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever"; indeed, "End of the Road" from this album sounds like a rewrite of "Penny Lane." Jeff Lynne is the dominant personality here, as composer, guitarist, and singer, and, as one might expect given his presence, the music all has a Beatles-like quality of playfulness amid the musical invention. The single "Skeleton and the Roundabout" may be a little over-produced, but it is beguilingly innocent in its zaniness, and the softer middle section anticipates the structure of Lynne's later work with ELO. Much more indicative of his future direction are "Morning Sunshine," one of the prettiest songs to come out of the entire Birmingham music scene and displaying a languid guitar flourish that anticipates any number of ELO songs circa A New World Record, and "The Lady Who Said She Could Fly," an orchestrated Beatlesque jewel that sounds like a lost ELO track. As demonstrated here, the Idle Race weren't quite as powerful a band as their rivals the Move -- who also loved to cover American soul and folk-rock and thus had a wider variety to their sound -- but this album is steeped in beautiful melodies and even prettier embellishments in the singing and playing, yet never loses sight of its rock & roll underpinnings. Once in a while, as in "On with the Show," the sound effects are a little more prominent than one would like, and there's a certain music hall ambience to a few songs (such as "Lucky Man") that is somewhat distracting -- but those two numbers are followed by the joyous and pounding "Pie in the Sky," so it all balances out and, overall, this album is very solid and a great deal of fun, as well as full of little surprises and signposts pointing toward Lynne's future.