68. Paul Revere and the Raiders - Midnight Ride (1966)

1. Kicks
2. There's Always Tomorrow
3. Little Girl in the 4th Row
4. Ballad of a Useless Man
5. I'm Not Your Stepping Stone
6. There She Goes
7. All I Really Need Is You
8. Get It On
9. Louie, Go Home
10. Take a Look at Yourself
11. Melody for an Unknown Girl

In which Paul Revere comes back from the dead and finally realizes his ambition to form a rock group. But before he could produce his magnum opus concept album about the heroic struggles of the Revolutionary War (and even some of the non-heroic ones for good measure. I love a good tarring and feathering!) he had to cut his teeth in the rough and tumble world of bland pop albums.

And that's exactly what we have here. While the Mamas and the Papas got by on their neat arrangements, these guys don't even have that. I mean, these guys were basically one of those dime-a-dozen pop groups littering the musical landscape back then, like the Dave Clark 5 and Strawberry Alarm Clock and the Fuck Buttons (Ok, maybe not the last one). When you get such a band to record an album, it usually doesn't turn out that well! Musically, this album might as well be from '64 in terms of their sound.

Of course, there are some rather good songs on this record. The big hit, 'Kicks', is notable for being an anti-drug song that doesn't annoy me with overly moralistic anvil-dropping. Not only is it a catchy tune with a Byrds-y guitar riff, the lyrics aren't too preachy! Although songs like this would get washed under the tidal wave of psychedelia, it is at least interesting.

Also, 'I'm Not Your Stepping Stone', later covered by the Monkees and for some reason, a bunch of punk bands, is surprisingly a fairly hard rocker. The vocals get downright gritty! 'Louie, Go Home' is also fairly interesting, with faster/slower sections.

I can take or leave the rest of these songs, though. They're all fairly indistinguished early Beatles-esque tunes. The only songs that truly make my bile rise are the ballads. I could scarcely hear any of the singing in 'Little Girl in the 4th Row' over the comparatively mighty sound of my yawning. And 'Melody for an Unknown Girl' is nothing short of an attack on my poor sensibilities, consisting of an incredibly ham-fisted spoken word intro that begins to repeat itself as the song fades out, reminding you of the endless torment of hell. After this, a saxophone solo that reminds me uncannily of Kenny G a full 20 years before he began vomiting his dentist's waiting room bilge onto the unsuspecting American public in a way that BP would be proud of. It annoyed me so much that I'm going to take even more points off the score, because there's no reason that I should have to endure such a song. 5/10