Something weird was happening with The Byrds in 1971 - a new resurgence of popularity. While the group was one of the biggest back in the mid 60s' they began to fizzle out with the death of psychedelia. Thanks to albums like Ballad of Easy Rider and (Untitled), though, the Byrds were yet again met with critical success, and matching sales numbers to boot. How do you ruin it? Well, the answer is to have Terry Melcher overdub strings, horns, and a gospel choir over your country tunes. Byrdmaniax isn't just lacking because of overproduction so blatant that it would put Let It Be to shame, but because it really doesn't have the staying power to back itself up. The result is really a half-baked record - one that's raw in the middle and overcooked on the outside. Just as quickly as The Byrds were back, Byrdmaniax killed them.
The immediate elephant in the room with this album is the butchered, overblown production - blame Melcher on this one. While Terry generally did right by the Byrds, as we saw last time with Easy Rider and (Untitled), from what I can tell with this album, he essentially went behind the group's back to overdub various strings and gospel choirs over the songs. The result is pretty much as you'd expect. Now while I don't recall much of the music that I heard here, I do remember the echo-y and overblown "Tunnel of Love" being a particularly rough case of this - like an All Things Must Pass song gone oh so horribly wrong. If you think there's any song that really doesn't sound like this, well I've got some rough news - really only the instrumental "Green Apple Quick Step" escapes fully unscathed. The rest of the songs sound clouded, too overblown, or some combination of the two, which results in an album that is not necessarily bad, but one that is supremely uninteresting and drab.
Now I don't think it would be completely fair to blame all of Byrdmaniax's shortcomings on the fact that Terry and Co. dropped the ball on the production job here - after all, the production doesn't ruin the aforementioned Let It Be. The other big problem is, because of a hectic tour schedule, The Byrds didn't have a whole lot of time to flesh out their material. As a result, there are two even bigger key issues with the album. One: most of the songs sound half-baked or unrealized, and Two: most of the songs sound the fucking same. Have you noticed how I haven't brought up really any of the songs here? Even after repeated listening, even going back to hear certain songs as I'm typing, I can hardly recall a single moment from Byrdmaniax. Even with the lowest moments on (Untitled), I can remember how they sound - shit, I can remember the chorus of "Take a Whiff," and I don't even like that song! Byrdmaniax flew out of my mind faster than I could say "Jamaica Say You Will."
From what I could tell, The Byrds themselves are not very happy with this record - it seems like, up until semi-recently, the album wasn't even on streaming services. After some listening, I can absolutely see why they would disown this. Byrdmaniax is already lacking in areas, and the overblown production job does it no favors. It was an album that the group felt was so bad, they made an apology album five months after this one - an apology album that, might I add, has not had the best reception itself. Byrdmaniax may have killed the Byrds. It also may not have. One thing's for certain - it killed my interest.
RATING: ✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯
Listen to Byrdmaniax.
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