5 Stars Plus!!!

This is great makeout music! On Do You Wanna Dance, Monday, Monday and Spanish Harlem, Denny Doherty is a singer par excellence!!! Cass is super on Somebody Groovy and In Crowd!!!

Come back John and write some more songs! You left us too soon!

Nothing like it before - EVERYTHING like it since

In an era where groups were categorized as 'Vocal', 'Motown', 'Folk', 'Girl Group', 'British Invasion', and 'Rock and Roll', along came The Mama's and the Papa's (at the time, resplendent with their apostrophes). What, exactly, do you call them? Part of the magic of the band was that you couldn't label them with anything that existed at the time - they really did carve their own niche... then immortalized it in the 2 years they were together. Their effect was profound, even leading to a 4/4 time drum beat that's colloquially referred to as 'Mamas and Papas'. The Classics IV would name a song after them; Peter, Paul and Mary would dedicate an entire verse to them in their hit "I Dig Rock and Roll Music"; Donovan would write a song for Cass. The group was as adept at others' material (a full HALF of this album is comprised of tunes by other artists), as they were at their own.



California Dreamin' - an ageless classic which made Rolling Stone's top 100 of the best songs ever recorded, and with good reason. A haunting, minor-chord revelation, the song takes the beachy California confections of the early 1960's and gives them folk's depth and mood. And, by the way, the second verse ends with "you know the preacher LIGHTS the COALS, he knows I'm gonna stay (get it, it's cold outside, the preacher lights a fire for the wandering troubadour who's dreamin' of California - the Beach Boys cover of this song sported a video that illustrates this point with some clarity).



Straight Shooter - Rock and Roll, pure and simple. Driving, groovy, and downright sexy towards the end (listen carefully for Cass's grinding 'half of that belongs to me' at the end of the song).



Got a Feelin' - One of the first four songs the group ever composed, the liner notes of the album refer to the song as 'feathery'. I really can't improve on that.



I Call Your Name - Cass' first showcase on the album, it defines the Mama's and Papa's brilliance (for the most part) at recording other's tunes, and Papa John's ability to rearrange a song and make it completely different. The Beatles' rock and roll standard becomes an almost ragtime love song, if you can believe your ears...



Do You Wanna Dance - another cover tune, late of Bobby Freeman AND the Beach Boys, it is arguably the group's best version of someone else's song - so good, in fact, that Dunhill - the group's record label - would mine it for a single TWO YEARS AFTER THE FACT. The beauty and sincerity of this song is BEGGING to appear on a soundtrack of a romantic comedy. Brilliant beyond words.



Go Where You Wanna Go - simple, cool, four-part-harmony fun. The first single - though preemptively - released from the album, it was quickly pulled in favor of California Dreamin'. The 5th Dimension would later cover the song and send it into the American Top 20, thus launching THEIR career.



Monday, Monday - won the group the Grammy in 1966, and with good reason. It's a symphony. In stereo, the one speaker will produce Cass, John, Michelle, and the strings, while the other will feature Denny's lead, the harpsichord (!) and percussion. It is technically awe-inspiring, simple and complex at the same time. Michelle thought it was pretentious at the time, and potentially career-limiting. Never has an artist been so happy to be so wrong. I can hear this song 1,000 times - and have - and can still find something new to love about it.



Spanish Harlem - on par with Do You Wanna Dance, Denny's vocals are pristine and plaintive, with the girls' harmonies behind him evoking the balcony to which he's singing. A love song lovers' love song.



Somebody Groovy - another of their first four tunes, it - along with the rest of the album - demonstrates the group's ability to be good time rock n' rollers. It's got a great beat, and you can... well, you know.



You, Baby - The Turtles are targeted in this cover, and I'm hard-pressed to decide who's won. The boys do it a little faster; the Mama's and the Papa's do it a little more rock-er. One of the few times the group would take on another artist's tune and match it closely, rather than re-invent it entirely.



Hey Girl - A great answer-back pop tune that should've appeared on more of the millions of compilations than it has. An early showcase for the girls' voices.



The In-Crowd - Watch Cass take a soul tune and make it her own. The other side of the coin from I Call Your Name, here Cass is finally unleashed on a song, her barreling contralto owning every note.



I still cannot imagine, after all the greatest hits re-do's, that California Dreamin' and Monday, Monday actually appeared on the same album together ORIGINALLY. Universal in its acceptance, If You Can Believe is to the Mama's and the Papa's what Pet Sounds is to the Beach Boys, and Sgt. Peppers is to the Beatles.



Yes, there was Abba, the Carpenters, the Sunshine Company... but FIRST, there was The Mama's and the Papa's.



Buy this album. Right now.

One of the premier debut albums of the fun filled Sixties

"If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears," the first album released by the Mamas and the Papas, is clearly the group's best album. "California Dreaming" was rocketing up the charts in the spring of 1966 when this album was released and introduced the crisp harmonies that John Phillips had developed through months of rehearsal in the Virgin Islands and hours of polishing the sound in the recording studio. It is hard to imagine what it must have been like when this sound was new and fresh. Of course, this is the group's best album (hits collections not included) since it has both of their greatest hits, "California Dreaming" and "Monday, Monday." Through into the mix the almost as good "Go Where You Wanna Go," the lovely "Got a Feelin'," and the awesome troch song cover of "I Call Your Name," and none of their other albums are even close to being this good. Actually, the covers of "Spanish Harlem" and "Do You Wanna Dance" are pretty good as well. Besides, pretty much as soon as this album was released the group started to implode from the interpersonal conflicts.

Still, "If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears" should be remembered as a Sixties album on the level of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Pet Sounds," in terms of the exquisite way in which the songs and album were crafted. My contention would be that obviously you want to have a hits collection of the Mamas and the Papas (and there are several decent ones out there), but that picking up this first album would be worth it as well.