Love: Arthur Lee, Bryan Maclean (vocals, guitar); John Echols (guitar); Ken Forssi (bass); Michael Stuart (percussion).

Includes liner notes by Ben Edmunds.

FOREVER CHANGES is also included in its entirety on the 2 disc set LOVE STORY 1966-1972.

Love: Arthur Lee, Bryan Maclean (vocals, guitar); John Echols (guitar); Ken Forssi (bass); Michael Stuart (percussion).

Love's Forever Changes made only a minor dent on the charts when it was first released in 1967, but years later it became recognized as one of the finest and most haunting albums to come out of the Summer of Love, which doubtless has as much to do with the disc's themes and tone as the music, beautiful as it is. Sharp electric guitars dominated most of Love's first two albums, and they make occasional appearances here on tunes like "A House Is Not a Motel" and "Live and Let Live," but most of Forever Changes is built around interwoven acoustic guitar textures and subtle orchestrations, with strings and horns both reinforcing and punctuating the melodies. The punky edge of Love's early work gave way to a more gentle, contemplative, and organic sound on Forever Changes, but while Arthur Lee and Bryan MacLean wrote some of their most enduring songs for the album, the lovely melodies and inspired arrangements can't disguise an air of malaise that permeates the sessions. A certain amount of this reflects the angst of a group undergoing some severe internal strife, but Forever Changes is also an album that heralds the last days of a golden age and anticipates the growing ugliness that would dominate the counterculture in 1968 and 1969; images of violence and war haunt "A House Is Not a Motel," the street scenes of "Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hillsdale" reflects a jaded mindset that flower power could not ease, the twin specters of race and international strife rise to the surface of "The Red Telephone," romance becomes cynicism in "Bummer in the Summer," the promise of the psychedelic experience decays into hard drug abuse in "Live and Let Live," and even gentle numbers like "Andmoreagain" and "Old Man" sound elegiac, as if the ghosts of Chicago and Altamont were visible over the horizon as Love looked back to brief moments of warmth. Forever Changes is inarguably Love's masterpiece and an album of enduring beauty, but it's also one of the few major works of its era that saw the dark clouds looming on the cultural horizon, and the result was music that was as prescient as it was compelling. ~ Mark Deming

One of the first pop albums to become a cult classic, Love's 1967 masterpiece, FOREVER CHANGES, is the pinnacle of the L.A. freak (the locals' preferred term over "hippie") scene. Singer/songwriter Arthur Lee's lyrics are increasingly fragmentary and paranoid, foreshadowing the band's eventual drug-fueled collapse. Yet these drop-dead hip tunes are set in arrangements featuring Herb Alpert-style mariachi horns, lush middle-of-the-road strings, and other tropes of the easy listening scene, creating a more unsettling sense of tension than if the songs were given the usual heavy rock instrumentation. Every single track is a stone classic, although second songwriter Bryan MacLean's contributions, the haunted "Old Man" and especially the simply gorgeous opener "Alone Again Or," deserve special consideration. FOREVER CHANGES belongs high on any halfway serious list of the greatest pop albums of the '60s.

One of the first pop albums to become a cult classic whose influence outstripped its sales figures, Love's 1967 masterpiece FOREVER CHANGES is the pinnacle of the L.A. freak (the locals' preferred term over "hippie") scene. Singer/songwriter Arthur Lee's lyrics are increasingly fragmentary and paranoid, foreshadowing the band's eventual drug-fueled collapse. Yet these drop-dead hip tunes are set in arrangements featuring Herb Alpert-style mariachi horns, lush middle-of-the-road strings, and other tropes of the easy listening scene, creating a more unsettling sense of tension than if the songs were given the usual heavy rock instrumentation. Every single track is a stone classic, although second songwriter Bryan MacLean's contributions, the haunted "Old Man" and especially the simply gorgeous opener "Alone Again Or," deserve special consideration. FOREVER CHANGES belongs high on any halfway-serious list of the greatest pop albums of the '60s.

Rolling Stone (12/11/03, p.108) - Ranked #40 in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums Of All Time" - "...Love were Lee's vehicle for a pioneering folk-rock - paranoid, punky, like the Byrds morphing into the Doors..."

Rolling Stone (12/11/03, p.108) - Ranked #40 in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums Of All Time" - "...Love were Lee's vehicle for a pioneering folk-rock - paranoid, punky, like the Byrds morphing into the Doors..."

Q (8/99) - Included in Q Magazine's "Best Psychedelic Albums of All Time" issue.

Q (8/99, p.138) - "...whenever lists are compiled for greatest album of all time, FOREVER CHANGES has its advocates....exquisite tunes...a rather elaborate Summer of Love chamber piece..."

Q (8/99) - Included in Q Magazine's "Best Psychedelic Albums of All Time."

Q (8/99, p.138) - "...whenever lists are compiled for greatest album of all time, FOREVER CHANGES has its advocates....exquisite tunes...a rather elaborate Summer of Love chamber piece..."

Uncut (p.99) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "A suite of songs as seductive as honey-traps, with such powerful psychological associations of sunshine that they almost warm the skin on your arms..."

Q (Magazine) (p.157) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "No self-respecting record collector should be without a copy..."

Mojo (Publisher) (1/02, p.69) - Included in Mojo's "Best Reissues of 2001".

Mojo (Publisher) (3/01, p.89) - "...'The' key '60s album....Totally suffused in acid: being full of bizarre juxtapositions, perceptual tricks, multiple viewpoint lyrics, lightning fast, almost schizoid changes of mood and topic, the personal fusing with the universal..."

Mojo (Publisher) (3/01, p.89) - "...'The' key '60s album....Totally suffused in acid: being full of bizarre juxtapositions, perceptual tricks, multiple viewpoint lyrics, lightning fast, almost schizoid changes of mood and topic, the personal fusing with the universal..."

NME (Magazine) (10/2/93, p.29) - Ranked #18 in NME's list of the `Greatest Albums Of All Time.'

NME (Magazine) (2/17/01, p.45) - 10 out of 10 - "...An album of awesome intensity and tenderness....baroque and beautiful folk-rock the like of which had never been heard before - nore been bettered since..."

NME (Magazine) (10/2/93, p.29) - Ranked #18 in NME's list of the "Greatest Albums Of All Time."

NME (Magazine) (2/17/01, p.45) - 10 out of 10 - "...An album of awesome intensity and tenderness....baroque and beautiful folk-rock the like of which had never been heard before - nor been bettered since..."

Blender (Magazine) (p.81) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[A] font for artists from beck to Thom Yorke, lovers of knotty pop, and doubters of pop-culture euphoria."

Paste (magazine) (p.79) - "FOREVER CHANGES is a haunted record, from its fragile vocals to the deathly premonitions that loomed over frontman Arthur Lee throughout its recording process....The original album itself is incredible."

Record Collector (magazine) (p.91) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "It's an unparalleled combination of a dexterous melodic wit, ambitious arrangements that have bewitched generations and a lyrical vision veering between the unsettling and sensitive."