The United States of America

Absolute garbage. As someone in the comments said: "this is the music that is playing when a clown comes to murder you". Truly painful to listen to. These pricks couldn't make music to save their life ...

Favorite songs: Stranded in Time

Least favorite songs: The American Metaphysical Circus, Hard Coming Love, Cloud Song, The Garden of Earthly Delights, The American Way of Love, Osamu's Birthday, No Love to Give, Tailor Man, Coming Down...and others.....I lost interest. It's all garbage...

1/5

This is a joke. Right?

lots of good production stuff involving reverb, distortion, etc.

The more out-there, experimental stuff isn't great, I'll admit. Aside from that, I'd say everything else they tried they hit the spot. The more typical psychedelic rock they nailed, then the slower ballads were just as good if not better. The bass was phenomenal and Dorothy's vocals are great.

328/1001
🌕🌕🌑🌑🌑

Terrible. I think they named themselves "The United States of America" because then you feel guilty saying you hate "The United States of America". Hated it.

I really wasn’t into this Sufjan Stevens record.

You shouldn’t have to be on acid to listen to an album

Was iffy about this one at first, but it grew on me. Not my favourite, and a bit weird at times, but overall - pretty good! Really liked the Winnie the Pooh inspired song!

I'll give it a 2.5 - round up to 3.

There were little snippets of things I liked in here (Coming Down was pretty good and sounded a bit like a Stereolab predecessor), but on the whole this was an unfocused mess and I found it annoying.

This album is truly fascinating—one that takes multiple listens to fully process. On my first two plays, I swung between loving and hating it, unsure where I truly stood.

Before this, I had never heard of The United States of America (the band and album, not the country), so I had no idea what to expect. What I got was something wildly unique.

It feels like Sgt. Pepper’s meets early electronic experimentation—avant-garde, unpredictable, and at times, completely unhinged. With 20 tracks, some are absolutely brilliant, while others feel like total garbage. It’s hard to articulate exactly what this album is or whether I love or loathe it.

For something released in 1968, it feels shockingly ahead of its time. The fact that there’s no guitar on the entire album makes it even more intriguing.

Favorite songs: Hard Coming Love and The Garden of Earthly Delights. The album starts strong from track 2 through track 7.
Least favorite song: The American Metaphysical Circus—it just felt out of place compared to the rest of the album. Way too circus-like!
Album artwork: A really cool cover that perfectly matches the album’s experimental nature.

This is one of a few albums on this list that snuck up on me. The first two tracks are pretty challenging and I thought I was in for a rough hour. But then the tone changed and even though there was some more work to be done, by keeping an open mind I actually ended up really enjoying most of this. Talk about not phoning it in!! It’s very creative. I’m sorry the band broke up after this, their only album.

Heads up: The version on Spotify includes about a half hour of added tracks from a later release. My practice is to only rate the original album tracks. I actually haven’t listened to the additions yet, I am on my second listen of the original.

🤷

I have never done acid. The same, surely, cannot be said of the people in this band.

It’s a rather strange 4, and I think I admire it because it’s so strange. For the record, I only listened to the first 10 tracks, like the original release.

I dunno, I just found myself really mesmerized by this album – the vocal effects, the vague electronica work, the early synths, and the innovation that comes as a result of all this new tech that nobody’s really had time to play with yet, creates a super ethereal experience unlike any of the other 60s psychedelic rock albums we’ve gotten so far. It’s immediate from the vocal filter on “The American Metaphysical Circus” that this is way beyond the scope of casual listening, and I suspect that’s partially why this has such a low rating on the site. It’s not for everyone, and the true entry points into the album don’t come until much later.

This album starts weird, asks you to trust where it’s going, and then eases into a better blend of familiarity, normalcy, and this album’s specific brand of avant garde. “Hard Coming Love” has the first real sense of normalcy after the 90 seconds of harsh guitar noise (the worst part on the album by far), but it immediately sort of eschews it – the production tricks from 3:20 onward are the real tipping point of this album’s production, because if you dig that part, and how it all sort of melts around and falls apart, you’ll dig the rest of the album. If you think it’s just noise, the rest of this album is going to rub you the wrong way.

“Cloud Song” is kind of sweet, though it has a bit of a “first minute = whole song” thing to my ears. “The Garden of Earthly Delights” has a sort of electronica sitar feel to it, with some nonsensical lyrics and average vocals, but remarkably cool production tricks that create an interesting vibe. “I Won’t Leave My Wooden Wife” has an oddly space-y / transmission feel to it, which culminates in a sort of old-timey radio broadcast effect that swaps between the vocals and instrumentation that clicked really well for me. It’s also just kind of a weird track overall, because the production really has no rhyme or reason to it, but I kind of like the manic feel of it all.

“Where Is Yesterday” feels like if The Who (in their Tommy era) did a track for The Shining with a hint of Pink Floyd, and that’s a blend that feels super cool to listen to. “Coming Down” starts off with the sickest intro to the weirdest ‘Yes’ song ever – it’s definitely got elements of prog rock in it, but the production tricks & soundscape carry it more than the vocals / lyrics do. “Love Song for the Dead Che” is an Eno-esque ambient cut with a really lovely feel because of the vocals / lyrics.

“Stranded in Time” is the most normal track on the album by far, with a very Beatles-y feel. “The American Way of Love” starts the same way, before going into an even harsher version of the meltiness featured on “Hard Coming Love”, and ending on a weird ethereal rewind / medley of the entire album. As an entire front to back project, its lack of coherency (save for the occasional smooth transitions between tracks) is oddly coherent, and in line with the general vibe the album is trying to give off. It doesn’t always succeed, and it’s certainly rough around the edges at points, but I think what’s here truly is admirable, especially for 1968 – some of the production tricks here are really innovative for the time, and would come into vogue much later.

From a pure musical standpoint, I’m at a 4; I don’t think this does enough to get up to a 5, nor does it quite come close, but I enjoyed it a lot. It’s a very strange album for its time, and I respect that they were willing to take big swings at stuff that would later feel much more commonplace. If nothing else, their innovations make each track feel compelling and worth listening to, and I never really got bored (save for Cloud Song kinda biting at me). It’s a unique experience that won’t appeal to everyone, and I can understand why people might give it a 2 or even a 1, but I think it’s a 4 that deserves no less than a 3.

Super dated 60s pretentious psychedelia with a fair share of cool moments to offset the 60s cliches. Was interesting to hear primarily as a historical capsule. I went back and forth between a 3 and a 4, but settled on a 4 because I kind of dig the weirdness. Favorite tracks: Cloud Song, I Won't Leave My Wooden Wife for You, Sugar (amusing track), Coming Down, Stranded in Time, The American Way of Love (except for the shrill electric violin solo - but there were some rocking moments, especially the heavy part at the start of Part III: Love is All).

I greatly enjoy a lot of this (mostly the tracks with the female singer.) Some of it is a but too goofy sounding but it’s psychedelic music so that comes with the territory.

This album was quite a trip. Every time I started getting into it, it came in with overused sound effects or something that I just found off putting and it took me back out. The parts I did like had a Jefferson Airplane type of quality.

hard pass on this

Great social commentary, okay music