Safe as Milk

cool blend of genres but it just didn’t click for me (outside of I’m Glad)

The panning messed me up. I am not judging it because it's from 1967 and they didn't know yet very much about mixing. The album itself is ok, it is pretty much like The Rolling Stones.

Not as weird as I was expecting, but I liked it.

First thing that stood out to me was that incredible bass in Zig Zag Wanderer. The entire album is a fun blues inspired whole.

Much more accessible than the trout album, actually really enjoyed this one, a few of the instrumental songs went on a bit, but the rest was right up my street.

This must be the most accessible Beefheart, but that doesn’t mean it’s not damn good.

4/5

I think this might be more accessible than Trout Mask Replica, but I’m not sure it’s quite as engaging. TMR is just weird, this one is a lot more straight forward. But I don’t think it’s any better for it. It’s fine.

That was alright, not sure what makes it so good? Just an incomprehensible grumbling for the most part.

Some decent 60's rock and roll. It feels a little experimental in spots. I didn't find myself singing along to any of the tracks, but I enjoyed listening to them all.

Interesting composition on every number

This album doesn’t fit in with the whole Summer of Love image, does it? It’s covered in grit, got spots all over it, and flies under the radar, the kind of music you’d find outside the green where everyone is making daisy chains and dancing in circles and just generally engaging in a “love” fest (all paid for by the parents, by the way). Funny thing about the album title, though: Vliet wanted to name the album after his favorite candy bar but couldn’t get permission, so he changed the name to “Safe as Milk”. Safe, as in not getting sued? Though not the intent of Vliet, I always think of this album as referencing future TMR...compared to that album, this their debut certainly is safe.

I dig the heavy R&B garage sound, but the band does drift into silliness and/or tedium at times: a sign of what was to come on subsequent albums.

I have to give the Captain et al credit for taking a risk though. The rock world was evolving very quickly at this time and to do an album of straight-ahead 1964-style burners wouldn't have been very innovative in 1967 — especially for anyone who anyone who had been there for Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Howlin' Wolf, Rufus Thomas, Little Richard, etc.

It's quite groovy. I like the jangly 60's bluesy / rock n roll guitars, and I like some of the weirdness and experimentation.

I feel like they could have rehearsed more, but there are interesting ideas here and there. Flavors stuff that would come down the road 10 years later, especially in American New Wave and post-punk like Talking Heads, Pere Ubu, or Devo.

When this was released it was probably quite a bit more challenging than it is today (almost 60 years later!!!). Mostly typical 1960s blues-inspired meanderings, like every other psychedelic era band, but with less attention to hooks and more Dadaism.

Wondering whether Cap'n Beefheart suffered from some mental illness, and I don't say that in a joking or judgemental way, but I sincerely wonder if everything was going okay. I hear a little anguish in the vocals, and I could be mistaking Beefheart's method of self-expression for true pain. So maybe in the end, the Blues was sincere. This music walks on the ol' line between madness and art. Captain Beefheart is just over the line a little bit, at times on this album and ABSOLUTELY on the upcoming Trout Mask Replica. And that makes stuff like this even more interesting. Is it good? hmmm

A playful romp through the genres, they do a bit of blues soul RnB psych pop surf garage and more - bringing an off kilter but charismatic vocal and a sardonic sensibility to it all. Not as intentionally alienating as their other stuff, it ends up being a kind of fun tongue in cheek 60s tribute act by a talented troll.

It’s a 3.5 that I think I have to round down to a 3.

This album is weird. Not like Morrissey-style weird where something just felt unappealing and unnatural, but like, properly weird. There’s appealing stuff on this album, and I liked a lot of it. I think it’s just kind of disjointed to me; sometimes the vocals clash with the lyrics and vice-versa, sometimes the instrumentation doesn’t quite fit the lyrical vision, or at worst, sometimes it’s just kinda boring to me.

I don’t know if there’s necessarily a bad track on this album, but it’s a really diverse record that I honestly think doesn’t go far enough with its bolder choices. If you’re gonna try to be this innovative for 1967, then go all in, because it feels disconnected in a way that doesn’t melodically marry everything quite right to me. Certainly not bad though; I feel good with a 3.

I expected weirdness, and Captain Beefheart absolutely delivered. Not a chance at me fully digesting & appreciating something this out there on first listen, but it was a good start.

I was not expecting to think this lesser than the listenable case of Stockholm Syndrome that is Trout Mask Replica, but this album is far more dull than anything that album came up with. Replacing odd time signatures and recognizably talented instrumentation is boring bluesy rock 'n' roll with a singer who doesn't have a great voice, and nothing more. There isn't anything overtly ironic about this record compared to Frank Zappa's band at the time, and even if there us I'm not picking up on it. This record is probably a solid enough time if you follow the garage rock scene from the era, but this feels more like "predictable as milk."

After the song Grown So Ugly, the album descended into some really weird stuff. Up until that point, it was a fairly solid blues rock album, similar by times to The Doors style of psychadelic blues rock.

I must admit when I first saw the band name this morning, I got nervous of what I was in for because of the notoriety around the strange album Trout Mask Replica, however, the first song on this record: "Sure 'Nuff 'n' Yes, I Do", was a fantastic Delta blues number.

Seems like this album was founded in good music, but the psychadelic drug use and experimentation just went too far, and things just kind of descended into a weird mess. It's a Shame, because the album started with so much promise.

Favourite songs: "Sure 'Nuff 'n' Yes, I Do", Plastic Factory, Zig Zag Wanderer, Where There's Woman, I'm Glad, Yellow Brick Road

Least favourite songs: Electricity, Autumn's Child, Safe As Milk, On Tomorrow, Big Black Baby Shoes, Dirty Blue Gene, Korn Ring Finger

2/5

This was a whole lot less "weird" than I expected it to be, given Beefheart's reputation. It turned out to be fairly run of the mill blues rock. I actually liked the more off-beat tracks best, like Abba Zaba. Maybe I'll love Trout Mask Replica once we get to it.