The Electric Prunes

I mean, yeah, they were some of the first, but surely not some of the best.

Never heard of this band from 60s, listened to this once on the way to work and honestly - not that impressed! Sounds a bit like your average 60s psych band, I might give it only 2 stars here, it's listenable and not terrible but nothing great either.

Such a great opener, and such a disastrous decline in quality almost immediately.
There are some interesting tracks here, but the lows are truly low.

They kinda suck

Unmistakably late 60s and a pleasant one-off listen. But rather stuck in that era.

This album has problems, chief among them the stereo mix. Godawful, terrible, no-good mixing. Secondly, very little coherence. Some songs on the A side, work well together and paint a picture of who this band probably is. Most of the songs on the B side are B side af and probably shouldn't have been recorded by anyone at all. Pretty miserable experience at times on the back half of this album.

I think the best I can do is ⭐⭐

I was really pleasantly surprised by this. The Electric Prunes are an *incredibly* unique psych band. On their best tracks, psychedelic ideas are realized with a guitar tone so deeply mauled that there really is some early experimentation in incorporating electronic textures into rock here. I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night), Sold To The Highest Bidder, and Get Me To The World On Time are all basically psych-punk. And legitimately are some of the best songs of the '60s. The other stuff here ranges from decent to kind of stupid though. About A Quarter To Nine, The King Is In The Counting House, and The Toonerville Trolley are all kind of ridiculous, and kind of drop the ball a little. But the good stuff here is *so* good that this weird little album with it's skittery, broken guitars has really sold me.

Quite an interesting sounding record. Pretty unique for something released in 1967. I was actually quite enjoying this for the first few tracks but the second half is very hit or miss with a few really questionable sounding songs that didn't work for me at all. Still, this was a pretty solid listen overall, even if I won't return to it

I wish there was a two and a half. It's odd and short and definitely fun in spots. I just don't care so very much for the folk medieval revival flavor that seeped into everything on that era?

A 60s psych band that I've never heard of is probably not essential listening, but who the hell am I to judge that? 1960s music as a whole was always kind of a blind spot in my listening prior to this. This is an OK mid-60s rock album. It's not a whole lot more than that, instead being a mediocre and mostly unnotable example of that sound. The lyrics are not good at all, and the vocals are just mediocre Beatles imitations. This is not essential listening because it just treads the same ground as a ton of other rock groups from that period. "Toonerville Trolley" does not generate anywhere close to the same emotional response in me as it does in many other reviewers, though it is the worst song on a rather boring record. Also, "The Electric Prunes" is not a good band name, though "The The" is far worse. Get this off the list ASAP.

This album is ranked #28 of 30 for 1967. Other 1967 albums rated by me:
Are You Experienced?(2/30)-5
The Doors(3/30)-4
Surrealistic Pillow(7/30)-3
Songs of Leonard Cohen(9/30)-4
Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim(11/30)-4

I’d heard the name The Electric Prunes before, but I wasn’t familiar with their music. Their self-titled debut album is exactly what you’d expect from this band name: a wild mix of high-quality psychedelic rock songs and technically well-crafted but completely bizarre jokes. For my taste, however, the outliers in both directions are remarkably few, and overall, the result is almost a cohesive album with perfectly normal highlights and weaknesses.
“Solid” doesn't quite capture its character, but in terms of rating, that's actually what it is.

Some shitty psychedelic rock.

Shoulda called themselves the Shriveled Prunes for how weak and derivative they sound.

Electric Prunes is just another one of those albums where i am at a loss for things to say about it. I figured that this was gonna be yet another band trying to imitate the Beatles and i was 100% right. I definitely don't think it sounds bad, this was perfectly acceptable for an album from 1967 but overall the songs, despite their attempts at quirkiness, don't really manage to stick out and kinda just blend in with all the other bands doing this kind of thing at the time. On the plus side, this album thankfully is very short at less than 30 minutes so even if it is very generic, at least it never got tedious. This album is okay but with so many others like this, you can do way better.
Best Song: Get Me to the World on Time
Worst Song: Bangles

A bit of a middling dud. There's some good songs on here, but it's a product of its time and struggles with being a good all-round album. The runtime is on the short side, even for its time and even then there's a few filler esque clown songs. That said, I'm a sucker for this era of psychedelic music. There is something to be said for the novelty factor of a Toonerville Trolley and they weren't afraid to try something. The listening is quite varied for what it is. Lands somewhere in the middle for me.

:/

Honestly was dreading listening to this when I saw it was 60's psychedelic garage rock. What's crazy is I think I've found a 60's psychedelic album that I think I somewhat like? Either this album is good, or something's very wrong with my right now.

But yeah. Can't really place my finger on it, but I'm enjoying this quite a bit more than something like Pet Sounds, Odessey and Oracle, or Disraeli Gears.

It's got everything I dislike about psychedelic rock. The thin production, vocals, sharp and piercing notes. But something's just clicking.

Still not an album I'd likely go back to, but yeah. One of the best psychedelic rock albums I've come across so far. Although The King is in the Counting House does suck though. I don't know why psychedelic bands insisted on making really tacky "royal" ren faire music.

Not an unenjoyable listen at all, but an uneven one. It captures a raw, proto-garage rock type energy whilst combining it with the in-situ experimentation which was common for psychedelic albums of the time. The oscillating guitar swell of the opener "I Had Too Much To Dream" provides an instant highlight, and the production on here is genuinely excellent, channeling a fairly "dark" vibe through its heavy reverb, tremolo and distorted, fuzzy guitar sound. The vocals also often have a vitriolic quality to them, especially on "Get Me To The World On Time" which is another banger.

The momentum doesn't remain a constant throughout the album, however - the back end becomes a bit forgettable as the album drifts further into baroque territory, and it doesn't always feel entirely stylistically aligned from track to track.

It was boring. Just 60s sounding and nothing else.

Forgettable 60s rock keyboards.