Listen No. 16 - If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears by The Mamas and the Papas

Record Number 16:  If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears by The Mamas  and the Papas 

Genre: Folk-rock, pop, pop soul

Context: The first album - released 1966 - from The Mamas and the Papas.

Notable facts:  Original versions of the cover showed a toilet along with the bathtub, but the toilet was deemed indecent. Later versions covered up the toilet with a white square of song titles.

 My favourite track:  California Dreamin’ is at the top of my list, but I also like Monday. Monday and Got A Feelin’

What critics made of it: Received with acclaim. The only one of the band’s albums to reach Number 1 on the Billboard chart. The general view of the critics is that this was their best work before complex issues surfaced and ruined everything. I knew about Cass Elliot’s demise, of course, but I didn’t know about the rest of it.

Listening to this inspired me to: check out the later music, even if it’s not as good.