The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette | |
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Studio album by | |
Released | January 1969 |
Genre | Psychedelia [1] |
Length | 44:50 |
Producer | Bob Crewe, Joe Long [2] |
The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette is a 1969 album by American rock band the Four Seasons. Member Bob Gaudio teamed up with Jake Holmes to create a psychedelic concept album which adjusted the band's stylings to the changing times of the late 1960s. [3] Instead of love songs, the band tackled subjects such as war and racial tension. [4]
The album's packaging was also distinctive, with the cover being stylized as a newspaper and the sleeve containing an eight-page newspaper-like insert that also had specially-done color underground comics strips by Skip Williamson and Jay Lynch.
The first single issued seven months before the album's release (June 1968) was "Saturday's Father" (Philips 40542). It only bubbled under at number 103 on the Billboard Hot 100. A second single with both sides culled from the album, "Idaho" and "Something's on Her Mind," was released in March 1969 as Philips 40597. Both sides barely crept into the Billboard Hot 100, at number 95 and number 98, respectively. [5]
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [1] |
In a review for AllMusic, Donald A. Guarisco says the album "lives up to its reputation as the most bizarre album in the Four Seasons' catalog", describing it as "a concept album that casts a satirical eye on American life." He calls it "relentlessly inventive, skillfully constructed, and never dull" and "a stunning example of the artistry of the Four Seasons at their most ambitious." [1]
The Dangerous Minds web site reports that at a 1970s dinner party Gaudio was told by John Lennon that Genuine Imitation Life Gazette was one of his favorite albums. The same site says that after Frank Sinatra heard the album he hired Gaudio and Holmes to create his album Watertown , to which Valli also assisted. [6]
Joe Long, who was credited as co-producer on the album, considered it his favorite album of the ones he recorded with the Four Seasons. [2] Valli has also grown to appreciate the record for its uniqueness and the cult following it has earned. [6]
All tracks written by Bob Gaudio and Jake Holmes, except as noted.
Partial credits from AllMusic. [7]
The Four Seasons
Additional musicians
The Four Seasons is an American rock and roll and doo-wop band formed in 1960 in Newark, New Jersey. Since 1970, they have also been known at times as Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. The band evolved out of a previous band called The Four Lovers, with Frankie Valli as the lead singer, Bob Gaudio on keyboards and tenor vocals, Tommy DeVito on lead guitar and baritone vocals, and Nick Massi on bass guitar and bass vocals. On nearly all of their 1960s hits, they were credited as The 4 Seasons.
Robert John Gaudio is an American songwriter, singer, musician, and record producer, and the keyboardist and backing vocalist of the pop/rock band the Four Seasons. Gaudio wrote or co-wrote and produced the vast majority of the band's music, including hits like "Sherry" and "December, 1963 ". Though he no longer performs with the group, Gaudio and lead singer Frankie Valli remain co-owners of the Four Seasons brand.
"Candy Girl" is the title of a hit single recorded in 1963 by the Four Seasons. Written by Larry Santos, it is the first original Four Seasons single composed by neither Bob Gaudio nor Bob Crewe. The writer, Larry Santos, would become a chart artist in his own right with 1976's "We Can't Hide It Anymore". A stereo version was released in 1975, on The Four Seasons Story album.
Gaetano "Tommy" DeVito was an American musician and singer, best known as a founding member, vocalist, and lead guitarist of rock band the Four Seasons.
Watertown is a studio album by American singer Frank Sinatra, released in March 1970 through Reprise Records. It is a concept album centered on a man from Watertown, New York. In a series of soliloquies, the nameless narrator tells his heartbreaking story of personal loss: his wife has left him and their two boys for the lure of the big city. Watertown was produced and co-written by Bob Gaudio, one of four members of the rock band the Four Seasons, with Jake Holmes also co-writing the songs. It is the only album where Sinatra ever voiced over pre-recorded orchestral tracks. The album was released to mixed critical reviews and poor sales, with it being Sinatra's only major album release not to chart in the top 100 of the Billboard 200. It has since been reevaluated and many consider it to be among his finest albums.
Jake Holmes is an American singer-songwriter and jingle writer who began a recording career in the 1960s.
"Big Girls Don't Cry" is a song written by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio and originally recorded by the Four Seasons. It hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on November 17, 1962, and, like its predecessor "Sherry", spent five weeks in the top position but never ranked in the Billboard year-end charts of 1962 or 1963. The song also made it to number one, for three weeks, on Billboard's Rhythm and Blues survey. It was also the quartet's second single to make it to number one on the US R&B charts.
"Can't Take My Eyes Off You" is a 1967 song written by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio, and first recorded and released as a single by Gaudio's Four Seasons bandmate Frankie Valli. The song was among his biggest hits, earning a gold record and reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a week, making it Valli's biggest solo hit until he hit No. 1 in 1975 with "My Eyes Adored You".
"Sherry" is a song written by Bob Gaudio and recorded by The Four Seasons.
"Walk Like a Man" is a song written by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio and originally recorded by the Four Seasons.
"Working My Way Back to You" is a song made popular by The Four Seasons in 1966 and The Spinners in 1980.
The Four Lovers was a band formed in 1956 that was the result of vocalist Frankie Valli joining The Variatones in 1954. The Four Lovers achieved minor success before a name change to The Four Seasons in 1960. During those five years, group members also included Nicolas DeVito, Hugh Garrity, Charles Calello (bass), Nick Massi, Bob Gaudio, and Philip Mongiovi (drums).
The Wonder Who? was a nom de disque of The Four Seasons for four single records released from 1965 to 1967. It was one of a handful of "names" used by the group at that time, including Frankie Valli and The Valli Boys. Wonder Who? recordings generally feature the falsetto singing by Valli, but with a softer falsetto than on "typical" Four Seasons recordings.
This is a list of singles and some albums recorded and released by Frankie Valli and/or The Four Seasons in their various guises since 1953. This list includes only commercially released singles on which Valli or some configuration of the group was credited with performing or producing. Promotional-only releases and extended play records (EPs) are omitted from this list.
"Dawn (Go Away)" is a song written by Bob Gaudio and Sandy Linzer and recorded by The Four Seasons in November 1963. The song hit No. 3 in the early part of 1964. According to Billboard, it was the 25th biggest hit single of the year, placing behind "Rag Doll", another Four Seasons hit, which was No. 24.
"Who Loves You" is the title song of a 1975 album by The Four Seasons. It was composed by Bob Gaudio and Judy Parker and produced by Gaudio. It reached number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1975.
"Ronnie" is a song by Bob Gaudio and Bob Crewe. The Four Seasons recorded and released the original version in 1964. The recording reached the #6 position on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
"Let's Hang On!" is a song composed by Bob Crewe, Sandy Linzer, and Denny Randell that was popularized by The Four Seasons in 1965. The single reached the No. 3 position in the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, the group's highest placement since "Rag Doll" hit the top spot in July 1964.
"Opus 17 (Don't You Worry 'bout Me)" is a song composed by Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell and recorded by The Four Seasons in 1966 for their album Working My Way Back to You.
Closeup is an album by Frankie Valli, released in February 1975 on the Private Stock label. It had been seven years since his prior album, and afforded Valli his first of two number-one solo hits in the US. The LP reached number 51 on the U.S. Billboard albums chart.