Monday, December 29, 2008

5th Dimension "Portrait"

The coolest thing I know about this album is that the 5th Dimension played a singing group invovled in a mystery on a TV show called "It Takes a Thief" starring Robert Wagner. It was on that show that the single "Puppet Man" debuted. I imagine that helped it sell like hotcakes as the group was still riding high on the strength of "Aquarius".
As for the album itself, the standouts are "Puppet Man", "One Less Bell to Answer", "This is Your Life" and the supremely cheesy (like a frozen pizza), faux-radical nod to the "younger folk" (i.e.: hippies and hippie wannabes) of the "Medley: The Declaration / A Change Is Gonna Come / People Gotta Be Free". This was part of the soundtrack to my "rose coloured glasses" youth a few years before the end of the Vietnam War changed the culture of the US to one that was much less optimistic and more cynical.

The 5th Dimension - "Portrait"
Bell Records 6045
1970
Gatefold with cover art by LeRoy Neiman

A Side:
Puppet Man (2:58)
One Less Bell to Answer 3:29
Feelin' Alright? (4:27)
This Is Your Life (4:12)
A Love Like Ours (2:39)
B Side:
Save the Country (2:39)
Medley: The Declaration / A Change Is Gonna Come / People Gotta Be Free (10:10)
Dimension 5ive (4:15)

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