The Hollies “Butterfly” (1967)

The Hollies have always been one of my guilty pleasures. Considered lightweight to the other bands of their time, the Hollies consistently released one pop gem after another. My favorite LP by this band is the LP Butterfly. It is a somewhat neglected release that I believe is one of the definitive psychedelic pop albums. One of the unfortunate problems of psychedelia is that a band's ideas and intentions often surpassed their recording capacity, often sounding muffled and amateurish. Butterfly escapes this fate as the Hollies were consistent hit makers and benefitted from an A-list recording budget. Thus, Butterfly features plenty of exotic instrumentation and full, live orchestration. Much of their experimentation on the album reflected other prominent releases of the past year (Sgt. Peppers, The Byrds' Younger than Yesterday, etc.) but these ideas had not yet passed their freshness date and the phenomenal songwriting of Clarke-Hicks-Nash more than compensated for any redundancies. Apparently, as I have read elsewhere, the band as a whole was not too excited about the dive into psychedelia that they had begun with Evolution and continued here. This caused creative strain and Graham Nash would depart for America shortly after this album, but on Butterfly the tension provides a perfect balance between pop and psychedelia.

Butterfly starts with "Dear Eloise," a lurching number that provides sort of a manifesto for the rest of the album with it's tripped out mellotron passage shifting into a full blast pop-rock section rivaling even some of the better Lennon/McCartney singles. Nash would also specifically reference The Beatles on the sitar-laden "Maker," which is not as complex as George Harrison's sitar excursions, but has more of an immediate pop edge. The band scores with the soaring "Would You Believe," which is my personal favorite on the album, and the poppy "Step Inside," which recalls prime 1965 Brit-invasion pop. On the other side of the spectrum, the band tries to search for the astral sounds of the day on the one-two punch of "Try It" and "Elevated Observations?" Their "experimentation" here is rather tepid when compared with Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd, The Soft Machine, or a host of the edgier psych bands, but their pop instincts save the day and make the songs enjoyable, if a bit dated. The closing title track is a much better bit of orchestration, and sound of a piece with contemporary Moody Blues efforts. "King Midas in Reverse," which may be The Hollies' best psychedelic number, includes amazing vocal harmonies and what starts as deceptively simple production morphing into a huge orchestral wall of sound. "Everything Is Sunshine" is an enjoyable but run-of-the-mill B-side.

Note: As was the practice in the mid-60’s, this U.K. LP was sliced apart, cuts dropped/substituted and the running order shuffled. It counterpart was released on Epic in the U.S., “Dear Eloise/King Midas in Reverse”. –Eduard