What spectacularly original long playing album came out of Holland in the 60s?

July 22, 2006 9:59 AM

What is Tony Judy talking about here: [...]the European Sixties were always Eurocentric. Even the 'Hippy Revolution' never quite crossed the Atlantic. At most it washed up on the shores of Great Britain and Holland, leaving behind some sedimentary evidence in the form of a more developed drug culture than elsewhere -- and one spectacularly original long-playing record. -- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, page 398 No footnote, no endnote, nothing. Anyone have any theories about what album he's talking about?
posted by bonecrusher to Media & Arts (20 answers total)

Response by poster: Hmm. That didn't format for shit, did it? Looked fine on preview...
posted by bonecrusher at 10:00 AM on July 22, 2006

Sgt Peppers Lonley Hearts Club Band?
posted by Good Brain at 10:13 AM on July 22, 2006

Could he be talking about Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon," which has sold like 200 million copies and has been somewhere on the Billboard sales chart practically every week since its release?
posted by hazelshade at 10:18 AM on July 22, 2006

I Wikipedia-ed "long playing record," of which the Beatles' 1967 album "Magical Mystery Tour" is presented as the example. There's a drug-inspired album if there ever was one.
posted by hazelshade at 10:21 AM on July 22, 2006

Could it be Pink Floyd's double album Ummagumma?
posted by chitlin at 10:21 AM on July 22, 2006

He's asking about the Netherlands.

Maybe one of the Focus albums, probably Making Waves or III.
posted by Kattullus at 10:22 AM on July 22, 2006

Probably not Dark Side of the Moon. It was released in '73 which wasn't really at the apex of the hippie/drug movement that Judt seems to be talking about.

Sgt. Pepper's ('67) fits better, as does Magical Mystery Tour ('67) but he also could be referring to the general British Invasion of the late 1960's.

OP, can you provide more context for the quotation?
posted by jckll at 10:27 AM on July 22, 2006

Sorry, that should have been Moving Waves (stupid no good memory!). Alternatively, it could be the album Brainbox, by the band Brainbox (disappointingly enough, they didn't have a song called "Brainbox." Unlike The band Living in a Box, whose one hit, "Living in a Box" was from the album Living in a Box). Jan Akkerman, the guitarist of Brainbox later joined Focus. The song people remember Focus for is the hippie weird out "Hocus Pocus" which was probably the only international supersmash of the 70's to feature yodeling.
posted by Kattullus at 10:36 AM on July 22, 2006

The author's name is Tony Judt. I wrote him at NYU and got the following response:

Tony Judt will be away from his e-mail until September 7th, 2006. If you require immediate assistance, please contact Ms Jennifer Ren at [e-mail] or call the Remarque Institute at 212 998-3660. Thank you.

I suppose it's possible that Ms. Jennifer Ren knows enough about his book to give you the answer.
posted by king walnut at 10:43 AM on July 22, 2006

Clearly, it's Sgt. Pepper's he's referring to.
posted by wsg at 10:43 AM on July 22, 2006

Best answer: And a few minutes later, I got this response:

Sergeant Pepper...!!

My Best Wishes,

Tony Judt
posted by king walnut at 10:45 AM on July 22, 2006 [1 favorite]

Googling for "dutch psychedelic masterpiece" led me to Group 1850's Agemo's Trip to Mother Earth (an overview and review here).

All that said, unless Tony Judt is that much more of a proghead, he's probably talking about Focus, and probably the Moving Waves album.
posted by Kattullus at 10:53 AM on July 22, 2006

Ah damn. He wasn't talking about Holland after all.
posted by Kattullus at 10:55 AM on July 22, 2006

Long-playing record just means an LP.
posted by cellphone at 11:23 AM on July 22, 2006

What, they didn't listen to Sgt. Pepper in Holland?

*mutters about the Rotterdam Dutch and the God-damn Dutch*
posted by languagehat at 11:25 AM on July 22, 2006

Response by poster: Thanks everyone - esp King Walnut. In retrospect, I suppose it was pretty obvious, but he threw me by mentioning Holland in the previous sentence.

"Judy" was either a typo or my sub-conscious steering me in the right direction. :-)
posted by bonecrusher at 11:41 AM on July 22, 2006

Response by poster: No, I'm an idiot. My sub-conscious was clearly steering my in the wrong direction, since there's no "Judy in the Sky With Diamonds". I think I'm going to go take a nap.
posted by bonecrusher at 11:44 AM on July 22, 2006

Maybe you were thinking of "Hey Judy" instead.
posted by king walnut at 11:45 AM on July 22, 2006

Maybe you were thinking of Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)
posted by ludwig_van at 12:43 PM on July 22, 2006

It's a very peculiar statement though, as the British drug subculture significantly pre-dates the hippie thing of the late
sixties. The Brain Committee was convened twice, in 1958 and in 1964, to consider what to do about the growing problem of non-medical drug use -- in particular, the dramatic rise in the use of heroin and amphetamines -- by young people.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:13 PM on July 25, 2006