Sunshine Superman

Once again, I find myself in unfamiliar territory. I'm not a big fan of psych, unless it's more on the rock side. This is more folky than rock. I don't think it's bad, but it's not making an impression on me this time around.

Some cool sounds and a couple of memorable hits, nothing that magical for me though

More sitar-y than that album that was entirely sitar, somehow. Had high hopes as Donovan created some of the grooviest tracks of the swinging 60s; bit disappointed he didn't tap into those vibes for the whole album. Too much of a free spirit, I guess. 2.5

The good: Sunshine Superman, Season of the Witch The average: Bert's Blues The bad: everything else

Super hippy 60's music. Not for me.

Note to anyone listening: use the stereo version. It's night and day: the mono version I found had distortion and clipping all over the place, whereas the stereo version has so much more clarity and gives the arrangements room to breathe. With that in mind... it's still a bang average album. History seems to want to paint a picture that everything released in the mid-60s was limitless, groundbreaking, as psychedelics kicked the doors down and revealed a landscape of possibilities. A lot of it was, of course... but a lot of it was probably also something like this. My impression listening to this was that Donovan was surrounded by talent and inspiration, but could only soak up so much of it. His voice is plain and unadorned, and doesn't do much for the material. The excellent "Season of the Witch" is an exception, where Donovan suddenly sings like his words mean something, with energy and emotion. It's as though the engineers said to him: "This one will be the single and will make or break you, put your back into it for god's sake." I'd have liked to hear more of his signature finger-picked guitar work: instead, texture takes the front seat and more focus is on shaping mythical, mystic songs to float on water. This isn't always a bad thing, as most of my favourite parts of the record were the ripples flowing around Donovan, including some lovely baroque touches. Harpsichords and flutes abound, and the orchestra comes into its own in several tracks. "Legend of A Girl Child Linda" has some really nice orchestration, and "Ferris Wheel" and "Celeste" are the prettiest offerings. "Bert's Blues" and "The Trip" give some musical variation, but nothing that jumps out too much. Donovan's lyrics are too literal for me, not enough of the abstract and too many medieval references thrown in as though its a shortcut to create the mood he's after. Finally, the decision to insert a pregnant pause after every single phrase in "Guinevere" is a terrible one as it puts a frustrating halt on the song every time. There's something very quaint and optimistic about this record: it's more introspective than the psychedelic freak-outs to come, and arguably also less interesting. Everything about it screams 1960s: the trippy, flower-laden cover. Intermittent sitar and tabla to simulate psychedelia. The fact that someone could be called Linda and be a beautiful young woman, rather than a retired secretary with back pain. It's all aged where Donovan's closest peers (Beatles and Dylan) haven't, and this is mainly on account of the musical and lyrical gulf separating them. Listening to this album fifty-five years on exposes just how vast that was: I don't want to hold that against Donovan too much, but comparisons are inevitable if everyone's reaching for the same tune.

It's just too slow for me personally three songs in. Almost every song is too slow and it makes the album feel boring. The singing is ok and lyrics aren't horrible but it just feels bland besides Bert's blues and season of the witch.

So me good tunes but not enough to save it from the duff ones

2 stars. Worst two tracks are in the beginning, but definitely improves. Much higher energy than some other psych rock on this list. With that said, I likely won’t return to this music

ehhh... A case where the singles are unsurprisingly and not excitingly the best songs on the album ("Sunshine Superman" and "Season of the Witch" are good...although it's possible I'm having some confirmation bias since these are the songs I know) - the rest is ... well, painfully dated. I guess there's nothing wrong with that but rather than a group of good songs it sounds more like a pastiche of what the late 60s were supposed to sound like. Yay here's some psychedelia ... I could picture many of these as background music to any Austin Powers movie. Also the lack of stereo knocks it down a bit more in listenability for me. 3/10 2 stars.

This was OK, the first song is one of my favourites from the 60's, the rest of the album didnt live up to it though.

Surprisingly likeable if a bit dated.

Much of it sounded like a music from a kids tv show or a music teacher making music up off the cuff. A couple of good tracks though.

The pronunciation sounds retro 1. The fade out is kind of weird 2. I really like this. It sounds like a lullaby. It’s a very simple melody. 3. This sounds like ye olde fleet foxes. 4. The Samson line is clever 5. All these melodies are really simple. This song is kinda all over the place. The instruments are pretty. 6. I wonder if this song is the first time this phrase was used. I can see the chorus of this being used in tv shows and movies. 7. Drink me/wonderland lyric is clever. I kind of like this. I can’t deny that it’s interesting. 8. His lyrics are interesting but he really should have gotten some help with his melodies. They’re all so simple and repetitive and almost nothing has a hook. 9. This is really boring. ngl. 10. Last one yay. This has some pretty instrumentals Like - I just can’t get past how slow and simple and repetitive the melodies were. I can’t see myself returning to this and I’m confused as to how it got so popular that it made this list. This just really isn’t for me Favorite Song: Legend of a Girl Child Linda

one okay single

I know I'm supposed to like this because Donovan is psychedelic royalty, but... meh.

Not that I've paid a lot of attention, but Donovan always struck me as an artist with a handful of great singles going for him and not a whole lot else. Sunshine Superman does nothing to change that impression. Actually, I don't consider the leadoff tune, Sunshine Superman to be all that great. Basically, it's a simple blues form with a descending melody line--nothing special. Donovan blesses the tune with an uncharacteristically gutsy performance, but the lead guitar break is execrable, and the song's claim to be a forerunner of psychedelic is overblown. I'm not even sure what that's based on. Most of the rest of the album is winsome folky trash. I mean, the aggressive bass playing and thin overlay of sitar helps, but can't really disguise the wimpy nature of these tunes. Frankly, it really annoys me when something like Sunshine Superman is held up as a great sixties album, especially by an old fart like me. How on earth is anyone without an AARP card going to take us seriously if we champion garbage like this?

Sounds like something out of Austin Powers

Maybe when it was new it was more impressive, but the whole thing blurs into a generic mess for me.

While there were some enjoyable songs and sections, I definitely enjoy the more established psychedelia that came about from 67 onwards.

Meh

Groovy baby.

Meh.

I can smell this album from 50 years in the future

Eh. It's just alright.

Don't know that I'd go out of my way to listen to this super 60's-feeling album unless I was in the mood for that specific genre

- like im at children recital but the child is talented

terrible fome, se supone que fue como influyente dentro de lo que es la música psicodélica pero no sé, no es lo mío y le daría un 1 de no ser porque un tema me gustó harto

Niet echt goed geluisterd, maar klinkt voor mij toch echt iets te oudbollig. En het doet me ook te weinig. En what's up met die citar de hele tijd.

Een paar wel aardige nummers maar over het geheel toch ook wel echt kabbelend en muzikaal behang.

Eerste nummer leuk, goede stem ook, daarna slappe hap.

Donovan doing Donovan things. Not really my bag maaaaaan. ✌️

Not bad to cook to. But it was a bit one toned all the way through

Meh. Psychedelic 60s stuff, first track was OK, wasn't too interested in the rest.

Guy who hangs out with The Beatles makes an album that sounds a lot like The Beatles. Cool. Season of the Witch is fun. I mean, I guess it's all fun. It just sounds like a copycat who is slightly less competent. It's the Hydrox cookies of The Beatles Oreos.

British guy makes psychedelic rock music but - get this! - he's not a Beatle. Forgettable, IMO.

awesome live album. hardest working man in show biz

No

bad

Not my vibe.

2/5

Recognise Sunshine Superman. Very Mod. Definitely not to my taste.

It was charming enough in a folksy 60s way but I'm not coming back to it anytime soon, this Aussie gives it two bags of macadamia nuts out of five.

One trick pony of an album, really. The off-kilter energy of the opener could've sustained a good chunk of varied tracks, but instead we get a slate of bloated ballads that go nowhere quickly.

Kinda like early Beatles if they were just one man and not as exciting.

Meh

A bit trippy for my liking. Maybe if I was stoned I would enjoy it more 😁

2.5!

Got halfway through the album, really not my thing, kinda droning, Donovan has a weird intonation that I found grating. Bert's Blues is alright.

Not really my thing. Beautiful guitar playing on most songs. Too flowery for me.

Ihan lepposaa menoa, mutta ei koveta.

Better than I looked for but he still looks like Owain from Father Ted.

Pari hyvää biisiä, jotka jo tuttuja olikin, mut ei oikeen tehnyt vaikutusta muutoin

This wasn't great. Super weird and these were like...stories, but uninteresting? I also didnt love his voice. Super monotone. The songwriting instruments were interested. Actual rating...1.5 Liked Songs: "Sunshine Superman" , "Ferris Wheel" , "Season of the Witch" , "The Trip" , "Celeste" > I didn't really like any of these songs, but they had aspects I liked.

Super boring album that I feel like I genuinely dislike due to there being no willingness to experiment. 1/5

Malo

I don’t really like this sort of music. I’m also not familiar with Donovan.

I don't know much about this guy, but I feel like I would hate him in person in the 60s

Meh

Very hippy coded. Pretty boring to me though. Actually quite hard to finish.

Meh. I didn’t love. A couple of the songs grew but can’t say I’m a new found fan of Donovan. Will come back to this

Ik ga stuk. Nee, niet omdat het grappig is. De man trekt mij helemaal leeg. Aan het begin van elke kant zet hij mij op het verkeerde been. Om de rest van het album telkens hetzelfde trucje met de zeurende lange lettergrepen aan het eind van de zin toe te passen.

What a stupid hippie folk rock shit. Absolute garbage in every aspect!

Not for me

This is the kind of 60s music that I strongly dislike.Folky ren faire type stuff. By the middle of the awful second song I was begging for this album to be a short one.

1. zunzhine - 1 2. linda - 1.5 3. king - 1.5 4. Ferris -1 5. Blues - 0 6. Witch - 1.5 7. Trip - 1 8. Guinevere - 1 9. Angel - 0 10. Celeste - 1

I think I hate psychedelic rock. This was awful for me. It was somehow simultaneously too weird and too boring.

Not vibing with this. I gave up during Ferris Wheel.

Not my cuppa tea. Next.

It's a sign that little white dot. It means something really, really heavy. It means there's no more telly.

1.5

I imagine if I were high as shit on opium in the 1960s I would dig this more, but as it is not for me

Dull, dreary, repetitive hippy nonsense

This really was a miss for me. It was all very boring and I did not love his vocal delivery. There were some nice guitars here and there but that was all I could appreciate. Also, I hate sitars.

This one…was weird. I sort of liked aspects of it, but am not a fan over all. I found a lot of the songs overly long and generally uninteresting and could not quite bring myself to enjoy it, including the title track. This was the second album in this list I’ve encountered that made me think, “…is this supposed to be good?” It may be that it’s very much a product of its time that just does not translate well today. At least not to me.

reminds me of school , I hated school

While it starts off great, the record becomes a drag after a couple of tracks

This album was a chore. I did not like it at ALL

Donovan? I'm wanting nonofhim. Pretty boring

I checked twice during Legend of a Girl Child Linda to see if it was somehow still the same song. Sheesh. I really disliked this album, with the exception of Sunshine Superman and Season of the Witch. Most of it just sucked. There were a few upbeat, groovy-ish songs that gave me hope, but invariably their lyrics made my brain want to move out. Which is the worse idea, that he's a sheister who thought these lyrics could be passed off as deep, or that he was sincere and thought these lyrics actually were deep?

It’s fine, not bad background music, I probably liked it a tick more than I expected. They used some interesting alternatives to a traditional drum kit, but beyond that it’s kind pretty boring.

That was a slog. Just because you add in some sitar and weird organ parts doesn't make it a good psych album. I wasn't impressed nor will I be back to explore this or anything else in the Donavan catalogue.

Nope, no thank you. This kind of out of place bongo and zither shit is not my cup o' psychedelic mushroom tea.

They could have named this album “Mushrooms or LSD” because you really need to be on one or the other to get this. Other than the title track everything else is a mash of psychedelic noise. Skip it man.

nah

Ich kiffe nicht. Vielleicht kriege ich deshalb keine Zugang zu dieser Platte?

Hippy dippy acoustic folk music can puff my magic dragon.

Some weird 60s mid evil shit

Over the years I've become more accepting of alternative philosophies and can see value in considering ancient mystic mythologies. But I still hate Donovan.

The first track was a fun blend of psychedelic rock and folk. Then the second track started the streak of pretentious folk songs. The Trip was a nice style shift to something more like the opening track and then the album closed out with more pretentious folk.

This list is full of such a specific type of psychedelic hippy folk stuff from the 60s, where they're like deliberately aiming for sparse medieval-sounding instrumentation. I've mostly found these extremely bad and boring, this included, and I've been hunting for a good articulation of what exactly's not working for me. Because back in the Pandora days, I was being served up a lot of stuff like Celtic Woman and Loreena McKennitt, both of which I liked a lot, and both of which I'd use similar terms to describe. So I think there's basically two things going on: 1. Acoustic is totally fine, but I like the arrangements to be on the busier side 2. singer-songwriter stuff puts a lot of onus on the singer to be able to deliver, and I don't think Donovan's all that impressive of a vocalist* (I think I also probably got a bit of bias against being impressed by men's singing. Like idk if I could name a man's singing that I'd call like Conventionally very good. Most of what's memorable to me is like Robert Plant, Bob Dylan, or Tom Waits etc where their voice is just extremely weird and they lean into it. Much to unpack some other time.)

Not a big fan of Donavan so do not appreciate his work sorry

Definitely not a hit with me...

Dreadful. I hate this hippie music.

Add this to the pile of 60s psychedelic folk rock that I don't like. He is horrifically out of tune on "Ferris Wheel" . And you can't sing the word "foreboding" and put the stress on the last syllable (Guinevere).

Boring

Boring

Nothing about this is pleasing. The title track is boring. The only song when the singing is tolerable is Berts Blues which is admittedly an Ok song. The instruments give it any life it has but outside of that its very uninteresting. How is this psychedelic in anyway? Becuase theres some sintar? This would ruin my trip instantly. I cant end this review without saying how dreadful his singing voice can be especially on the title track

Not my cup of tea…

This is just not my kind of music. Feels very monotonous and boring, nothing to hold me one for the ride

The author's review listed their favourite song as Ferris Wheel, my personal lowlight of a song. I did not like Donovan as a singer, and for an album built upon slow, lilting spoken poetry, there was no chance I'd like the album as a result. Objectively, I think this music is alright, but for me personally it's nothing.

Yeah. Right. Keep wondering why is this the album to be listened to before die? Why?

The litany of groups that have not yet graced this list are long, and yet I’m listening to the 199th best album of the 1960s. Uggggggghhh. Eff off with the tales of Guinevere and the harpsichord already.

Too weird for me. Even for this era.

A 20 year old from Scotland, but only the title track is worthwhile. Trippy lyrics.

Meh

No

Christ, this was fucking awful. It started quite promising with Sunshine Superman. But then it became rambling hippy shit. I'm pleased I didn't live through the late 60's and early 70's if this was the music of rebellion. It's about as dangerous as a cold cup of tea.

Poor

60-luku soittelee taas. Tuntuu, että tää vois olla mielenkiintonen albumi, jos kuuntelis tarkemmin. Kirkko-teemaa? Ainakin hidasta on

Hippeilyä + yhden hipin fantasia keskiajasta. Mitä seuraavaksi? Kosminen tanssi, jossa miekka vain sattuu lävistämään sydämen? Tai sormi ajautuu sulkemaan Spotifyn?

People in 1966 hearing a sitar for the first time: "holy shit hoLY SHIT WHAT THE FU-"

I didn't think I knew anything going into this album, but the opening track was a hot that I knew. It drops significantly as the second track screeches to a bore that continues through the end of the album.

Annoying... For anyone who knows the mighty boosh, this sounds like the logical conclusion of retro, but unironically. Put down the sitar, man...

More hippy shit

No

blurs into all the other weird 60s albums on this list.

Even just looking at this album cover makes me annoyed. Look at his ugly fucken elfin head. Look at the stupid renaissance-fair-on-LSD aesthetic. Oh good, it's 1966. Fancy that: the boomers who compiled this shitty book have added yet another album from the late 60s. And big fucking surprise, it sounds exactly as horrendous as it looks. Waify, cringey late 60s psychedelic garbage. I'll give it a point for not pretending to be anything that it isn't... but I have to give it at least 1 point anyway. So there's it's point. 1/5.

This is so so so bad. Shrill voice and uninspiring annoying songs. 2/10.

Feels like I've been transported to the 60s and became a hippie.

I really struggled with this album. Far too British

Not really my bag, very slow and reparative. Like Season of the Witch

Just no.

So boring

Totalno bezveze

That's a no from me.

1/15/21

definitely not for me

Locution of an old woman 👵 and the girl 👧 in front me is so beautiful 😻 I’m just glad 😌 she has such good 😊 smile 😃 she has so cute ☺️ she has the most adorable ☺️ she looks very pretty 🤩 and the little baby girl 🧒 has such good 👍 and the best girl 🧒 ever is her little sister 👩 who has been so kind of a great 😊 to you all my best friends love 😍 I will be so glad 😌 and happy 😊 I hope to be your girl 🧒 in my new 🆕 age I will always be your best life I will love 😍 you always have you always have your back in a bad way and I will miss you

Legend of a Girl Child Linda seemed to overstay its welcome for me and was a lowlight, but the title track, Bert's Blues, and Season of the Witch among others more than made up for it. Donovan as an artist and as a group seem to work best when focusing on full force psychedelia but the troubadour's Medieval crooning also has its place. A solid 4 stars.