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| Theme: | A collection of late-sixties pop and psych tunes about pot |
| Obscurity: | High |
| Sound: | Average |
| Artwork: | Excellent |
| Information: | Poor (No general liner notes. No release information.) |
| Running Time: | 37:15 |
Marijuana Unknowns is a good idea—a comp full of tracks about pot—but at only 12 tracks and no liner notes, this comp leaves something to be desired. Marijuana Unknowns contains a variety of styles but that's not always a good thing. Many of the tracks are generic late-sixties psych, but about half of them are really just pop songs that indulge stoner lyrics. Perhaps the idea was to put one over on "the establishment" by singing a sunny pop song with a girl's name in the title, but heads, of course, would know who "Mary", "Mary Jane," and "Aunt Matilda" really were. Rather than being subversive, though, some of these tunes are lightweight to the point of being annoying. "Mary Jane" by Mike Clifford is the lightest of lightweight pop with lyrics that could only have been written before the Summer of Love. ("Don't let yourself hit the sky/her high can mean goodbye/until you know that she's for you/go slow and to yourself be true") Not everyone can display the subtlety of "Puff the Magic Dragon," I guess. Still, that is not to say that Marijuana Unknowns doesn't have anything to offer. The artwork on this comp is as cool as it gets and some of the tracks are quite good. "Walking Through the Queen's Garden's Garden" is noteworthy because it is by Them, from their 1967 album Now and Them. Unfortunately, Van Morrison had left the band by that point and this track, while good, doesn't match their Van Morrison-era output. The best track on this comp is "Mary Mary" by the Birdwatchers, which sings the praises of pot but with a haunting melody that hints at the perils of drug dependence ("Mary Mary, it's to you that I belong").
The first question that the National Institute on Drug Abuse says parents need to know the answer to is ""Do marijuana users lose their motivation?" As if to prove the point, though Marijuana Unknowns has "Vol. 1" written on the back cover, nothing more has hit the streets from Stoned Records since this release in 1997. And even though this comp has relatively few tracks, they were already throwing in filler into volume 1 ("Pot Party" by the World is just a recording of stoned giggling over a basic instrumental jam). Perhaps someone else will come along and put together a second volume. More than likely it will be better than the first.
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1. |
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Sweet Smoke - "Mary Jane Is to Love" (2:12) |
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2. |
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Birdwatchers - "Mary Mary" (2:36) |
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3. |
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Two Dollar Question - "Aunt Matilda" (2:18) |
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Mike Clifford - "Mary Jane" (2:03) |
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Them - "Walking in the Queen's Garden" (3:02) |
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The Renaissance - "Mary Jane" (2:33) |
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Castels - "Rocky Ridges" (2:49) |
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The World - "Pot Party" (2:24) |
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Prophecy - "Take a Look at Mary" (2:27) |
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Owen B. - "Zig Zag Man" (2:13) |
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Listening - "Stoned Is" (4:37) |
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12. |
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Copperpenny - "Stop the World" (8:01) |
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Airplay on "Turn Me On, Dead Man": |
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tracks in the occasional rotation |
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tracks in the regular rotation |
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What do you think of this compilation?
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