The 40 Essential Albums of 1967

Armed with three virtuoso guitarists and five members who could all sing and write, Moby Grape had the greatest commercial potential of any San Francisco band in 1967. They quickly blew it all thanks to internal tensions, the acid-intensified psychological collapse of guitarist Skip Spence and Columbia's hysterical hype, which included releasing five simultaneous singles from this debut album. The irony: All five deserved to be hits. Moby Grape was that good - a pop-smart whirl of blazing white R&B, country twang and psychedelic balladry, mostly cut live in the studio in three weeks for $11,000. The cruel truth: Of those five singles, only one, Spence's "Omaha," charted. It peaked at Number Eighty-eight.