The 40 Essential Albums of 1967

Once unjustly ignored although it charted for ten weeks, now lionized beyond all reason although it's certainly a minor masterpiece, the third album by Arthur Lee's interracial L.A. pop band voiced Lee's crazy personal paranoia and paradigmatic political paranoia. Its pretty, well-worked, somewhat fussy surface masks lyrics of unfathomable if not unhinged darkness. Rooted in existential despair and occult folderol, its aura of mystery is earned and indelible, its songcraft undeniable and obscure.