Goodbye And Hello (studio album) by Tim Buckley

An impressive early album for a young artist who took some risks and I think they do pay off in the most part on this record. To start with I am a huge fan of the lyricism on Tim Buckley's work and this is no exception. There is loads to explore and for such a young writer he is very mature and intelligent with his word selection. His vocal delivers these words to a varied degree of effectiveness with certain songs packing more of a punch in terms of his voice. I do understand the criticism that his voice is a bit plain and so I can see why many people might not like it but I think it is actually quite strong. It dominates songs like Pleasant Street, Once I Was and Phantasmagoria In Two making them feel so powerful and making me want to revisit those songs time and time again. The instrumentation is very diverse as well on this record and used very effectively. The songs aren't to overcrowded and the less vital instruments are only called upon in places where they fit perfectly and aren't overused. The performances on the instrumentation are amazing as well. Overall, a great album that seems like it was created by an experienced and mature performer who has been doing this for a very time when in reality it was only his second album which always amazes me due to how brilliant this is.

Yes, I would place this album at the top of Tim's anthology along with "Sefronia". Definitely something in Tim's voice that strikes me deep to my core.

Honestly, I'm not the biggest fan of his voice, but there is like a 3 nice songs.

Wonderful, his early stuff is by far the best of his career. Probably as good as anything in my view.

Much better than Starsailor

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As an album written and performed by a 19-year-old, this is a pretty impressive early statement. With that being said, I find the album to be very uneven and at times the late 60s influences like the "raga" eastern motifs, the randomly inserted sound effects, and the straight ahead sincerity. At one point, I started wondering if Tim Buckley was a distant lyrical cousin of Davy Jones of The Monkees because they legitimately are indistinguishable on a couple of tracks. Best track is "Pleasant Street" by a country mile and the worst track is the title one, also by a country mile. Buckley's later stuff gets more experimental and convention breaking and represents a strong place to start.

From mdbaxter 08/27/2019 14:32

A much more tame Tim Buckley than what would come. There is good songwriting and good vocals but it fails to reach the creative peaks of Lorca or Starsailor. You can tell Tim isn't as comfortable with his voice as he would become. However, I thought his 12-string sounded especially nice on some of the songs. My favorite song is "Phantasmagoria in Two".

This is by the favourite of the four Tim Buckley albums I own. The instrumentation, effects and production delivers an experience which sounds a lot later than 1967. I absolutely love 'Carnival Song' and 'Pleasant Street', in fact the latter is one of my all time favourite tracks from the sixties, fantastic! The track which made this album famous is the psychedelic 'Hallucinations', a simple acoustic guitar underpins the 'swinging' lyric, with various sound effects painting the hallucinogenic scene in the background. On 'I Never Asked to be Your Mountain' Buckley showcases his amazing vocal abilities which are accompanied by congas, guitars and what sounds like an early electric piano. Moving on to 'Once I Was', this sounds very 'Neil Young' with the acoustic guitar and harmonica leading the way. How much I love this very diverse album, I have to get it on vinyl.

From Mercury 10/19/2017 20:33

I had a busy day of listening today. I had a half dozen albums to relisten to. This one included. And to be honest I just wasn't overwhelmingly excited about listening to Tim Buckley. He had never yet clicked with me. Meaning he had never really connected with me or illuminated for me some sort of realization of the greatness of his music or the coolness or the style or virtuosity, etc. It just had never straightened into a clear concept in my mind which I liked. I had listened to this album and a few of his later (stranger and more experimental) albums.

But I just made myself push play to at least recollect what i thought of this album. And the coolest thing happened. I finally "Got It". I mean I finally heard the sheer creative audacity of what Buckley had done with this album. I found myself overcome by the emotions he was expressing, I heard and understood what he was doing with his somewhat over the top musical waves. The palate with which he paints this album is immense. There are strange effects on many things, and guitars, and keyboards and symphonies and big crescendos and there is, of course, his vocals. His vocals were what finally worked for me. They just are all over the place and all in service of the songs. His voice has always been mentioned as a game changer in many ways, but I never liked them much. But here they really work, he sounds like he is almost bursting with an unimaginable amount of emotion and fire and sadness. And as he sings he is releasing these sounds and these feelings and its oft-times glorious.

And yes later albums are definitely pushed way way up my "To Listen" list. I believe its generally understood that he got more and more out there and experimental as he went along in his short life. And I do recall "Lorca" and "Starsailor" being quite strange and beautiful. I am very very excited to listen to them for later songwriter lists (1969-1971 will probably HAVE to be top 15s at this rate cuz man there is a lot of great stuff coming up to listen to for those years). Its amazing to think he became somehow MORE innovative. Cuz listening to this today just blew my mind in how incredibly unique and forward-thinking the whole sound and flow of the album was. I mean you can hear traces of it in Fred Neil, but this is just next level wild and ahead of its time. Its a goodie.

Grade: 9.2/10