Aoxomoxoa
by Grateful Dead

I used to listen regularly to the Grateful Dead, and I especially liked both "Workingman's Dead" and "American Beauty", so it was natural to give the predecessor to these two 1970 albums,"Aoxomoxoa", a chance.
I was soon obvious that "Aoxomoxoa" was much in the same vein as its two successors, but also that the songs are generally less tightly structured. The songs draw both from folk and blues, while the electric approach is less in focus. There is also a great variety in the songs, both in terms of structure and genre.

The best tracks, such as "St. Stephen", "Dupree's Diamond Blues", "Mountains of the Moon" and "Cosmic Charlie" is easily on par with the best in the subsequent albums; especially "Mountains of the Moon" is beautiful and a great favorite.

The acapella song "What Becomes of the Baby" is probably to much a timepiece for most listeners; especially considering its length of more than 8 minutes.

The three bonus studiojams are interesting, but not tracks you necessarily need to return to.

A fine album which , however, does not quite match its great successors.

https://www.angelfire.com/nv/Badfinger/BANDgrateful.html (Edited)

Bob Matthews, an engineer on this record, said in an interview recently that they beat this music to death in the studio, overworked it and got lost in details, and killed the joy of it. That's harsh, there are some nice moments and good songwriting. It's worth a spin if you like that old-time psychedelia, a couple of serious clunkers notwithstanding. This does have an excellent version of St Stephen, and Cosmic Charlie is a great track. But someone said below that it's missing something; Bob and I agree. (Edited)

I think this is (along with "Anthem of the Sun) the best Grateful Dead album. "Live Dead is also great, but like this album, it contains a filler song called "Feedback". This album's filler song is "What's Become of the Baby" which is a bit of a task to get through, but better than "Feedback" from "Live Dead. However; "WBOTB" is better on the 1969 original than it is on 1971 remix, but not much. I am partial to the 1969 original except for the song "Doin' That Rag" which I think is the only song on the 1971 remix that is better than the 1969 original.

There are some great psychedelic tracks on this album but What's Become of the Baby is a challenging listen, noted by some to be The Dead's Revolution 9. This an Anthem of the Sun were Grateful Dead at their psychedelic peak. Mountains of the Moon is a personal favourite.

A decent album but not one of the groups best. There is potential there and some great songs but the overall album is let down by the sheer amount of filler content present.