The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands was the fourth album by The Turtles, released in 1968.
Graciously, rather than promote themselves, the band decided to use the album to showcase the talents of 11 different bands by featuring one song from each of them. Sadly, nothing was ever heard from any of these bands again after this album.
One interesting fact is that, judging by the photos of the bands inside
the gatefold sleeve, they all had members who looked a lot like The Turtles. The singers also had voices reminiscent of them as well.
...Okay, all of the bands actually are The Turtles. Going beyond what The Beatles had done on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the band decided to take on the persona of not just one but many Fake Bands, allowing them to showcase their musical versatility while doing Affectionate Parodies of various genres.
While the album only sold modestly, it spawned two Top Ten hits ("Elenore" and "You Showed Me") and is now considered a Cult Classic.
Tracklist:
Side One
- "The Battle of the Bands" (2:14) by The U.S. Teens featuring Raoul (Rock & Roll from The '50s)
- "The Last Thing I Remember" (2:55) by The Atomic Enchilada (Psychedelic Rock)
- "Elenore" (2:31) by Howie, Mark, Johny, Jim & Al (The Turtles Adam Westing themselves as an ultra-clean-cut Boy Band)
- "Too Much Heartsick Feeling" (2:43) by The Quad City Ramblers (Country Music)
- "Oh, Daddy!" (2:45) by The L.A. Bust '66 (Hard Rock, with some Dixieland Jazz thrown in)
- "Buzzsaw" (1:59) by The Fabulous Dawgs (a Blues Rock Instrumental)
Side Two
- "Surfer Dan" (2:42) by The Cross Fires (Surf Rock)
- "I'm Chief Kamanawanalea (We're the Royal Macadamia Nuts)" (1:34) by Chief Kamanawanalea & His Royal Macadamia Nuts (World Music)
- "You Showed Me" (3:16) by Nature's Children (Easy Listening)
- "Food" (2:40) by The Bigg Brothers (Vaudeville meets The Beach Boys circa Smiley Smile)
- "Chicken Little was Right" (2:47) by Fats Mallard and the Bluegrass Fireball
- "Earth Anthem" (3:54), by "all" (Folk Music, with some Classical Music influence)
Principal Members:
- Howard Kaylan - lead vocals
- Mark Volman - vocals, various instruments
- Al Nichol - guitar, keyboards, vocals
- Jim Pons - bass, vocals
- Johny Barbata - drums, percussion, vocals
"Tonight they have the Battle of the Tropes":
- Battle of the Bands: The concept, though we never find out who won.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: People of certain inclinations might not call it Squick, but the recipe in "Food" is phrased like this:Two squares of dark chocolate
Walnuts, pot and sugar - Cerebus Syndrome: The mostly comical album wraps up with the ornate, serious "Earth Anthem".
- Concept Album: A straight example, but also a bit of a parody of one as well.
- Cover Version: The majority of the album contains Turtles originals, but one of its hit singles was a cover of "You Showed Me", an early song by Gene Clark and Roger McGuinn recorded by the members of The Byrds shortly after they got together but before they formally became The Byrds. They did two other non-originals: "Earth Anthem" written by Bill Martin (who'd written some songs for The Monkees) and the title track, composed especially for the album by Harry Nilsson and producer Chip Douglas.
- Electronic Music: "Elenore" and "You Showed Me" both include some early Moog synthesizer lines.
- Genre Roulette: Built into the concept.
- Green Aesop: The final two songs.
- Groupie Brigade: Surfer Dan has "27 girls follow wherever he goes."
- In the Style of: The whole album.
- Limited Lyrics Song: "Buzzsaw" just has its title repeated a couple times. "I'm Chief Kamanawanalea" sort-of repeats its title, but they actually sing "King Kamanawanalea".
- Mundane Made Awesome: "Elenore" manages to make the term "et cetera" tuneful.
- Non-Appearing Title: The final three songs on the album.
- One-Woman Song: "Elenore".
- Porn Stache: Howard Kaylan and Jim Pons both sported one in the band photos.
- Production Foreshadowing: Volman and Kaylan (and for a short time, Pons too) would go on to do more pop music satire when Frank Zappa invited them to join The Mothers of Invention.
- Punny Name: Chief (or King) Kamanawanalea.
- Rearrange the Song: "Chicken Little was Right" was first recorded as the B-Side of "She's My Girl" in 1967. It already had a Country Music influence, but for this album they toned down the Hard Rock and added Bluegrass to the mix.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: The front and back covers feature The Turtles dressed in black tie.
- Silly Love Songs: "Elenore" was written as a parody of one, but became a hit because their label and record buyers took it as a real one.
- Uncommon Time: "Food" has some 5/4 sections.
