Harmonizing Dylan songs with a Rickenbacker and a backbeat was a coup. So it is that, as the Byrds went hippie then country, they were good at blending trends, not chasing them.
Notorious is a fine hybrid. Beautiful and stoned, it’s 1968, Laurel Canyon, and the light and shade that den conveys. Countermelodies add pathos to an open regard for a world in flux.
At war with each other and their own idealism, the Byrds were space cowboys. Tension was a record of the times. After this album the band fizzled out.
Rating: A-
