The Mamas & the Papas: If You Can Believe Your Eyes & Ears [HIP-O]

Why you'll love it

This stereo reissue comes in the original bathtub cover, toilet and all, the one that was pulled from shops in 1966 and later became a collector's item. The album went to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, the group's lone chart-topping album.

This edition

• Original bathtub cover art
• Stereo mix
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

Four voices, one bathroom. Photographer Guy Webster squeezed John Phillips, Michelle Phillips, Denny Doherty and Cass Elliot into a tub for the cover, and the music inside sounded just as close: the American and Canadian quartet blended folk harmonies, Brill Building pop and Los Angeles sunshine into something nobody else had quite managed.

John Phillips wrote most of it, and producer Lou Adler polished it to a high shine. "California Dreamin'" is the wintry daydream everyone knows, "Monday, Monday" turned a bad start to the week into a hit, and "Go Where You Wanna Go" and "Straight Shooter" show how tightly those four voices could weave. Covers of the Beatles' "I Call Your Name" and "Spanish Harlem" let Cass and Denny stretch out. The whole thing still sounds like a warm California afternoon, whatever the weather outside your window.

Critics at the time called it fresh and spine-tingling, and Rolling Stone later placed it on its 500 greatest albums list. The cover art was spelled "The Mama's and the Papa's" in 1966 and nobody has fixed the apostrophes since, which we find rather comforting.

Also at Kops: more The Mamas & the Papas on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Dunhill / Geffen / UMe, a reissue of the 1966 album.