The Byrds
– Fifth Dimension
The Byrds had already jangled their way into folk-rock heaven—but Fifth Dimension is where they slipped the leash. Dylan covers? Gone. Gene Clark? Gone too. What’s left is a psychedelic leap forward, half stumble, half flight, with Roger McGuinn at the controls, eyes wide on a new frontier. This is the sound of a band figuring things out in real time, not always gracefully, but often brilliantly.
Best of…
There’s a sense of the band chasing something just out of reach: cosmic truth, maybe, or at least a riff that doesn’t sound like 12-string déjà vu. Tracks like “Eight Miles High” don’t just break the mold—they drag it behind the plane and let it burn. The mix is raw, the rhythms loose, the ideas occasionally outpacing the execution. But the ambition? Untouchable. They weren’t trying to impress you—they were trying to outrun gravity.
What makes Fifth Dimension so gripping is that it’s messy in all the right ways. You can hear McGuinn pushing folk chords through Coltrane’s slipstream, Chris Hillman testing out bass lines like questions, and David Crosby doing his best to sound like he doesn’t care—while absolutely caring. It’s a record on the verge: of collapse, of genius, of something new. And in its confusion, it finds clarity.
Choice Tracks
Eight Miles High
The Byrds’ psychedelic manifesto. McGuinn’s Coltrane-inspired solo scrawls across the track like a laser show at 30,000 feet. It’s swirling, jagged, and still way ahead of its time.
I See You
A twitchy, caffeinated groove with a sense of paranoia beneath the shimmer. Crosby’s vocals dance between the bassline and McGuinn’s bursts of guitar fuzz. Underrated and weirdly funky.
5D (Fifth Dimension)
McGuinn tries to explain Einstein to teenagers with a Rickenbacker. It’s charmingly ambitious—equal parts science, stardust, and acid flashback. The chorus lifts like a sunrise.
Wild Mountain Thyme
A traditional tune done Byrds-style, full of mist and morning light. It slows the record down in a good way, giving the album a dreamy, medieval ache that balances the sonic experiments.
Mr. Spaceman
A novelty song on paper, but its country-in-space twang predicted alt-country and cosmic Americana before those were even genres. Silly, sure, but it sticks.