Ecology - RARE EARTH***

Born To Wander/Long Time Leavin'/(I Know) I'm Losing You/Satisfaction Guaranteed/Nice Place To Visit/No.1 Man/Eleanor Rigby

Ecology was the follow up album from Detroit rock group Rare Earth. The title of the LP and name of group reflected an increased awareness of environmental issues that was gathering strength at the time. Includes the US No. 7 hit cover (I Know) I'm Losing You plus the No. 17 Born To Wander. (US:15)

"I didn't find this to be an interesting album, but it did have a few cool moments. It was consistently good throughout, and also notably had an excellent version of Eleanor Rigby. I also enjoyed the vocalist a lot."

"Off the pace of their stunning previous release, but a reasonably good follow-up, considering. This one is more commercial oriented, and with more soul flavour creeping into their sound, but still significantly psych influenced."

"A fairly poor follow-up to Get Ready, it's also much rawer, and worse, less together, despite a good version of Eleanor Rigby that closes the album."

"Spawning two top twenty pop hits, Born To Wander and another, even better cover of The Temptations', (I Know) I'm Losing You. Though their welcome meandering helped Get Ready become an epic, the band tightens things up more here. Once again, it opens up with a haunting organ intro, and a bass line that caresses and underscores this great performance. Gil Bridges rocks soulful with focused vocals trying to imitate a soul singer, but he approaches it with an entire rock sensibility. The organ comes in and shuffles the extended bridge as Rod Ridges burns a great guitar riff on top of the rhythm. Its all about the keyboards again though."

"Rare Earth were a great jam band and jam on the long version of (I Know) I'm Losing You. An interesting version of The Beatles' Eleanor Rigby is here as well. This album starts to make the transition to their more rockier sound which dominated later releases."

"To prove that the platinum certified, Get Ready was no fluke, Rare Earth's Ecology captured the band's maturity while remaining intact commercially. Ever since the summer of love drew millions of young teens in search of their idolized utopia, songs like Born To Wander and Long Time Leavin' were descriptive of the time. The band named the album after another period phenomenon, ecology."