The Pretty Things - Midnight to Six Man - Non-Album Tracks (1964-1966)

The Pretty Things are a drastically underrated band. If you like the kind of 1960s and 1970s music that I post a lot of here at this blog, such as the Kinks, the Who, the Rolling Stones, the Byrds, the Move, and so on, the Pretty Things should be right up your alley. But they were far less popular than they should have been back then, and their catalog is still messed up together, keeping them underappreciated. I plan on posting a whole bunch of albums here that should allow you to appreciate their musical legacy.

To be honest, I'm not a big fan of the first phase of their career, which actually was their most commercially successful. In 1964 through 1966, they had the only significant hits in their long career, especially with "Don't Bring Me Down" and "Honey I Need." They were very much like the early years of the Rolling Stones and the Animals, doing lots of rocking covers of soul and blues songs, and original songs in the same vein. They had a few really great songs from this time period, especially "Rosalyn" and "Don't Bring Me Down," both of which would later be covered by David Bowie. But in my opinion, they weren't consistent, and a lot of songs on their early albums were just ordinary.

Thus, this album is my selection of their best stuff from the early years. Happily, it's 40 minutes of music, which would have been an ideal length back in those days.

Some bands continued to mine this style for a long time, or even their entire career, with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers being an example of the latter. But the Pretty Things quickly moved into coming up with their own songs in different styles. In particular, they fit psychedelic music very well, while still continuing to rock. You can already see this transition happening on this album.

"Midnight to Six Man" in particular is a song that stands out. It should have been a huge hit, and the band expected it would, but it didn't even make the Top 40 in Britain, which is baffling. "L.S.D." is an even better example of where the band was going. And what chutspah for a well-known band in 1966 to give a song that title! (Supposedly, the song was about money, and the "L" in the title was the symbol for the British pound, but that was just the thin cover story.)

This is a good album, and if you haven't paid attention to the Pretty Things, this is a good place to start. But the band's peak era was from 1967 to 1971, in my opinion, and that's what I'll be posting about in the future.

01 Rosalyn (Pretty Things)
02 Don't Bring Me Down (Pretty Things)
03 Honey, I Need (Pretty Things)
04 Road Runner (Pretty Things)
05 Cry to Me (Pretty Things)
06 Can't Stand the Pain (Pretty Things)
07 You Don't Believe Me (Pretty Things)
08 Gonna Find Me a Substitute (Pretty Things)
09 London Town (Pretty Things)
10 Raining in My Heart (Pretty Things)
11 Midnight to Six Man (Pretty Things)
12 Come See Me (Pretty Things)
13 L.S.D. (Pretty Things)
14 A House in the Country (Pretty Things)
15 Me Needing You (Pretty Things)
16 Progress (Pretty Things)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15271602/TPrettyT_1964-1966_MidnghttoSixMn_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I used a cover art for the "Midnight to Six Man" single. However, the French version of that looked really good, so I used that. I had to make a few minor changes as a result, most notably changing "Les Pretty Things" to "The Pretty Things." But "Les" was colored green, so I colored "The" the same green.