Small Faces - Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake-Deluxe Edition Review

Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake was the Small Faces' most successful and by far most creative album. It was a huge hit in their home country, topping the British Record Retailer Album Chart for six weeks during 1968. It made their 1969 acrimonious break-up all the more depressing as one can only guess what delights might have followed.
Side one of the original release contained some of the finest psychedelic rock of the era. That was only an appetizer for the main course as side two was a concept based upon a fairy tale, Happiness Stan and his quest for the missing half-moon. The lyrics were witty and entertaining, while the music was an LSD trip in sound. Steve Marriott’s guitar phrasing was some of the best of the late 1960s and it all added up to a stunning achievement....full text Over the years, Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake has been reissued on CD seven different times by the same label, so any skepticism regarding whether or not this most recent 3-CD “deluxe edition” by that same label is the ultimate/definitive/perfect/never-to-be-topped version is well-warranted.

But if nothing else, this new issue serves as a reminder of how essential this often-overlooked album is. Just like the previous 3-CD version that came out in 2006, this set includes remastered versions of both the stereo and mono mixes of the album. While the previous version tacked on a listen-once-and-never-again Radio One documentary, the third disc here is a nice collection of early versions and alternate mixes....full text There was no shortage of good psychedelic albums emerging from England in 1967-1968, but Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake is special even within their ranks. The Small Faces had already shown a surprising adaptability to psychedelia with the single "Itchycoo Park" and much of their other 1967 output, but Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake pretty much ripped the envelope. British bands had an unusual approach to psychedelia from the get-go, often preferring to assume different musical "personae" on their albums, either feigning actual "roles" in the context of a variety show (as on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album), or simply as storytellers in the manner of the Pretty Things on S.F. Sorrow, or actor/performers as on the Who's Tommy. The Small Faces tried a little bit of all of these approaches on Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake, but they never softened their sound. Side one's material, in particular, would not have been out of place on any other Small Faces release -- "Afterglow (Of Your Love)" and "Rene" both have a pounding beat from Kenny Jones, and Ian McLagan's surging organ drives the former while his economical piano accompaniment embellishes the latter; and Steve Marriott's crunching guitar highlights "Song of a Baker."...full text Unique '60s classic remastered with added depth and bonus material...
Never mind that hoary hypothetical debate about how much greater Sergeant Pepper’s might have been had “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever” made the cut. Consider for a moment Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake with The Small Faces’s masterful non-album singles “Itchycoo Park” and “Tin Soldier” stirred into an already potent mix. Comparisons between the two albums are hardly fanciful. Both have conceptual aspirations, although Stan’s search for the moon on Ogdens’ is far more fun than the Fabs’ thin tale of Billy Shears’ troupers. And just as Sergeant Pepper’s dominated the summer of ’67, so The Small Faces’ fourth album bestrode the hottest days of 1968, anchored at number one for six weeks....full text