It's New to Me: Dimensions by the Box Tops (1969)

Cover illustration from the Serbian magazine Beekeeper, 1951

When Memphis soul-pop band the Box Tops released their fourth album, Dimensions, in 1969, the band's lead singer Alex Chilton was 18 years old. As you might expect from a young band, the Box Tops had largely been puppets for an older producer, Dan Penn, who picked all the songs for the band's early albums and even coached Chilton on how to make his singing voice sound like Penn's own. On Dimensions, the band was taking some of the control back, using a different producer (Chips Moman) and giving more input on the songs going on the record. Chilton even contributed several songs to the album - this was what prompted me to pick up the album, as I'm a huge fan of Chilton's post-Box-Tops band, Big Star. Also, the cover art on this album is pretty awesome (see sidebar).

The Box Tops are mostly a "singles" band, and their albums are well-known for being a mish-mash of covers and styles. This is totally true of Dimensions as well, but I still find it to be a very satisfying record. The album's two singles, the minor hit "Soul Deep" and the non-hit ode to prostitutes "Sweet Cream Ladies, Forward March", are both excellent bubblegum-pop pieces that benefit from Chilton's soulful-beyond-his-years delivery. He actually sounds a bit like Neil Diamond on these songs, which might be why the album also includes a cover of Diamond's "Ain't No Way". The Bob Dylan cover ("I Shall Be Released"), though, is not as easily explained, except for the fact that everyone was covering Dylan at the time. It's not bad, though. And the album's one real soul cover (other than the interminable 9-minute closer "Rock Me Baby") is a great song called "Midnight Angel".

The surprise for me was that the Chilton compositions on Dimensions aren't that great. "Together" is an unimpressive organ ballad and "I Must Be the Devil" is an unconvincing and undistinguished piece of piano blues. His best contribution to the album is actually a trifle called "(The) Happy Song", which was the b-side to the "Soul Deep" single. A lighthearted folky number, it starts out sounding just like a Dylan cover, but picks up momentum as it goes, turning into a pretty, bouncy singalong. My recent posts about Paul Revere & the Raiders and 1910 Fruitgum Company are probably good indicators that I'm a total sucker for lightweight pop from 1969, but Dimensions is sounding pretty good, especially considering its dubious reputation.

"(The) Happy Song" by the Box Tops