An album from the book, if you know what I mean.

I never thought much of trout mask replica, but lick my decals off, baby and safe as milk defined a new twist to blues. No more tedious English Chicago licks, but something brand new, but old old old. You get it or you don't. If you do, I raise a pint to you.

just got into beefheart through listening to the 'blues kitchen podcast' and 'safe as milk' is a blues fans must. Also purchased 'trout mask replica' recently but did'nt quite get it after the first listen. I did expect this as i've heard it takes countless listens and i'm intrigued to find out why this is such an acclaimed album

In the 1960s under the assault of the so-called "British Invasion" of the American popular music scene, the US record companies were all desperate to find a US Beatles or Rolling Stones (check out the cover of this album!).

And so without really knowing what they were doing at least they were prepared to take a risk on the acts they signed. This record company obviously hoped that Beefheart was the new Mick Jagger, instead they got something else entirely.

Such guesswork is fortunate for us today, as it allowed outside-the-mainstream artists such as Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and others to get their break.

Subsequently both Zappa and Beefheart wasted no time in making their mark on the world. (True Beefheart did have problems with labels from the start and throughout his career which probably affected his appreciation by a wider audience).

And what a debut album Safe As Milk is.

While it is comparatively "easy-listening" compared to what followed from the Magic Captain, it is still full of originality and delight and with a distinctive grittiness to the whole cycle of songs. Crammed full of uplifting blues-pop innovation that puts it on a par with the Beatles and Stones no question.

(Though I tend to view Beefheart, and Zappa also, as having created their own genres so it is not really an equivalent comparison.)

Plus it has Ry Cooder on it. A wonderful musician who made a whole truck load of great albums after his all-to-brief Beefheart tenure.

An essential album for anyone interested in 60's pop outside the norm.

Captain Beefheart was one of those rare visionaries - like Brian Wilson, Arthur Lee and Zappa. On this debut album the Captain gives us his own delta blues, re-invented for 1968. Safe as Milk fuses raw blues with elements of jazz, doowop, psychedelic pop and everything inbetween. Don't expect another Cream though - this is far more inventive and interesting and is both consistantly good and consistantly surprising. It also has a unique kind of sound and outlook that I can best describe as punk. Safe as Milk includes the awesome Electricity with its off-kilter rythms and the fantastic closer Autumn's Child - a greater slice of 60's psychedelia would be hard to find. The album itself (tracks 1 to 12) is nigh on perfect. What you get out of the extra tracks will depend largely on your interest in how these have developed on subsequent albums. I'm not a major fan of sticking these unfinished tracks onto classic albums such as this - I'd rather a see a separate release, but each to their own. All in all a highly recommended record by one of the Century's truly great artists. If you like this, you'll also enjoy Clear Spot, Unconditionally Guaranteed and Shiney Beast. From there you will be hooked!

This is a band that developed FAST during the 60's. To think that this album was recorded the year after their 1966 single "Diddy Wah Diddy" - a Bo Diddley cover performed in a manner that made the group sound like any mediocre pop group of early/mid 60's, and 2 years before the revolutionary 1969 Frank Zappa production "Trout Mask Replica" (for which Van Vliet was given 100% artistic freedom)...

Blues elements have always been apparent in Beefheart's singing as well as in his music, and it's probably the strongest element on "Safe as Milk;" the album starts off with a slide-guitar dominated tune, played over a commonly used blues structure used by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, among others.

"Grown So Ugly," though not a 12 bar structure completely in 4/4, is also a blues tune and cover of blues singer/guitarist Robert Pete Williams. The guitars on the other tracks are also very bluesy, with perhaps the exception of the 3/4 R&B/doo-w*p tune "I'm Glad," which--Beefheart's voice aside--musically sounds unlike the rest of the album.

Another bluesy element is Beefheart's distorted tremolo harmonica (introduced on "Plastic Factory") which, just like his emotional singing on "Where There's Woman," is performed from his heart in a skillful, personal way.

The overall sound has been digitally improved. It's not only clearer than on the original LP record, but also compared to earlier CD releases of the album. This has made the audio picture wider and the listening experience "easier" if you will. Some might disagree and call this kind of "updating" rape of art. While I can appreciate such a point of view, I must say that I prefer the digitally re-mastered version (of THIS album) for a number of reasons:

- The Captain's singing in the left channel on "Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes I do" doesn't suffer from being too low in volume anymore.

- The balance between the instruments is more accurate to how it was intended from the start (though no BIG changes have been made - it's not re-MIXED). The reason some tracks originally suffered from "bad balance" is that the music was recorded on 4 tracks, but due to a low production budget, had to be mixed on 2.

- Though improvements have been made by shifting certain frequencies it still sounds dirty and "old" like it should.

There is, in my opinion, a downside to this, though: the guitar sound on "Call On Me" is a bit brighter than earlier - the pogo stick/fast feather sounding kind of tremolo/vibrato effect is much more obvious now than before (I had barely noticed it earlier.) It makes the guitar sound a bit out-of-tune, and the whole mix of the song seems a bit thicker because of this, but it's no BIG problem, though I could have lived without the uplifting of that element.

With the 7 bonus tracks the CD runs over 71 minutes, but the original "Safe as Milk," i.e. the 12 first tracks, is a bit under 34 minutes long.

Several of the bonus tracks are quite interesting; take 5 of the song "Safe as Milk," which originally appeared on the 1968 "Strictly Personal" album, is featured here, with--in comparison to the "Strictly Personal" version--a much sharper mix.

This also goes for take 9 of "Trust Us," - a song that also originally appeared on "Strictly Personal."

The takes are quite similar to their "true form" though the bonus track "Safe as Milk" runs a bit shorter - it lacks the minute of hectic drumming at the end.

The instrumental "Big Black Baby Shoes" is an early version of "Ice Rose" (which wasn't further developed and re-recorded until 12 years later.) "Ice Rose" is included on the 1979 album "Shiny Beast/Bat Chain Puller," where the main melody is played on trombone by Bruce Fowler. "Big Black Baby Shoes" isn't as organized or skillfully played as "Ice Rose," but it's an interesting listen for comparison.

"Dirty Blue Gene" is an early version of "The Witch Doctor Life," which wasn't re-recorded until the making of "Ice Cream for Crown," where no original Magic Band members were featured, and lyrics had been added. Again, the version played 15 years earlier wasn't played as skillfully, but it's still candy for your ears.

On "Korn Ring Finger" Van Vliet introduces the "manual tremolo" effect by turning the mic on and off while singing a long note - this effect was to be used a lot during the "Mirror Man" session.

"Safe as Milk" was, upon its release, John Lennon's favorite album. With the original LP release of this album, a "Safe as Milk" sticker was featured, and there's a famous picture (famous to Beefheart fans anyway) of Lennon laying in his house "Kenwood" reading the Technicolor Dream edition of The International Times, with two "Safe as Milk" stickers on the doors of a cupboard in the background.

Aside from the orginal Magic Band--which consisted of John "Drumbo" French, Alex St. Clair Snouffer, Ry Cooper and Jerry Handley--Doug Moon, Russ Titelman, Milt Holland, Taj Mahal, Sam Hoffman and Richard Perry participate on various instruments here and there throughout the album.

Don't expect it to be another "Trout Mask Replica" if that's all you've heard by Captain Beefheart, but don't think that you're unable to like this music just because you like "Trout Mask" - I like both. This album has perhaps more commercial potential than any other Magic Band release, and should appeal especially to fans of slide guitar/harmonica dominated 60's rock with a raw, bluesy sound.

Just like the sticker on the CD-case reads, this is "one of the most extraordinary debut albums in history."