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- CLASSIC ALBUM OF THE
WEEK
- Coven "Witchcraft Destroys Minds And Reaps Souls" 1969 (USA)
This
week is the 666th episiode of Kosmik Radiation, so our CAOTW is perhaps
the most EEEEVILLL rock album of the 1960's. Coven was a group from
Chicago who distinguished themselves by going all-in on devilly
witchcraft: the final track on this album is 13 minutes of a "Satanic
black mass", and the record came with a poster of the guys in the band
making "devil's horn" gestures and preparing to sacrifice a naked lady
on their satanic altar (though the blonde in the poster photo is
actually a model, not the band's singer). Musically, the group played a
brand of "soul rock" that was pretty typical of the period, though lead
singer Jinx Dawson had more charisma than most. So they really only
stood out in terms of lyrics and image, and unfortunately they couldn't
sustain that either. Following their debut Witchcraft,
their next couple albums were "mostly not very evil" and they became
best known for the pretentiously schmaltzy hippy anti-war anthem "One
Tin Soldier", which actually only featured one member of Coven (Jinx
the singer) and was probably only a hit because it was the theme for a
very popular movie called Billy Jack.
Two more fun facts about this album: the bassist Greg Osbourne went by
the name "Oz Osbourne" and the first track is a song called "Black
Sabbath" - the following year, another devilly band from Britain with a
singer named John "Ozzy" Osbourne released an album whose first
song was also called "Black Sabbath"!
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