15/06/2023
ON THIS DATE (53 YEARS AGO)
June 15, 1970 - Grand Funk Railroad: Closer to Home is released.
# ALL THINGS MUSIC PLUS+ 4.5/5
# Allmusic 4/5 stars
Closer to Home is Grand Funk Railroad's third studio album, and was released on June 15, 1970. It reached #6 on the Billboard Top 200 LPs & Tapes chart, bolstered by the title track which reached #22 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Grand Funk's third studio album, 1970's Closer to Home, was the album that catapulted the band into the big time and placed it at the top of the hard rock heap. One of GFR's most consistent albums, the most recognizable song remains the title track, which deals with the nightmare of getting drafted into the then still raging Vietnam war. Add to it such other solid rocking ditties as "Sin's a Good Man's Brother," "Nothing is the Same," and "Hooked on Love," and you have arguably Grand Funk's finest album.
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RECORD WORLD, June 20, 1970 – ALBUMS PICKS OF THE WEEK
Grand Funk Railroad strike "Closer to Home" with this new album of extremely hard rock sounds. Their widening audience should respond (Capitol SK AO 471).
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ORIGINAL CIRCUS MAGAZINE REVIEW
Well, Grand Funk Railroad have another album out, and tonight I was in the mood for it, so I listened to it a few times and grew to a steady enjoyment of what they were doing. Then I started to enjoy what I was writing, and then enjoying their lyrics which are dirty and simple and tenor heavy, which is not easy but is helped by some Southern slurring. Fast guitar and fast bass and driving percussion and some steady backup to tight harmony vocals and some fuzz and it's a solid heavy record. I hated their first album but maybe I had a headache. So much of everything depends on how you feel; criteria are all so slippery. Grand Funk is a trite, superfluous, derivative band as well as all of these things, and it all depends and who can argue with that? I dig heavy bass, though, and when it comes moving up and Schacher's stuff moves around well and is still pointed and punctual. Whatever that means.
I went downtown to take a look at the billboard they had erected for themselves on Times Square. First of all it was bigger by far than the one John and Yoko rented this winter and it didn't say all that much about peace either, which was ok, since why confuse commercialism with peace anyway? It gets people uptight and they're not happy and glad like you expected, but they get offended and they don't necessarily buy your records. Grand Funk, well they're going to succeed and none of this business about moods is going to do anything one way or another. They have found a pattern for success, and they are going about it with the flash and filigree that makes the industry blush with pleasure.
- Jonathan Eisen, Circus, 9/70
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TRACKS:
All songs written by Mark Farner.
Side one
1. "Sin's a Good Man's Brother" 4:35
2. "Aimless Lady" 3:25
3. "Nothing Is the Same" 5:10
4. "Mean Mistreater" 4:25
5. "Get It Together" 5:07
Side two
1. "I Don't Have to Sing the Blues" 4:35
2. "Hooked On Love" 7:10
3. "I'm Your Captain (Closer to Home)" 10:09
