The Millennium

Drawing from psychedelia along with California rock, pop/rock producer Curt Boettcher of the Association formed a studio supergroup in 1968 to pursue progressive directions. The resulting Millennium album met with neither commercial traction nor more than half-baked artistic achievement, although it still conveys a certain period charm. Boettcher and his associates blended the Association, the Mamas and the Papas, the Smile-era Beach Boys, Nilsson, the Left Banke, and the Fifth Dimension in roughly equal measures, yielding a hybrid too unabashedly commercial for underground FM radio yet too weird for the AM dial. Its bright, almost too-cheerful sunshine harmonies and memorable melodies would nonetheless have suited AM airwaves more comfortably, where they anchor the suite-like, diverse collection of elaborately produced '60s pop/rock tunes.