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Zack: While I was listening to the album, I kept
wondering why precisely it was being included. It seemed to me to be a
perfectly fine representative of the folk rock genre, but beyond that I wasn’t
really sure what made it so special. Folk isn’t really a genre known for
innovation I guess, and the artists that succeed aren’t necessarily the ones
who try bold new things like in other genres. But Liege and Lief really just
sounded like a generic version of a couple of artists we’ve heard before, like
The Byrds and Cat Stevens. And it didn’t seem to have much in the way of
storytelling going on, which I’ve felt really can lift things up quite a bit.
Overall, I was pretty underwhelmed by Liege and Lief. It was fine, but that was
about it.
Favorite Tracks: Matty Groves; Tam Lin; The Deserter
Emily: This is yet another example of the British bias on this list. There is a plethora of influential late-'60s folk rock out there, but I don't really think Fairport Convention deserves top-tier recognition when the main action in the genre was going on in the U.S. I think it's really interesting that this album pulls from traditional British and Celtic folk songs (according to Wikipedia) and rearranges them for the then-modern audience. But I don't know enough about these traditional songs (or anything really) to really understand if and how they had been changed by Fairport Convention. Absent any real context, I think this album is best relegated to an afternoon set on a side stage at the folk festival - definitely not top billing.
Favorite Tracks: Matty Groves; The Deserter; Tam Lin
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