Release and Reception
Turn! Turn! Turn! was released on December 6, 1965 in the United States (catalogue item CL 2454 in mono, CS 9254 in stereo) and March 22, 1966 in the UK (catalogue item BPG 62652 in mono, SBPG 62652 in stereo). It peaked at #17 on the Billboard Top LPs chart, during a chart stay of 40 weeks, and reached #11 in the United Kingdom, spending a total of 5 weeks on the UK chart. The preceding "Turn! Turn! Turn!" single was released on October 1, 1965 in the U.S. and October 29, 1965 in the UK, reaching #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #26 on the UK Singles Chart. A second single taken from the album, "Set You Free This Time" (b/w "It Won't Be Wrong"), was released on January 10, 1966 in the U.S., peaking at #63 on the Billboard Hot 100 but failing to chart in the UK. The album's front cover photograph was taken by Guy Webster at his studio in Beverly Hills and was later nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Album Cover. The LP's back cover liner notes were written by The Byrds' publicist, Derek Taylor, and were actually an edited version of a much longer description of the album and its recording that would later appear in its complete form in the February 15, 1966 edition of Record World magazine.
Upon release, the album garnered mostly positive reviews, with Robert Shelton commenting in The New York Times that the album was "not so strong as the first Byrds LP, Mr. Tambourine Man, but still an effective program of folk-rock." Billboard magazine described the album's contents by noting that "the group offers a diversified program of material that is certain to soar up the LP charts." In the UK, Richard Bruce enthusiastically praised the album in his review for Music Echo by describing the record as "so sensationally brilliant that even after hearing, I've no hesitation in saying they are proving they have as big a talent as The Beatles and The Stones!" In more recent years, Richie Unterberger has noted on the Allmusic website that the album "was only a disappointment in comparison with Mr. Tambourine Man. It was still quite good, however, particularly the ringing number one title cut, a classic on par with the "Mr. Tambourine Man" single."
Turn! Turn! Turn! was remastered at 20-bit resolution and partially remixed as part of the Columbia/Legacy Byrds series. It was reissued in an expanded form on April 30, 1996, with seven bonus tracks, including two alternate versions of songs included on the original album, three outtakes, and the Gene Clark penned B-side, "She Don't Care About Time".
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Famous quotes containing the words release and, release and/or reception:
“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
—Elizabeth Drew (1887–1965)
“The steel decks rock with the lightning shock, and shake with the
great recoil,
And the sea grows red with the blood of the dead and reaches for his spoil—
But not till the foe has gone below or turns his prow and runs,
Shall the voice of peace bring sweet release to the men behind the
guns!”
—John Jerome Rooney (1866–1934)
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)