Fifth Dimension by The Byrds

Fifth Dimension, the Byrds' third album, came out on Columbia on July 18, 1966, and it's the record where the folk-rock pioneers went looking for the outer edges. Gene Clark, their main songwriter, walked out in February 1966, so Jim McGuinn and David Crosby picked up the slack with more songs of their own, with Chris Hillman on bass and Michael Clarke on drums. For the first time, a Byrds LP carries no Bob Dylan song at all.

The gaps show: four covers and an instrumental pad out the running order, and critics have long called it uneven. But when it takes off, it flies. "Eight Miles High" is the rocket, McGuinn's jangling 12-string Rickenbacker spiralling off into raga-tinged space, and "5D (Fifth Dimension)" and "Mr. Spaceman" keep the far-out mood going. It was the band's most experimental set yet, and critics now credit it with helping to invent psychedelic rock.

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