After his debut album,
Aquashow, proved a critical success and a commercial failure,
Elliott Murphy switched from Polydor to RCA for
Lost Generation, on which
Doors producer
Paul A. Rothchild and a group of L.A. session musicians gave him a better sound, while his songs seemed like outtakes from the first record. Again,
Murphy was endlessly referential, name-checking everyone from
Andy Warhol to
Ezra Pound, mixing a contemporary New York City milieu with literary, cinematic, musical, and historical allusions in his sometimes whiney sawdust tenor while the band made like
Blonde on Blonde. It was the same set of elements that had made
Aquashow such a delight, but they weren't blended quite as well this time. Nevertheless,
Murphy remained an intriguing songwriter with a nervy cultural sense, and his future seemed promising.