It was released in June 1971 on Columbia Records[1] at a time of renewed commercial and critical success for the band, due to the positive reception that their two previous albums, Ballad of Easy Rider and (Untitled), had received.

[7] Byrdmaniax remains one of the Byrds' most poorly received album releases, largely due to the incongruous addition of strings, horns, and a gospel choir which were overdubbed onto the songs by producer Terry Melcher and arranger Paul Polena, reportedly without the band's consent.

[15][16] With its melancholy sense of longing, folksy instrumentation, and sensitive lead vocal performance, "Pale Blue" is often regarded by critics as being one of the most successful musical statements on the album as well as something of a lost classic among the Byrds' oeuvre.

[1] The song's title and lyrical refrain was inspired by McGuinn's personal catchphrase, "I trust everything will turn out alright", which itself had been borrowed by the guitarist during the mid-1960s from the best-selling book The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale.

[2] The first of these, "Tunnel of Love", was an organ driven Fats Domino pastiche, while the second, "Citizen Kane", served as a wry comment on Hollywood life and its celebrity legacy during the 1940s and 1950s.

[13][17] White elected to sing lead vocal on the track but unfortunately his nasal voice and the band's lackluster musical backing gave the recording a fatalistic and dirge-like quality.

[13] The final track on Byrdmaniax was a rendition of "Jamaica Say You Will", written by the then unknown Jackson Browne and featuring a Clarence White vocal performance that is widely regarded as one of his best on a Byrds' album.

[8][14] In the Byrds' absence, Melcher and Hinshaw brought in arranger Paul Polena to assist with the overdubbing of strings, horns, and a gospel choir onto many of the songs, at a reported cost of $100,000 and allegedly without the band's consent.

[9] For his part, Melcher defended his actions by explaining that the band's performances in the studio were lackluster and that the orchestration was needed to cover up the album's musical shortcomings.

[11] In a 1977 interview with the Byrds' biographer Johnny Rogan, Melcher attempted to illustrate the situation in the recording studio during the making of the album and also explain his rationale for the orchestral additions: "Several members of the group were involved in divorces and they were hiding from their wives.

[9] Even two years later, Clarence White complained to journalist Pete Frame that "Terry Melcher put strings on while we were on the road, we came back and we didn't even recognize it as our own album.

[9] McGuinn actually defended Melcher somewhat by indicating in an interview with the English journalist Keith Altham that the album had been taken away from the producer at the last minute and given to an engineer in San Francisco to remix.

[7] The album cover artwork, featuring a set of silver "death masks"—one for each member of the band—was designed by Virginia Team and Grammy Award-winning Columbia Records' art director, John Berg.

[2][33][34] These foreboding plaster facemasks, which were created by artist Mary Leonard and photographed by Don Jim, have been regarded by some critics as an accurate visual representation of the lifeless music on the album and the declining state of the band in 1971.

The same review also described the McGuinn–Levy composition "I Wanna Grow Up to Be a Politician" as a song that was "degenerating into namby pamby innocuous mickey mouse with latent-blatant political content".

"[36] In the UK, Roy Hollingworth's review in the August 14, 1971 edition of Melody Maker was more positive and described the album as "one sweet length of bursting Byrds sunshine, so perfect in quality and quantity you'd feel an absolute heel to ask for more.

"[7] However, not all British reviews of Byrdmaniax were positive, with Richard Green of the NME noting that "When the true history of rock comes to be written, the Byrds will get a deserved place of honour on the strength of tunes like 'Mr.

[2] According to Fricke, the familiar chime of McGuinn's 12-string Rickenbacker guitar is lost beneath the overbearing strings and the band's trademark harmonies are also largely absent from the album.