The 60’s strike again with my new high-water mark for album quality in this series.
Against my better judgment, I’m undertaking a project to determine my top 10 albums of every year since 1960. Instead of just picking my favorite stuff out of my collection, I intend to explore, re-visit and discover. While I can’t promise to leave no stone un-turned, I am going to go deeper than I ever have before. Why would I partake in a journey that will inevitably take many years and that I ultimately may never finish? Most importantly, to uncover great music that I’ve never heard before. Second, to boost my knowledge of music history and get a sense of what was happening at a macro scale in a snapshot of time. Finally, I want to share my passion for music with you and, fingers crossed, generate a dialogue down in the comments. So without further ado, here is #15 in the series. Next, I’ll be temporarily setting aside my random number generator to focus on the year of 2017.
Check out my previous entries here.
The Greatest Albums of 1967
I know that I’ve sung this tune before, but here it goes: The sixties were an incredible decade for music. Have I been brainwashed by years of listening to the rock music establishment? I tend to be pretty wary of the hero-worship peddled by institutions like VH1 and Rolling Stone, but I can’t deny what I’m hearing as I continue this project. Much like I declared in my review of 1966, I’m prepared to state that 1967 is the best year of music that I have covered so far. Forget my top 10, if I were to write about albums 11-20, it would hold up against most other years. Seriously, it would contain (among many other excellent records) Axis: Bold As Love, The Who Sell Out, and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I’ve done enough of these to establish some sort of baseline for great music in a year, and 1967 completely blows the curve in terms of volume and consistency.
The real advancement came in the explosion of rock and roll music in terms of style and sound. Psychedelic rock is the most commonly cited movement, but the truth is that there was just a lot more variety all of a sudden, regardless of whether it was trippy or not. Blues and folk still served as the foundation for most everything, but you can barely tell when the end product is something like The Velvet Undergound & Nico. Acts like the Kinks, Jefferson Airplane and Frank Zappa all performed rock music, but that connection was starting to become more theoretical than obvious at this point. Soul music had another strong year in ’67, and folk started to fade a bit from it’s early-60’s heights. While not as prominent or saturated as it had been in the 50’s, jazz was still holding strong with a handful of vital records throughout the year. The genre’s relegation to the sideline, a tragic eventuality, was not yet looming as large as I had expected in the summer of love.
So, here we go, yet again. I am about to write a lot of nice things about a lot of records that are already very well represented by nice-thing-writers on the internet and elsewhere. Why, there are nice things about these albums that have been published in print, many times over! Yet, I hope you get something new out of reading my takes, and the relative order I ascribe to these unimpeachable recordings, or at least, like me, you never tire of reading about this stuff no matter how many variations of the same you have read in the past.
1. Are You Experienced – The Jimi Hendrix Experience
I remember when I was younger, at some point in the 80’s when Metallica and Megadeath were important bands, trying to come to terms with the fact that Black Sabbath was considered heavy metal. It seemed like a stretch, but ok, I guess I could make the connection. Next, I would read that Led Zeppelin was maybe an originator of metal, and I somehow managed to wrap my head around that, as well. Then, somewhere else, I would hear Hendrix referred to as a godfather of heavy metal and for whatever reason, I just couldn’t make that cognitive leap. All I can say now is that context is an important thing. Because after listening to all the other music released in 1967, those bludgeoning first notes of “Purple Haze” sound like Slayer. Jimi is the de facto best guitarist of all time, it’s something that we all kind of take for granted at this point, but I think a lot of my generation chalk that up to his otherworldly technique and raucous solos. Having just listened to the majority of major rock releases from 1966 and 1967, I finally understand that he actually transformed what guitar playing was. He really turned it into an instrument of expression, and unlocked so many new ways to employ it. It’s like Clapton and Beck were Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins, and then a year later Hendrix comes along as mid-sixties Coltrane, skipping two decades of progression, and Charlie Parker, all at once.
Are You Experienced? is a hell of a title for such an album. The implication, “hey, are you ready for this?”, makes a bold promise that the band is all too prepared to fulfill on. The element that strikes you immediately, natch, is the heaviness of the guitar. It’s fast and loud and brilliantly technical but also loose almost to the point of sloppiness. Combined with the incredibly game rhythm section of Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell (forever destined to be criminally overlooked), that guitar is raw and violent and exciting. Yet, on other tracks, like “The Wind Cries Mary”, it is beautifully vulnerable. Some of the tunes are psychedelic freak-outs, but most of them are short, straight-forward rock tunes with well-constructed hooks. It’s remarkable how fluidly the album progresses from track to track, letting those hooks pile up in jaw-dropping fashion.
It’s probably worth mentioning that I don’t really relish listening to “Hey Joe” or “Foxy Lady” for the billionth time. Any emotional impact those songs once had on me have been stamped out by years of classic rock radio, ubiquity in pop culture, and my own childhood obsession with Smash Hits. Yet, collected in their original form, surrounded by all of these other amazing songs, the brilliance is undeniable. I should also note that this album’s review is based on the original US release of the album, and those eleven tracks alone merit its placement as #1, but for goodness sake, don’t rob yourself of the b-sides and UK album tracks that make up the 17-song extended version. Else you would be left without “Red House” and “Stone Free”, and what kind of experience is that?
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2. I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You – Aretha Franklin
If Jimi Hendrix never had an infatuation with Bob Dylan, Aretha would have claim to the world’s greatest cover song. In the only recorded instance of someone making Otis Redding an afterthought, her version of “Respect” kicks off the album as a swaggering mission statement. Aretha’s next album would be titled “Aretha Arrives”, but there is little mistake that this is her true arrival. The song, transformed into somewhat of a feminist anthem, demands to be paid attention to, and its biggest takeaway is the supreme self-confidence of its performer. Franklin is often lauded as one of the best singers we’ve ever heard, but I would actually re-frame that a bit. As a singer, she could never compete with the control and phrasing of a Sam Cooke or Sarah Vaughn or Nina Simone. Aretha had the best voice, however, at least of the female soul singers. She commanded so much power, a seemingly inexhaustible well, that she was fortunate to exert the control that she did have. That’s what ultimately makes her performances here so thrilling – the raw strength of that voice, and the danger that it might get away from her but never quite does. Her singing on the title track or “Dr. Feelgood” is not to be digested and mulled over, it is to be experienced and withstood. All of which makes her surprisingly tender turn on “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” all the more disarming and emotional.
Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder would go on to change the world of soul music in a few years, but I could make a strong argument that this is the best soul album of the 60’s. Every song is a winner, and there is a concentration of absolute classics that even Otis can’t boast on most of his albums. The backing band is not quite Booker T and the MGs or the Funk Brothers, but they play their parts well enough and know that the most important thing they can do is make way for star of the show. I don’t know how much we’ll be discussing Aretha in future installments – this is a really stacked album so there isn’t that much left that’s essential – but I’m glad she got her spot to shine. She pretty much demanded it, and that much is clear from the first line she sings. That line, by the way, goes “What you want, baby I got it.”
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3. Disraeli Gears – Cream
Cream’s secret weapon is Ginger Baker. Yes, Clapton is the bigger name, and shares front man duties with Jack Bruce, but Baker is the warm pulse that allows the band to rise to the top (pun regretfully intended). His drumming is almost an antithesis to contemporaries like Keith Moon or Mitch Mitchell, who employ an aggressive, cacophonous approach. Baker is fluid and controlled, playing more like a jazz musician to foster Cream’s groovy, inviting sound. His gentle intros to most songs pave the way for Bruce’s bubbly bass lines and Clapton’s laid-back yet vibrant guitar. Speaking of Clapton, he may be at his best on this album. That’s a heck of an assertion, given the decades he has spent dominating his profession across multiple classic bands, but the only recording that comes close for me is Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, and he’s not even the best guitarist on that album so it kinda doesn’t count. Where Hendrix is unprecedentedly heavy, Clapton is the opposite. Not light, or soft, but anti-gravity. Listen to rockers like “SWABLR” or “Tales of Brave Ulysses”, and you can hear the guitar bouncing all over the place, taking colorful flights of fancy without ever sacrificing the groove. Bruce and Clapton share vocal duties, which works out great whether they are harmonizing (“Strange Brew”) or trading off (“Sunshine of Your Love”). My favorite track is “Dance the Night Away”, it might be my favorite song of the year in fact, although I don’t exactly know why. There’s something about Clapton’s playing on the section following the chorus that just stops me in my tracks and messes with my dopamine levels. I’m not the biggest fan of psychedelic music in general, but this is what it should be in its purest form.
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4. The Doors – The Doors
Of all the classic rock bands that had untarnished reputations in my youth, the Eagles and the Doors have undergone a bit of a critical re-evaluation in recent times. I may never get the chance to talk at length about the Eagles in these posts (even their best albums are a little soft in the middle), but I’m happy to crack back at the criticism of the Doors. Most of it seems centered on two specific complaints. One – Jim Morrison isn’t that good of a singer, and more commonly, two – Jim Morrison is full of shit. To those, in turn, I say “no, he’s not, but he’s plenty competent and one of the most fun front men to sing along with” and two “duh… who cares?” I reject at face value the idea that we should discount the Doors music because Morrison was a knuckle-head who spouted a bunch of nonsense about being a shaman or whatever. Now the mid-sixties were a time of earnest musicians addressing the social and political issues of the day, and I’ll grant that compared to Joan Baez or Stephen Stills, Morrison comes across as a bit of a clown. Over the next decade, however, we would have David Bowie and Alice Cooper, Paul Stanley and Johnny Rotten. The pendulum would swing to the point that every rock star was expected to have some ridiculous affectation, and the music was meant to elicit a sense of fun, not enlist recruits for the counter-culture. Morrison is full of shit, but that only matters if you take him seriously, and nothing about his debut album suggests that he wants to be taken any more seriously than the majority of rock stars in history.
Once you set aside the Doors controversial front man, the music is pretty much undeniable. John Dinsmore is an underrated drummer that is equally proficient at layering in jazz or blues flavors to his playing. Robbie Krieger is not going to turn heads against the top guitarists of the day, but he benefits from a unique style that lends his playing an exotic feel. The real hero of the band, of course, is Ray Manzarek. Anybody was going to be overshadowed by Morrison’s cult of personality, but Manzarek should really get more love for his keyboard playing. It’s unusual for someone to come on the scene and invent a truly new sound, but Ray’s intro to “Light My Fire” is probably just as responsible for the success of the Doors as anything else. It is Gothic and kind of campy and, most importantly, not a blues intro played on guitar. Later in the song, the band showcases their incredible chemistry with an intense series of interlocking solos. That chemistry, which makes you believe that they are thinking and breathing as one, is closer to the great jazz combos of the time than any of their rock and roll contemporaries. That’s the element that fuels the propulsive “Break on Through” and makes “The End” such a legendary opus. Aside from those big hits, the album also contains some amazing sleepers such as “Soul Kitchen” and “Crystal Ship”. There is filler, just like every other Doors album, but when your filler is as brief and fun as “20th Century Fox”, your whole album becomes a must listen. Much like Are You Experienced?, The Doors is an explosive debut that re-shaped what was possible in rock and roll.
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5. Straight, No Chaser – Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk produces some of the most cerebral jazz you’ll ever hear. It’s not that he sounds like he’s solving a math problem or forming a theoretical concept of what music could be like some other jazz artists that came along in the seventies, but compared to the effortless flow of someone like McCoy Tyner (who we’ll talk about later in the list), Monk comes across as if every note is heavily deliberated and painstakingly chosen, all in the matter of a few nanoseconds since the prior note was played. It is at once absorbingly impressive and considerably exhausting. I find him to be a challenging listen at times, particularly his unaccompanied work, because his solos defy passive listening. Those elements are all present on Straight, No Chaser, but they are leavened considerably by the prominence of saxophonist, Charlie Rouse. Rouse is a thoughtful musician, as well, but his playing is more soothing and rounded than Monk’s. Their different yet complimentary styles provide the bedrock for some dynamic and interesting interplay between the duo, particularly on the Monk-penned tunes (“Locomotive”, “We See”, the title track). The one departure from the quartet structure is the standard “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea”, which Monk tackles alone. Set apart from the more sax-focused tracks, it is engrossing to hear his inimitable style of piano for seven minutes, and marvel at how many times he makes a seemingly wrong choice that nevertheless works. This is an album that showcases Monk’s genius and serves it up in a manner that helps it go down smooth (rendering its title quite ironic). It is a perfectly reasonable selection to play in the background of a dinner party or as you drift off to sleep, but it is capable of repaying a much deeper investment of your attention as well.
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6. Magical Mystery Tour – The Beatles
The obvious question will be why I chose this album over Sgt Pepper’s, widely considered the best, or at least most important, Beatles album. The easy answer is that I simply like it better. While Sgt Pepper’s is more conceptually adventurous, and has the best song off of either one (“A Day in the Life”), it also has the highest concentration of tunes that I simply don’t care for on any Beatles album other than Let It Be. The middle of that record is really kind of a drag to me. Magical Mystery Tour, while far from the band’s best work, is enjoyable from front to back. Even the tracks that I would generally describe as filler, “Fool on the Hill” and “Penny Lane” for example, are catchy and enjoyable. Luckily, there are plenty of stronger songs as well. Forget about the nonsense lyrics, clearly written because John Lennon knew they would sound cool when he sung them, “I Am the Walrus” is a masterwork of layering instrumentation. It showcases a complex progression as new elements are dropped in and out of the mix, subtly changing the tone and texture of the music. It’s the exact type of thing I praised Kanye West for on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, an album that came out more than 40 years later. It’s often been stated that Sgt. Peppers was a direct answer to the Beach Boys’ masterwork, Pet Sounds, and that influence is strong on Magical Mystery Tour as well. “All You Need Is Love” and “Strawberry Hills Forever” contain similar techniques to “I Am the Walrus”, and nearly every song has an interesting little coda or arrangement in the bridge. “Flying” and “Blue Jay Way” offer a melancholy psychedelic detour that gives the album some more depth. This is one of the most well produced albums of the year, or any year, really. It also happens to be the first Beatles album I ever listened to, which turned out to be a strong enough entry point to foster my passion for their music in the subsequent years.
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7. Strange Days – The Doors
Coming out a mere eight months after the Doors’ debut album, it’s no surprise that Strange Days follows the same formula. There are a handful of signature tracks, some brief and inoffensive filler, and an epic album closer that seeks to emulate the band’s mesmerizing live show. Clocking in at ten minutes plus, “When the Music’s Over” comprises more than a quarter of the album’s run time, so the success of Strange Days is tied inextricably to the success of that track. Luckily, it is one of the best songs the Doors ever produced. It’s a roller coaster of tension and release, parlaying the band’s intense rapport into a cryptic and emotional scorcher that culminates with Morrison channeling the hippie culture’s unchecked id by declaring “We want the world and we want it now!” In many ways, Strange Days shines a dark mirror back on the “summer of love”. The counter-culture was full of big ideals like free love, pacifism and non-conformity, but their trappings included a lot of drug use and shirking of traditional responsibilities. The album captures the paranoia and displacement of a generation that is rightfully distrustful of their government, afraid of dying in Vietnam, and uncertain what to do about it other than just get high and listen to Jefferson Airplane. Songs like “People Are Strange”, the title track, and the woefully underappreciated “You’re Lost Little Girl” all convey a sense of unease and confusion, while appropriately sounding pretty cool after smoking a joint. It’s a strong statement to follow up their blockbuster debut with an album this well-conceived and executed during the same year.
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8. Nina Simone Sings the Blues – Nina Simone
It’s not incorrect to call Nina Simone Sings the Blues straightforward, it’s probably her most focused and consistent album. Yet, for all of the artists who have gone off-script to make a blues album that mostly just expresses that they only know one way to perform the blues, Nina mines a wealth of variety out of the genre. “Do I Move You?” kicks things off with a swagger. Simone tackles the sultry lyrics with the confidence of Muddy Waters, asking the titular question as though she damn well knows the answer. It’s a late-night bar room version of the blues that pops up later on the album in the form of the also excellent “In the Dark”. Simone shows off her more vulnerable side in her signature “I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl”, trading in the former track’s bravado for sweet plea to the man she loves. She gets righteously political on “Backlash Blues” and bawdy on “Buck”. She even re-re-imagines “House of the Rising Sun”, a track she previously released as a haunting, mournful tune, as a rollicking barnstormer. The undeniable centerpiece, however, is her interpretation of the Porgy and Bess song, “My Man’s Gone Now”. Nina unleashes a maelstrom of emotion from longing to fury to anguish, packing it all into a thoroughly draining four-minute arc. It is an unimpeachable performance, one that may be the year’s best, and the definitive take on the song in my estimation. Sings the Blues is a slight departure from Simone’s historically jazz and soul influenced work, but also serves as a solid entry point for anyone who wants to understand what her incredibly versatile voice is capable of.
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9. A Whole New Thing – Sly & the Family Stone
At its least ambitious, A Whole New Thing is an excellent soul album. At other times, remarkably often in fact, it is a crystal ball showing us the future of black music in America. Sly takes a host of popular R&B styles (the Jerry Butler-style ballad “Let Me Hear It from You”; the Ike and Tina rave-up “Turn Me Loose”) and throws them into a wood chipper, coming out with a wild amalgamation that never ends up where you think it is going. This is not generally a well-loved record in the Family Stone discography, and to be sure, they get better over time. Sly’s singing lacks the confidence and maturity that he would have in two short years, and the songs are somewhat slipshod at times. It remains one of the most inventive records of the year, however, with bizarro song structures and hairpin turns. Most will recognize the half chanting/half singing that kicks off “Trip to Your Heart” from LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out”, but what about the acid nightmare of groans and swirling guitars that make up the chorus? There’s the souped-up funk of “Underdog”, with its seemingly fluid time signature that never quite disrupts the groove. Tracks like “Bad Risk” and “I Cannot Make It” start off straight-forward, but offer up twists and turns that thumb their nose at the verse-chorus-verse structure of every other soul track of the time. Taken individually, there are stunning tracks here. All together, the album is a bit disorienting. That said, it captures the psychedelic spirit as well as anything else on the list and proves to be the launching pad for a band that would continue to push against boundaries (even the ones they established themselves) for many more albums to come.
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10. The Real McCoy – McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner, Ron Carter, Elvin Jones and Joe Henderson – These are all musicians that have shown up on my top ten lists already, and they will continue to do so as I round out the 60’s. Tyner is better known as a side-man than a band leader, most famously for John Coltrane. Out from the shadow of Coltrane’s overwhelming saxophone, however, Tyner’s distinct character really comes through. His piano is clearly the lead instrument, balancing precision and soulfulness in his expressive playing, and synchronizing with Henderson on runs in a way that is typically reserved for two horns. The other standout performer has to be Tyner’s old partner from the Coltrane band, Elvin Jones, who is probably my favorite jazz drummer. As usual, Jones adds an element of danger to the music, simmering along intensely and occasionally boiling over into a tempestuous solo. Collectively, the group produces a lean yet diverse set of songs that deliver on the promise of their titles. “Passion Dance” is fiery and propulsive, almost tribal. “Contemplation” and “Searching for Peace” are serene, slow and reflective. “Blues on the Corner” is a bouncy mid-tempo track that is more jovial than intense. The Real McCoy stands as another testament to the genius of this collective of like-minded musicians in the sixties, and yet another Blue Note masterpiece.
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Honorable Mentions
Rock: Axis: Bold as Love – The Jimi Hendrix Experience; The Who Sell Out – The Who; Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles; Piper at the Gates of Dawn – Pink Floyd; Buffalo Springfield Again – Buffalo Springfield; Surrealistic Pillow – Jefferson Airplane; Something Else by the Kinks – The Kinks; Big Brother and the Holding Company – Big Brother and the Holding Company; The Velvet Underground & Nico – The Velvet Underground
Soul: Live in Europe – Otis Redding; High Priestess of Soul – Nina Simone; The Temptations with a Lot ‘O Soul – The Temptations; United – Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell; Aretha Arrives – Aretha Franklin; King & Queen – Otis Redding & Carla Thomas; Get It While You Can – Howard Tate
Country: Branded Man – Merle Haggard; Hello, I’m Dolly – Dolly Parton
Blues: Born Under a Bad Sign – Albert King; The Super Super Blues Band – Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters & Howlin’ Wolf
Jazz: Sorcerer – Miles Davis; Miles Smiles – Miles Davis
Folk/Pop: John Wesley Harding – Bob Dylan; Pandemonium Shadow Show – Harry Nilsson; Goodbye and Hello – Tim Buckley; Songs of Leonard Cohen – Leonard Cohen
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