Best Albums Of The 1960s, Pt. 1

It’s time to be completely honest: I created this blog for a singular reason. Next year, as soon as the calendars switch over into 2010, we’ll have a new decade. This is a music critic’s happiest dream. Finally, we all can write retrospective “Best Of The Decade” lists! Sure enough, I plan on putting one together and I created this blog so I would have an eventual outlet for it. Next January, I’ll start listing my 100 Favorite Albums of the 2000s. However, in the meantime, I’ve got a few other lists to get out there. Leading up to my 2000s list, I’m going to write a bit about all my favorite albums from each decade between the 1960s and now. This way, anyone curious will have a good sense of my musical tastes over time. Every other month, I’ll have a new decade list. This month, the 1960s. June will be the 1970s, August the 1980s and finally October will be dedicated to the 1990s. I hope y’all find it interesting.

(Note: future lists will feature fifty albums. For the 1960s, I’m only doing twenty-five, since I don’t have all that many albums to choose from for this decade.)

The requisite disclaimer:
This list is just a matter of my own opinion. This list is less about saying one album is “better” than another and more about just presenting music that I’ve enjoyed over the years. If you disagree with anything on here, feel free to comment and say so. Polite disagreement is always appreciated, however.

#25
Song Cycle
Van Dyke Parks
1968

In many ways, Song Cycle is more of a novelty than a “serious” album. Parks, who’s best known as the lyricist behind most of Brian Wilson’s ill-fated Smile album, used a colossal budget to create a strange collage of Americana and pop music. Snippets of music fly by, only to be replaced by something entirely different. A little banjo number will transition, without warning, into something straight out of Tin Pan Alley. Strange and ambitious, it’s most interesting for its uniqueness, rather than for its actually musical enjoyment.

#24
The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
1963

What hasn’t been said about Dylan at this point? I mean…he’s Bob Dylan. Nothing I can say here will shed any new light on his work. However, I enjoy listening to Freewheelin’ because it represents a time before the name “Bob Dylan” elicited reverent tones. At its heart, this is just a simple protest album, executed with a beauty, grace and honesty that every other “serious” artist in the 60s would try to replicate. Often sad and highlighted by Dylan’s nimble guitar work, Freewheelin’ is the reason anybody talks about Dylan in the first place.

#23
Forever Changes
Love
1967

The 60s psychedelic movement was in full bloom by 1967, with everyone (at least in California) wrapped up in peace, love and just getting really far out…man. Somehow, in the middle of all that, Love managed to record Forever Changes, one of the darkest, most eerie albums to escape the cloud of the psychedelic scene. Led by the maverick Arthur Lee, Forever Changes was the sound of Love predicting the inevitable decline of all the good feelings that were in the air.

#22
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Beatles
1967

I’ll be honest here: a huge part of me hates this album. In some circles, saying something like that is simply blasphemous. However, the reason I hate it is because its influence can never be exorcised from music as a whole. Sgt. Pepper’s set the bar so ridiculously high when it came to making music in the studio. There had simply been nothing else similar when it came out. Then, after 1967, everybody seemed to be trying to replicate it. Basically, nobody succeeded.

#21
Bringing It All Back Home
Bob Dylan
1965

The beginning of the end of the beginning…it all starts here. Once Dylan started dabbling with his pretty electric guitars, there was no going back. Never mind that hundreds of hippies would boo him the same year for playing “Maggie’s Farm”. Bob Dylan was ready to rock. Of course, Bringing It All Back Home was just the blueprint for what was coming. Next time, there’s would be no whole acoustic side of the album to placate the folkies. From here on out, there were no rules.