10. The Rolling Stones - No. 2
The Rolling Stones' second album is still largely put together of r&b cover songs. There's Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters and Allen Toussaint. The Rolling Stones perform these songs fairly well, though. The sounds are definitely clearer than on the 50's scrappy rock n' roll albums. There are few songs written by Jagger and Richards, but they're not really that interesting, to be honest. I guess I just wanted to include this album as a history reference to show where The Rolling Stones started their career. In the cover photo, the band has The Beatles hairdos and it is pretty clear that they are influenced by The Beatles and want to make it big by copying them. At the same time, The Beatles had moved on to make much more innovative pop-songs. Listen to the album on Spotify.
The Zombies made one of the best albums of the 60's. I, of course, mean Odessey and Oracle. Their debut album is still quite deep in basic rock n' roll. Only the skilful use of rock organ separates from many other contemporaries. There are few dreamy bluesy jams, that sound a bit more like The Zombies in few years time. Their cover of Summertime is one of these great songs. The cover version of About Her is another treat on this album. The vocal harmonies are also carried out really well. There's definitely some similarities to the Beatles' sounds. It's funny to look at the album covers of pop groups of this time. All the covers look really similar. Begin Here does not offer anything spectacular in songwriting, but they play old rock and beat classics beautifully adding some lazy hypnotic feel to them. Listen to the album on Youtube.
The Lovin' Spoonful is one of the most talented pop-groups of the 60's. They are very similar in sounds to The Beach Boys. There are strong soft rock n' roll sounds in their music. The vocal harmonies are beautiful and the sounds are generally very good for the time. In some of the songs there are surf rock influences and in others there are strong blues influences. Do You Believe In Magic is the group's debut album and in that sense, it's a lot stronger than some of the other debut albums of the time. There's a lot of variation between different songs. The style of the band is very similar to that of their British colleagues at the same time. This New York band has a great production behind them and their album sounds great, even though the songwriting is still pretty simple. Listen to the album on Spotify.
The Byrds have very recognisable and unique sound that is generated by a 12-string Rickenbacker guitar and dreamy vocal harmonies. The Byrds started their career by mainly playing Bob Dylan cover songs. Even though they are quite good, they're still not as good as the original songs, so it was only a good thing that The Byrds moved on to make more of their own music. On their second album, there are still a few Dylan covers, but also songs by the original members, of which, David Crosby is probably the most well-known. The title-track is known widely and it's one of the anthems of the hippy era. The Byrds are not the most original band when it comes to songwriting, but the sounds they make truly made significant progress in pop-music. Listen to the album on Spotify.
The Beach Boys were originally a surf rock band. Their first albums sound like they're from American college films of the 50's with hamburger restaurants, Cadillacs and teddy boys. Today! already shows some more innovative sounds paving the way for the band's next album Pet Sounds, but the album is still mainly very basic surf rock. There are numerous hit songs on this album. Do You Wanna Dance?, When I Grow Up (To Be a Man) and Help Me Rhonda are known to almost everyone. The vocal harmonies on these songs are already phenomenal. At this stage The Beach Boys sound more American than almost anything else. this always puts me off a bit, but then again, it's all so melodic and skilful that I can't really say anything bad about them. Listen to the album on Spotify.
The Who's best albums were made in the early 70's, but they had some fantastic individual songs already in mid-60's. The title-track of this album especially. The Kids Are Alright also became a huge hit and most of the people even today know that song. The Who's sound is more aggressive than most bands' of the time. There's also amazing talent shown with individual musicians. John Entwistle's bass and Keith Moon's drumming are especially noteworthy in My Generation. The vocal harmonies in The Kids Are Alright are fantastic. There's no wonder why so many punk bands in the 70's mentioned The Who as their influence, when you listen to these quite rough and aggressive rock songs. This is a fantastically great debut album for The Who. Listen to the album on Spotify.
Donovan started his career as quite pure folk artist. Only later did his music get more psychedelic pop influences. Fairytale is Donovan's second album and it has some great but simple folk classics. Colours, Candyman and Universal Soldier (although, not included in the original album) are known to many even nowadays. Most of the album relies only on Donovan's singing voice and his excellent guitar-playing. Donovan's sound is lighter than that of many other folk artists of the time and I really like his clear singing-voice. Listening to this music really is like listening to the soundtrack for hippy era. Donovan is one of the great folk artists of the 60's and one of the few artists at the time writing almost all of the songs on his albums himself. Listen to the album on Spotify.
Nina Simone is in my opinion the most important soul and blues singer of the 60's. She mainly sings old classics, but she sings them in a way like no other. There's amazing amount of emotion at least in the more melancholic bluesy songs. The tile-track of the album is fantastic, as is Simone's version of Feeling Good. The orchestra on the album is amazing. the jazzy pianos, the dark trombones and the strings all do a great job. Ne me quitte pas is unfortunately not performed that well, since Simone's French really doesn't work properly. The songs on the album are widely described jazz, but this is very commercial view of jazz. There are many similarities in sounds to late Amy Winehouse. This albums shows, how moving towards the first half of the 60's, artists are more and more just interpreters of songs by other songwriters. Still, this is a fantastic album. Listen to the album on Spotify.
Rubber Soul is the first Beatles album, where they took their beat sound to more explorative ways. Of course they had done groundbreaking work in songwriting before, but this album really showed something purely new. The sounds are still a bit more basic and closer to old beat albums, but there are amazing songs there. Drive My Car, Norwegian Wood, Michelle, Nowhere Man, Girl and In My Life were all huge hits. The Word and Wait are also among my favourites from this album. Run for Your Life is a great piece of composition, but the lyrics are a bit questionable. Rubber soul has many musical styles, but perhaps more folk influences than other Beatles albums. It may have been influence of Bob Dylan and Donovan. Rubber soul is the first properly fantastic Beatles album. Listen to the album on Youtube.
Bob Dylan's mid-60's recordings are absolutely fantastic! No other band or artist in hte history of music has probably been able to get such jams going on in the studio. Just listen to Tombstone Blues and imagine how the band must've been like live at the time. The stories in the songs are amazing, but even more than that I just have to admire the attitude in the songs. Ballad of a Thin Man is one of my all time favourite songs. From a Buick 6 is also a substantial song. Bob Dylan was undoubtedly the most masterful artist at the time. In 1965 he made also another album. Bringing It All Back Home is almost as great as Highway 61 Revisited. Both of them would be number one albums on this list. Now that I'm making this list, I've been just listening to Dylan's 60's albums over and over again and I can't seem to get enough of them. Listen to the album on Spotify.
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