10. Nancy Sinatra - How Does That Grab YouNancy Sinatra made catchy and quite commercial pop-songs with folk, jazz and country influences. Her most well-known songs were all in albums made in 1966. How Does That Grab You is, in my opinion, the best collection of songs. It ends in absolutely remarkable song Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) that was made again known to younger generations in the film Kill Bill. How Does That Grab You, Darlin' is a great song resembling Nancy Sinatra's another hit song These Boots are Made for Walking which is unfortunately not on this album. Sinatra's voice is full of honey. There's subtle seduction in every line she sings. Sorry 'Bout That is one of the great examples of Sinatra's hippy period groovy songs. Most of the songs are written by someone else, but as a singer and performer, Nancy Sinatra is top notch! Listen to the album on Spotify.
The Byrds is known as one of the masters of melodic flower power pop groups. Their trademark is in beautiful vocal harmonies and folk influences performed on clean electric guitar sounds. Fifth Dimension is probably the band's strongest performance, even though it does not contain any of their most well-known songs. It is difficult to raise any individual songs to the forefront, since all the songs have the same strengths of airy and beautiful melodic talent. This band has no doubt influenced many melodic indie-pop groups of the 2000's. Bands such as Teenage Fanclub and The Shins have notable similarities to some features on this album. In addition to more basic pop melodies, The Byrds use some more psychedelic sounds that were so common at the time. This is a great album. Listen to the album on Spotify.
This is one of the first psychedelic rock albums ever made. Austin, Texas, based 13th Floor Elevators created new and innovative sounds that started a whole new genre. Obviously their music has taken influences from other bands of the time, such as The Beatles, but this album has its own sound that can be heard again in 70's krautrock and garage psychedelia. Roky Erickson is known for many different bands, but I for one, like this the most. Up until this point nothing quite similar had been heard, but then the following year, bands such as The Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd came up with albums with similar sounds. So you might say that 13th Floor Elevators were influencing these classic bands of rock n' roll history. Listen to the album on Spotify.
Paul Revere & the Riders are mostly unknown to crowds nowadays. That's a shame. Midnight Ride is one terrific album. The opening song Kicks is a masterpiece in dark and beautiful pop-rock. The sound of the band is pretty basic for a beat band of the time, but the songs have great hooks and melancholic melodies that lift this album above the average band of mid-60's. The influence of The Beatles to this album is evident, but still the album is not just a Beatles rip-off, since it's full of great songs with a unique sound. The rock organ in some of the songs is great and guitar sounds are just crappy enough to bring that garage sound of the 60's. I had never even heard of the band before going through the book 1001 albums you must hear before you die. This is definitely one of those albums that you should hear. Listen to the album on Spotify.
The Kinks has made many great albums of melodic hippy age pop, but Face to Face is probably the most legendary of them all. It has the best song from the band, Sunny Afternoon. An absolute masterpiece in songwriting. Dandy was another hit song from the album. Personally, I like the blinking cembalo sounds in Rosy Won't you Please Come Home a lot. People who lived through the 60's often mention Kinks as one of the great and innovative bands of the time, but for some reason the later generations have not appreciated this band as much as some of the others from the time. I really don't know why that is. I encourage anyone, who only knows some of their hit songs to listen to whole albums, since the band's strength is in fantastic songwriting throughout their career. Listen to the album on Spotify.
Donovan's third album Sunshine Superman is his career's greatest achievement. The album is filled with beautiful folk-pop songs with great hooks and melodies. The mellow ballads remind me of Nick Drake's greatest songs a few years later. There are also Indian mystical features on the album that are used as beautifully as on The Beatles albums of the time. Bert's Blues is one of the best songs of this year, as is the title-track of the album. If for some reason you are not familiar with Donovan's melancholic hippy music, you must pick up this album and listen to it through immediately. Donovan is one of the greatest musicians of the 60's and even The Beatles were hugely influenced by him. This album does not have a single weak moment on it. All the songs are brilliant. Listen to the album on Spotify.
the title-track of this album is one of the best songs ever made. The vocal harmonies always give me the shivers. There is nothing quite as beautiful as this song. However, the greatness of the album does not stay there. Leaves That Are Green, Kathy's Song and A Most Peculiar Man are all great folk classics. The guitars in Anji are just phenomenal. Simon & Garfunkel made also another fantastic album in the same year. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme is also very worth listening. I chose Sounds of Silence to the list after long consideration, mainly because of the brilliance of the title-track. Although these album on fourth to sixth place on this list are absolutely fantastic, they're still not match for the brilliant top three, which is among the best top threes of the whole blog. Listen to the album on Spotify.
The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds is one of the most influential albums ever made. It was ambitious both for its songwriting and its production. The release of Pet Sounds made The Beatles aim for more innovative studio techniques for their Sgt. Pepper. The Beach Boys' best song Good Vibrations did not unfortunately make it to the album in time, but there are other amazing songs, such as Wouldn't It Be Nice, God Only Knows and Sloop John B. The sound of The Beach Boys is very recognisable from the older surf rock albums, but there is more depth in melodies. The songs aren't all sunshine anymore and the vocal harmonies are tuned to perfection. This album is the best they ever made. It's graded one of the best albums ever on many lists of best albums. Listen to the album on Spotify.
Bob Dyland is one of the greatest songwriters of all times and in the 60's he was one of the groundbreaking artists creating new sounds. The purist folkers of the time were devastated that Dylan started playing electrical instruments, but in doing so, Dylan really created something unique and new. the sounds are better than on anything made before. Dylan is a masterful storyteller and his harpsichord and guitar-playing is top notch. There's a great scene in the film High Fidelity, where the record store clerk makes the customer buy Blonde On Blonde, since it's something you need to own. I think that's true. There's quite nothing like putting this album (on vinyl of course) to a record player, crank up the volume and just listen. The album is full of great songs, but for me I Want You is the most important song. Listen to the album on Spotify.
Revolver is one of the best albums ever made. It's probably coherently the best album by The Beatles. The only bad song is Yellow Submarine. Well, I really don't like the right-wing ideology behind Taxman either. Still, rest of the album is just amazing! Eleanor Rigby is one of the best songs ever made. There's only two chords, but the singing melody and production with beautiful strings makes it phenomenal. I'm Only Sleeping is one of the best Lennon songs. Here, There and Everywhere and For No One are among the best McCartney ballads. Harrison has a couple of India influenced sitar songs on the album, but his genius is not yet born in its fullest form. The ending song Tomorrow Never Knows is amazing example of studio brilliance of The Beatles. Listen to the album on Youtube.
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