Over what will likely be the next few years I’m going to be ranking and reviewing the top 5 albums according to users on rateyourmusic.com (think IMDB for music) from every year from 1960 to the present. If you want to know more, I wrote an introduction to the ‘challenge’ here. You can also read all the other entries I’ve written so far by heading to the lovely index page here.

Well the 1960s was quite the decade for music ey? It’s been an absolute joy listening through, discovering new favourites, and re-discovering old ones. It’s been a decade of musical progress, a decade full of ideas, a decade of expression, and a decade that’ll go on to have a massive influence over all the music to come in this challenge.

So, as mentioned in my previous article, I wanted to 'mop up' a few other albums before I listed my favourite albums of the 60s. These are albums that have come high up on other online publications' (such as Pitchfork and Paste) 60s best of lists but haven't made it into my challenge. As the rateyourmusic.com lists don't include live albums, these mop-ups will inevitably include some of those, but also others that maybe just missed out on rateyourmusic.com's top 5 for their year. I'm limiting myself to 5 albums as I'd quite like to move onto the 70s. I won't be ranking them this time, just reviewing them in order of when they came out. I'll then reveal my best of the decade list, exciting times!

LiveatApollo — Live at the Apollo (1963)

James Brown

So here we are, the first of our live albums. This one was ranked as the 25th best album of all time by Rolling Stone in 2012 and came 7th on Pitchfork's and 9th on Paste's best albums of the 1960s lists.

This live album documents a performance by James Brown and the Famous Flames at the Apollo Theater in Harlem in October, 1962. The album wasn't re-issued until 1990 because the master tapes were lost. Thankfully, they were eventually found by Phil Schaap while looking for a Max Roach tape.

The album shows a more restrained and conventional James Brown than what was to come, but it succeeds in putting you in a place and time better than many live albums I've heard. It's perfectly recorded (something that cannot be said of a lot of live albums); the sound is crisp and clear, while retaining the atmosphere of a live recording. You can hear the audience (and particularly the female contingent) lose their minds on numerous occasions. This is first evident when Brown starts on the first notes of Try, Try Me, and most evident in the back and forth of Lost Someone as Brown gets the crowd to bounce back his cries of ‘auuuuuuuuuu’ which they do with much fervour. If you haven’t been put into the room by then, that exchange is sure to put you right into the mix.

Usually when you listen to a live album, you find the vocals just aren’t quite up to the recorded versions. Here though, James Brown’s are perfect, his screams, his more tender melodies, all performed with an impressive level of precision and the tone of golden syrup. The band are as tight as could be too, grooving along with perfectly timed horn stabs throughout. Live at the Apollo is so packed with the excitement in the room, it’s sure to explode out of your speakers as soon as you put it on.

All in all, this is a captivating record. At only 30 minutes long, this is a perfect, compact recording of an intimate gig with the crowd in the palm of Brown’s hand.

Song Picks: Try, Try Me; Lost Someone; Medley

9/10

Love’s Forever Changes wasn’t an immediate success, but has now gained widespread acclaim. Rolling Stone put it as their 40th best album of all time and it also featured high up on Paste and Pitchfork’s best of the 60s lists already mentioned. The rateyourmusic.com community have this at #27 for the 60s (and #8 for that stupendously good year, 1967).

Forever Changes is the band’s third album, and the final album by the original band. Much like the Beatles, the two songwriters in the band (Arthur Lee wrote 9 of this album’s songs and Bryan Maclean wrote 2) didn’t get on all that swimmingly. Perhaps the main reason they never ‘made it big’ however was Arthur Lee’s unwillingness to tour.

This album is very much a folk-rock record with psychadelic elements. It feels very relaxed overall, with gentle melodies and consistently warm guitar riffs. It’s extremely accesible and I think anyone would enjoy this. The great guitar work is particularly evident on the opener Alone Again Or, a song written as a tribute to Lee’s mother. It features a so-gorgeous-I-just-want-to-swim-in-it picked guitar part that starts the track and follows every climax. Towards the end of the song, a Latin-American sounding horn part comes in, followed again by that lovely guitar part. It’s a song that I’m pretty sure anyone would love, and thus it’s rather surprising this is the first time I’ve heard it.

There’s no other moments quite as great as those I’ve just described in the rest of the album, but it’s full of delightfully crafted songs with charm for days. The Daily Planet is a great meditation on the repetitiveness of daily life, its bass-riff perfectly captuing the ‘round and round’ mentioned in the lyrics. Maybe the People Would be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale (yep, that’s the actual title) is another highlight for me, it’s staccato parts in between verses balancing the jolly, marching verses perfectly. It also features some of the album’s finest instrumental performances, with again some great horn playing in particular. Oh, I should also mention the lovely (overuse of word alert) The Good Humour Man He Sees Everything Like This, which features a delightful la-la-la melody, charming enough to melt the most cold of hearts.

Forever Changes is the perfect album for a calm summer’s day. Crack out that bluetooth speaker, take it outside and sit just looking at the world, your thoughts soundtracked by some of the loveliest psychadelic folk-rock you’ll hear.

Song Picks: Alone Again Or, The Daily Planet, Maybe the People Would be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale, The Good Humour Man He Sees Everything Like This

8.5/10

Another one from 1967, and one that I regret missing from my article for that year. This one’s a bit of a wildcard, and I have no concrete reason for including it in this mop-up other than the fact that the cover is so colourful that I’d be rude not to review it. Oh and it has a bunch of my favourite Beatles songs on it, and to be fair the rateyourmusic.com community rates it as the 25th best album of the 1960s, and the 7th best of 1967.

The Magical Mystery Tour was initially released in the UK as an EP of the soundtrack to the film. In America however it was released as an album, with said soundtrack on side one, and a load of singles the band released in 1967 on side two. It’s the American version (which is now adopted as the main version) I’ll be reviewing, as quite frankly, you’d be a bit daft not to review the album with classic songs like Strawberry Fields Forever and All You Need Is Love if you have the chance.

The soundtrack songs are of course weird, which makes complete sense if you’ve ever seen the film. The title track urges you to get on the bus to join the Magical Mystery Tour amid some strangely haunting harmonies and triumphant trumpets. Yes, yes, yes Ringo, Paul, John and George, please take me away on this fabulous sounding mystery tour, I’m all in!

Unfortunately, despite the promise, the soundtrack is the weaker part of the album in my opinion and features some perfectly enjoyable but rather forgettable songs (except the title track I’ve already mentioned, and the unforgettably weird and wonderful I am the Walrus). Side two features four of the best songs by the Beatles however (sorry Baby, You’re a Rich Man): Hello, Goodbye; Strawberry Fields; Penny Lane; and All You Need Is Love.

The Magical Mystery Tour is a weird album. It’s not at all cohesive, it’s a kind of weird soundtrack with 1967’s greatest hits tacked on the end. It has a bunch of forgettable tracks on side one, and yet when you finish it, you feel as though your heart is full to the brim and you just want to go out and share your new-found happiness. Now, sure, you could just say that’s the effect of All You Need Is Love, the album’s fabulously positive closing track, and I think that’s partly true. But then if I just listen to the song on it’s own it has less of an effect, so it feels to me as if the whole album is some subconscious building to that message. I can’t explain it so I’m not even going to try, but Magical Mystery Tour is better than the sum of it’s parts, and that’s even considering the fact that some of it’s parts are pretty spectacular.

Song Picks: Magical Mystery Tour; Strawberry Fields; Penny Lane; All You Need Is Love

8/10

Johnny Cash had wanted to perform at a prison ever since he wrote Folsom Prison Blues in 1955, and finally got the chance, holding two shows at Folsom State Prison in California in 1968. The majority of the tracks here come from the first gig, with only two coming from the second. Cash was to record numerous more performances at prisons over the years.

The album opens with Folsom Prison Blues, the recording of which was to become a hit for Cash and, along with this album, led to the recovery of his career after it had taken a bit of a dip commercially speaking. One of his most famous songs, it’s a chugging track, full of Cash’s trademark humour and low rumble. Cash completely embodies the person who the song is about, and wins over the crowd immediately (if they ever needed winning over). Cash interacts with the crowd throughout this live album, and has a brilliantly humble, self-deprecating nature about him. ‘Where’s my paper gone, my idiot sheet’ he proclaims at one point to laughs from the crowd, before finding he’s tossed it on the floor somewhere. He makes comments mid-song and has clearly adapted the set-list to his audience, meaning we’ve got a lot of prison songs and songs of drugs and murder, all with the trademark Cash humour I’ve already mentioned.

To me, this is one of the most enjoyable live albums out there. As with James Brown’s Live at the Apollo, the recording is crisp and clear, and the balance between the crowd and the music is perfect, maintaining the unique atmosphere of a performance at a prison, while still enabling you to very much enjoy the songs on their own merits. The set-list features some of Cash’s most fun material, the performances are full of life, and you get the real feeling that this is the best time most of these prisoners have had for quite a while and it’s pretty special to be a fly on the wall for that.

Song Picks: Folsom Prison Blues, Cocaine Blues, Jackson

9/10

Coming in at #19 on Pitchfork’s top albums of the 60s list and #51 on the same list by Paste. Clearly, the album has gained plenty of acclaim since it’s release but it sold poorly on initial release.

Dusty In Memphis is Dusty Springfield’s fifth studio album, and is generally regarded as the best album by the English singer. Although the title makes it sound a little like a live album, it is in fact a normal studio album, recorded in Memphis.

Well, this is the definition of easy listening to me. Stick it on in the background and have yourself a merry, soulful time. Some of the lyrical content is a little unexpected considering the easy-on-the ears nature of the music, the opener Just a Little Lovin’ is about morning sex, ‘Just a little lovin' early in the mornin', beats a cup of coffee for starting off the day’ are the album’s first lyrics. Bold. Other than that though this is just a smooth-as-silk sounding album with some soulful vocals from Dusty and some thoroughly enjoyable songs. Particularly the hit which you’ve all heard: Son of a Preacher Man, a song initially rejected by Aretha Franklin (though she later covered it) and the so-beautiful-I-feel-like-I’m-suddenly-on-holiday The Windmill of Your Mind, a song that features vocals so smooth that they make you wonder whether Dusty is human. It’s not pushing anything forward in particular and, besides some of the lyrics, plays it very safe. It’s the kind of album that’s lovely in the background, but not quite interesting enough for attentive listening to me.

Song Picks: Just a Little Lovin’, The Windmills of Your Mind, Son of a Preacher Man

7/10

The Top Albums of the Decade - 1960s Edition

Ok, that’s the mop-up done with, and thus it’s time for my definitive ranking of the top albums of the 1960s. You can forget Pitchfork, Paste and Rolling Stone, this is the only list that matters. I’m going to rank the top 25 here. If you want to read my reviews of any of the entries, simply click on the release year to be taken to that year’s post, magic.

Bob Dylan - Highway Revisited (1965)
Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde (1966)
The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)
Van Morrison - Astral Week (1968)
Miles Davis - In a Silent Way (1969)
Leonard Cohen - Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
The Beatles - Abbey Road (1969)
The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland (1968)
Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963)
Nina Simone - Wild Is The Wind (1966)
Bob Dylan - Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964)
Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto - Getz/Gilberto (1964)
The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds (1966)
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme (1965)
Bob Dylan - Bringing It All Back Home (1965)
The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold as Love (1967)
Thelonious Monk - Monk’s Dream (1963)
Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison (1968)
Charlie Mingus - Tijuana Moods (1962)
Ornette Coleman - Free Jazz (1961)
Jackson C. Frank - Jackson C. Frank (1965)
The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club (1967)
Charlie Mingus - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1963)
Otis Redding - Otis Blue (1965)
Charlie Mingus - Blues & Roots (1960)

So there we have it, what a stupendously strong list of albums, we’ll see if any future decades manage to compete with it! Bob Dylan takes the artists’ title, with five overall entries in the top 25 (three of which made the top 10), with Charles Mingus coming in second with three entries, though none in the top 10.

In terms of years the late 60s definitely win over the early 60s but apart from that there’s a pretty even spread, though 1967 and 1965 lead the way with the most entries overall, with five and four respectively.

…ring……..ring……..ring

Hang on… someone’s calling…..

“Hello?….”

Ah, it’s the 1970s, I’d best be off.