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.

Ok, here we are at the end of 1967, let’s take a look around and see what happened besides a whole heap of great albums being released. The six day war ended with Israel’s victory, race riots broke out across the US and particularly in Detroit, three astronauts were killed in a fire at the test-launch of Apollo 1, Che Guevara was shot to death after his capture in Bolivia and pulsars were discovered. If you want to see some great photographs from the year then I’d highly recommend this article from The Atlantic.

Now, onto what we’re here for. Here’s what rateyourmusic.com’s users rate as the top 5 albums of 1967:

#1 The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico
#2 The Doors - The Doors
#3 The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
#4 The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced
#5 Leonard Cohen - Song of Leonard Cohen

Four of those are debut albums and thus new entries to our lists, only The Beatles have been here before. 1967 was such a stupendously strong year that I’m going to pick five more albums and throw them into the mix too:

#6 Pink Floyd - The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
#10 The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold as Love
#11 Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - Safe as Milk
#15 Aretha Franklin - I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You
#18 Bob Dylan - John Wesley Harding

I’m not exaggerating when I say this is the strongest year yet, and it’s going to take some beating so let’s get right into it, here’s my thoughts on and ranking of the above ten albums.

PiperattheGatrsofDawn — 10. The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn

Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd’s debut album is the only one made under Syd Barrett’s leadership, and the only one to feature him extensively as he left part-way through recording their next album as his use of psychedelic drugs and reported schizophrenia made his behaviour increasingly unpredictable.

This is a less polished, messier affair than their famous albums once Syd had left, but Syd’s eccentric songwriting talents are evident here. The album starts with a bunch of songs that have sections that are surprisingly poppy (The first two minutes of Flaming could easily be a song by The Beatles) but then descend into psychedelic, spacey trips of the 60’s variety. Pink Floyd’s ability to build a psychedelic soundscape is evident on Pow R. Toc. H where a whole host of instruments and occasional ambient chatter and shouting create a whole world in a song. That kind of musical world-building is present throughout this whole album, peaking perhaps with the rambunctious Interstellar Overdrive which ends in such a mass of noise that you feel like you’ve just been hit by a brick wall, or as Abbey Road engineer Pete Brown put it, recalling walking in on them recording the song, ‘I opened the door and nearly shit myself’. Lucifer Sam is perhaps my favourite song though, a brilliant mix of an infectious hook, driving guitar riff and the kind of otherworldly soundscape that makes this album what it is.

Overall, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn leaves me a little confused, but in a good way. I love where it takes me, the band clearly know how to create an atmosphere with their sound and although the whole thing hasn’t completely grabbed me for whatever reason, there’s something charming about the weirdness of the whole thing.

Song Picks: Lucifer Sam, Interstellar Overdrive

7.5/10

Another debut album. This time by the fabulously named ‘Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band’.

At its heart Safe as Milk is a blues record, but it’s not one of those predictable blues records. No, no, no. This is creative, gritty, and more than a little bit mad. Captain Beefheart’s (Don Van Vliet for those who don’t like eccentric stage names) vocals sound like the ramblings of a mad-man who doesn’t want you to understand what he’s saying. When you can understand what he’s saying it’s often so surreal and mad that it’s rather difficult to get a grip of. Take these lines picked out in the album’s Wikipedia article, from the song Abba Zabba:

Mother say son, she say son, you can't lose, with the stuff you use
Abba Zabba go-zoom Babbette baboon
Run, run, monsoon, Indian dream, tiger moon

Oh Captain, I’m lost, lost in a sea of mad nonsense. Of course, this is an extreme example and Mr Van Vliet is capable of writing some pretty simple lyrics too, take those in Call on Me, where he spends the entire song mentioning the many times his ‘baby’ can call on him.

If you’re lost and it’s all just a bit rough for you, then I’m Glad is the song for you. A surprisingly soulful pop-jaunt including the unexpected complement of some backing singers. It wouldn’t be out of place on a Van Morrison album. Delightful.

Safe as Milk has a fantastically grungy, raw sound, that captures a great energy, aided by Captain Beefheart’s drawly, growling vocals. It feels like a vivacious mix of the delta blues and punk, and it comes highly recommended.

Song Picks: Sure’Nuff ‘n’ Yes, I Do; I’m Glad; Electricity, Plastic Factory

8/10

NeverLovedaMan — 8. I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You

Aretha Franklin

The eleventh studio album by Aretha Franklin is the first to appear on these lists, and probably her most famous. It’s essentially a great collection of performances by one of the best vocalists we’ve ever had. Consisting mainly of covers, the album doesn’t do anything all that exciting instrumentally and the production feels a little old, even in the context of 1967.

The band plod along, providing a perfectly adequate and easy-listening backing to Aretha’s towering vocal performances, without adding much to them. The album opens with one of the finest pop recordings ever, a cover of Otis Redding’s Respect, you’ll all have heard it’s infectious, dance inducing and heart-filling brilliance, and it’s one of those rare songs that gets people of every generation to the dancefloor. The album doesn’t quite continue at that level, but then if it did it would be the undisputed best album of all time and all other music would be deemed pointless. Well, maybe not quite, but it’s still an impossible bar to meet.

The rest of the album is still great and Aretha continues to captivate until the closing notes of the beautiful A Change Is Gonna Come. She is one of those singers that makes you want to sing along all the time, but then immediately makes you realise that you sound like a strangled possum in comparison. It’s worth noting how at home Aretha Franklin’s own compositions sound here. My two favourite examples are Baby, Baby, Baby, which has a deliciously calm groove, and the backing vocals provide a luscious bedding to Aretha’s splendid vocals (did I mention she could sing?), and Dr. Feelgood, which is a strong display of the raspier side of her voice.

I Never Loved a Man The Way I Loved You is the capturing of one of the greatest singers of all time, at her best. Nothing more, nothing less.

Song Picks: Respect, Good Times, Soul Serenade

8/10

Their debut album, The Doors is one of those albums you’ll always see knocking around on top albums of all-time lists and is generally regarded as one of the biggest influences on the psychedelic rock genre.

The Doors is a rock album with a jazz-sensibility. There’s a lot of instrumental sections and a freedom with song structure that is refreshing. The Doors never hesitate to repeat things as much as they feel like, and it’s in their repetition that the album cements itself into your brain, slowly hacking away at it with it’s catchy and yet un-poppy hooks like a determined and slightly scary woodpecker.

Break on Through is a prime example, it barely has a verse and is largely just a repetition of the line ‘break on through to the other side’ which builds and builds vocally as Jim Morrison is almost coughing the line out of his throat by the end of his song, having depleted himself of all his vocal energy.

The Doors sounds quite dark, Morrison’s voice has a reverb on it that makes it sound like it’s coming from the bottom of some deep chasm, a voice from the darkness, something his slightly ghostly tone only amplifies. It’s an album where I appreciate it’s artistry more than feel an urge to listen to it as such but it creates an atmosphere unlike any other album in my view, and that, combined with the great instrumental performances, original song structures, and powerful and varied vocal performance from Jim Morrison, makes this whole thing rather special.

And I haven’t even mentioned Light My Fire have I? You should go and listen to it, it’s their most famous song for a reason, and that reason is that it is splendid, magnetic, catchy, dark, hypnotic and so many other adjectives. In less adjectives, it’s a masterpiece.

Song Picks: Break on Through, Light My Fire, Back Door Man

8.5/10

JohnWesleyHarding — 6. John Wesley Harding

Bob Dylan

Dylan’s eighth album sees him returning to a calmer sound, and although he’s still backed by a band, the sound is much more acoustic and folky than that of his last few albums. I see this as less of a departure from those albums though, and more of a relaxed blend of everything from Another Side of Bob Dylan to Blonde on Blonde.

Vocally and instrumentally this is less brash than anything before it, and in fact his vocals are rather soothing here. Lyrically it still has the surrealness of some of the electric trio of albums (and Another Side of Dylan) but as Dylan himself said, ‘what I’m trying to do now is not use too many words’. The lines are more calculated, there’s no lines thrown in just for the sake of a rhyme. This loses them some of their playfulness, and to me, their magic. With his looser lyrics it felt like a rhyme could always throw a song or an image into a new, unexpected direction, as if Dylan himself had no idea where it was going, which kept things exciting. On John Wesley Harding that’s lacking a little and although the more calculated lyrics make the songs leaner, it also makes them a little colder.

Nevertheless, this still features the kind of evocative imagery you’d expect on a Dylan album. You only need to look at the final verse of All Along The Watchtower (later covered by Jimi Hendrix in what even Dylan agreed was the better version) to realise that Dylan hasn’t lost his touch:

All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Barefoot servants too
Outside, in the distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching
The wind began to howl

I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine is another favourite, reminiscent of Visions of Johanna in it’s vocals, and bewitching me in a similar way whenever it comes on. The closer I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight is an underrated gem, a perfect country song, and the perfect signal of what was to come next. Even the vocals sound like they’re straight from his next album, 1969’s Nashville Skyline.

Recorded after Dylan had recovered from his motorbike accident in 1966, and around the same time as the famous Basement Tapes were being recorded (though they weren’t released until 1975), John Wesley Harding is Dylan at his most gentle, even the band plods along here, backing the change in Dylan’s vocal style perfectly. It serves as a great segue from the ‘thin mercury sound’ to a more country sound, and although it’s not as memorable as his best, it’s still one I turn to regularly, and a reminder of just how singular Dylan is. There’s no other album that sounds quite like John Wesley Harding, a black and white mix of folk, country, and lyrics to spin carefully shaped images in your mind.

Song Picks: John Wesley Harding, All Along The Watchtower, I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine, I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight

8.5/10

Are You Experienced Is Jimi Hendrix’s debut album, and widely regarded as one of the greatest rock debuts of all time. It’s another album that had different songs on the UK and US release. I’m going to be reviewing the US edition because I prefer the cover (see above, isn’t it glorious?), and because it has Purple Haze on it, and the UK edition doesn’t. Frankly, you’d have to be rather silly to review an album without Purple Haze on it if there’s a version out there with it on.

The aforementioned Purple Haze opens the album, and might just be the most emphatic announcement of the arrival of any artist on the first track of their debut in history. After a staccato intro Hendrix comes in with one of the best guitar riffs ever written, which is soon added to by some superbly scattershot drumming from Mitch Michell and another messy, infectious, riff from Hendrix, backed by Noel Redding’s gritty, wide-as-a-landscape bass. It encapsulates everything that’s great about The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Hey Joe was the band’s first single after Hendrix was plucked from backing guitarist obscurity and eventually ended up under the management of ex-Animals member Chas Chandler. Chas had enjoyed Hendrix’s performance of Hey Joe live and in a moment of rock ‘n’ roll history, sought to find Hendrix a permanent band, which ended up with the aforementioned Redding and Mitchell. The three perfectly complement each other and Hey Joe is another great example of this. They lay down an infectious groove which expands into a cosmic whirlwind of guitar solos, busy and brisk drumming and solid bass grooves holding the whole thing together. Mitch Michell is, in my eyes, one of the main reasons for Hendrix’s success, I can’t imagine a more perfect drummer for him. He has a light-touch jazz style that means he can be superbly busy and mesmeric while never taking over the song. This busy, hyperactive style goes well with Hendrix’s brilliantly filthy and virtuosic guitar work. Hey Joe’s solo sections are a perfect example of this.

The Wind Cries Mary is an example of Hendrix’s often under-appreciated lyrical skills. With a Dylan-esque talent for imagery he builds a variety of scenes which conclude with the wind uttering ‘Mary’ in one way or another, culminating in this fabulous last verse:

Will the wind ever remember
The names it has blown in the past?
And with its crutch, its old age, and its wisdom
It whispers no, this will be the last
And the wind cries Mary

The album’s 60 minute running length is chock-full of great psychedelic rock and blues songs and features classics such as the Hendrix guitar showpiece (well you could say that about all of them to be fair) Foxey Lady, the blisteringly pacey and irresistible Fire, and of course the rolling, fabulous Mitch Mitchell showcase Manic Depression.

The only negative thing to say about Are You Experienced? Is that it feels a little more like a greatest hits collection than an album. The production quality is not completely consistent (see the great I Don’t Live Today, which sounds rather thin), and it just doesn’t feel as cohesive as what was to come. I’m being nit-picky there though, as this is honestly one of the best rock albums you’re going to hear, and the fact it’s a debut is honestly rather mind-blowing.

Song Picks: Purple Haze, Hey Joe, I Don’t Live Today, The Wind Cries Mary, Manic Depression

9/10

SgtPeppers — 4. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

The Beatles

The Beatles’ eighth album was their first following their retirement from live performance in August 1966. It’s a concept album performed by the fictionalised Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, an idea born in Paul McCartney’s brain on a flight where he thought of creating a song including an Edwardian military band. Again, like Revolver, it incorporates a whole variety of musical influences such as Indian, psychedelic and circus music. To me, it perfects what Revolver began.

The album starts with the delightful title track as over the hum of a crowd talking the band announces it’s arrival, ‘It was 20 years ago today, that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play…’, the crowd cheers and we’re off. It’s a fun song full of positivity, joy and fun, and it perfectly sets the mood that you’re listening to a fictional band’s performance. Although the crowd noise never re-appears (until the penultimate goodbye track from the band), you’ve still been transported into that environment, and it’s partly that context that makes the album so wonderful to me.

The album is a radiant beacon of joy. It’s whimsical, full of catchy, almost nursery-rhyme like melodies, and yet it never gets annoying. Quite the feat.

With A Little Help From My Friends sounds like a kids song (save for the ‘I get high with a little help from my friends’ line) and perfectly encapsulates the childish fun that a lot of this album has. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds was inspired by a picture drawn by Lennon’s son, who came home from nursery one day with a picture of his friend Lucy in the sky, and it was titled as the track is. The song is generally believed to be about LSD, with the title alluding to that (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds) however Lennon has strongly denied this (you can watch him denying it here). I believe more in the line that it’s a reflection of his love of ‘Alice In Wonderland’ as a lot of the imagery in the song’s brilliantly vivid lyrics reminds me of Lewis Carroll’s style. The iconic opening verse is a great example:

Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes

Anyway, whatever the song is about. It’s a merry, catchy, jovial song which shows a band unafraid to create something which could be considered quite childish, and to me, it’s that childish sense of fun that makes this album so special. The fact that this song was inspired by a child’s picture, just makes that idea even more great.

It feels kind of foolish to talk about all the songs on this album, similar to The Beach Boy’s Pet Sounds from 1966, this album feels like a whole, and talking about individual songs doesn’t do the album much justice. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is vivid, colourful journey into the mind of some of the best pop songwriters we’ve ever had. Even When I’m Sixty Four, which I find too simplistic out of context and don’t usually enjoy, shines in the context of this album. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is an unbridled joy, and has a special place in my heart. I’m going to stop my review there before I use the word ‘joy’ even more times than I already have.

Song Picks: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, With A Little Help From My Friends, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Getting Better, Within You Without You

9/10

Whereas Are You Experienced? sounded like the greatest of greatest hits collections, Axis: Bold as Love sounds like an album. The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s second album was released just 7 months after their first, and sees them venturing deeper into psychedelia.

Before we start talking about the album, let’s talk about that controversial cover, which none of the band had anything to do with and Hendrix particularly disliked. He didn’t see the relevance of the band being depicted as various forms of Vishnu, and felt it would have made more sense if the cover was influenced by his Native American background. The cover was banned in Malaysia because of how it appropriates the Hindu god.

At 38 minutes, this album is significantly shorter than the band’s debut, and it feels like a tighter, more cohesive ‘experience’ because of it. Hendrix is clearly pushing what he does in the studio here with the opener being more of a skit than a song as Mitch Mitchell interviews him about space with both their voices warped before the guitar travels around the stereo field, creating the image of falling into a psychedelic black hole. It’s weird, but it really puts you into the mood for what’s to come.

The album also features Hendrix performing some softer material, Up From The Skies has wonderful gentle bounce to it, Hendrix’s voice sounding particularly warm and comforting as he sings about an alien visiting earth and being less than impressed with what’s going on. Again, the use of the stereo image to swing Hendrix’s guitar around makes the whole thing an otherworldly experience. Castles Made of Sand is honey in song form. It’s sweet, gentle and smooth as all hell, using the change of the seasons as a metaphor for the changes in Hendrix’s own life. Perhaps most famous of the soft songs though is the gorgeous Little Wing, which ends in a magnificent, stratospheric and yet chilled solo.

Besides these breaks in the schedule though we’ve got the band at their absolute rocking best. Spanish Castle Magic sounds huge and features a riff that could obliterate whole planets. As Hendrix’s starry solo bounces around half-way through the track you feel as though you’ve been shot into space out of a cannon. Guitars may sound thicker nowadays, and drums more slick and punchy, but there’s still not many songs out there that can compete with the sheer ferocity of this track. Neil Redding’s ability to carry a track on his own is really emphasised on the poppy Wait Until Tomorrow where he provides a lot of the thrust of the song. A track that also features some great phasing work on the drums, making Mitchell’s drumming sound positively cosmic. Speaking of cosmic, let’s talk about the end of the closing title track. Mitchell’s short and otherworldly drum solo marks the start of a Hendrix guitar solo that, when combined with the seriously psychedelic sounding drums, is like some ginormous god picking you up and spinning you through the whole universe. It really is that good.

The whole band is on top form on Axis: Bold As Love, and though they were already stupendously good at creating tracks that were infectious, heavy and transformative, this is where they really nailed what it means to make an ‘album’. I’m rather excited about 1968’s Electric Ladyland, the band’s final album.

Song Picks: Spanish Castle Magic, Little Wing, Axis: Bold as Love, Castles Made of Sand

9.5/10

songsofchohen — 2. Songs Of Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen

Excellent, Leonard has finally joined the party! Although, this is not an album you’d want to put on at a party unless you want everyone to leave feeling all melancholy and reflective, having spent the ‘party’ staring at the ground contemplating the pointlessness of their existence . Songs of Leonard Cohen is the wonderfully originally named debut album (yep I know, another one) from the Canadian poet.

It’s very much an acoustic guitar led album, but features lots of subtle touches that gently add to the album’s dark atmosphere (see Master Song & Winter Lady), including Nancy Priddy’s gorgeous backing vocals.. What really makes the album though, is the combination of Cohen’s gentle nylon-string guitar fingerpicking, his almost spoken word singing style, and most importantly of all, his poetic lyrics.

In a way, the guitar playing and ‘singing’ is quite bland, but in this context, where the words are so majestic, that’s exactly what you need, nothing should distract you from them. The album opens with the famous Suzanne (first published as a poem in 1966) which features a heavenly chorus ending in the so-good-I’ve-run-out-of-superlatives line ‘For you've touched her perfect body with your mind’. The final verse is a great example of how stupidly brilliant our man Leonard is with words:

And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone

Excuse me while I just go and rip up everything I’ve ever written. The album continues much in this vain and I could plonk pretty much any of the album’s multitude of other verses here and marvel at their glory.

By the time So Long Marianne, one of the greatest songs ever written, comes round, what is a surprisingly full band sound complete with drums doesn’t sound too out of place. After all, though the album is quite sparse in many ways, when you really listen in there’s actually rather a lot going. The drums I’ve mentioned are overly busy, but not quite enough to distract from a song that is as touching, poetic, enveloping and sadly catchy as So Long Marianne, one of the multitude of timeless songs that 1967 has brought us.

The Songs of Leonard Cohen is like a book of poetry in musical form. Perfectly performed and produced, it’s the fleeting meeting of two art forms, creating a melancholy classic that sounds so unique I don’t think you ever forget your first listen of it. I, for one, can remember exactly where I was when I first entered its mystical world.

Song Picks: Suzanne, So Long Marianne, Master Song, Winter Lady

10/10

Velvet&Nico — 1. The Velvet Underground & Nico

The Velvet Underground

It’s unthinkable now that an album as iconic as The Velvet Underground & Nico wasn’t an immediate success, but it wasn’t. The album was initially a sales failure (entering the album charts at number 199), many record stores refused to stock it, radios didn’t play it, and critics largely ignored it. This is largely attributed to the controversial topics the album contains such as drug abuse and prostitution. However, I think a big part of it was just that it was so far ahead of it’s time that people couldn’t handle it. Nowadays, the album enjoys a well-earned status as one of the best albums of all time. In fact, the rateyoumusic.com community rates it not only as the best album of 1967, but the sixth best album of all time, higher than any album we’ve had so far on this challenge.

The album has been so influential on subsequent music that Brian Eno famously said that although it only sold 30,000 copies initially, ‘everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band’. The album’s recording was funded by Andy Warhol, who managed the band and also created that iconic album cover, perhaps the most famous album cover of all time. Although Warhol is listed as the producer too, he didn’t really have much influence over the sound, but Lou Reed states the fact that he just let them do exactly what they wanted is the main reason for the album that resulted, and in that way you could say he’s had a pretty big influence on it.

Part of the genius of the album is just how varied it is and yet how unified it sounds. The opener Sunday Morning is a beautifully blissful track that embodies the feeling of a sunny Sunday morning. The xylophone gently skips along as Lou Reed’s vocal seems to glide over you like a cloud, but a big fluffy white cloud as opposed to a sinister dark one. It’s a beautiful song. Compare this with the raucous closing track European Son and you’d never know they came from the same album. The band marches on into an aural oblivion of shrieks and fuzz and clatter and noise and out of tune guitars, a complete and utter chaotic assault on the ears. But the journey to that ending, and the musically suicidal ending, makes complete sense somehow.

As the band progresses from the marching, relentlessly cool I’m Waiting For The Man, to the melodic (and Nico’s first vocal performance) Femme Fatale, to the challenging and yet surprisingly catchy S&M inspired song Venus In Furs you get the feeling that every song on this album is going to be unlike anything else, a small fragment of brilliance. And it turns out that feeling is right. Run, Run, Run rushes along brilliantly, telling its stories of drug-hunting and abuse with a noisy spring in it’s step. The brash guitar ‘solo’ as sign of the chaos to come. All Tomorrow’s Parties sounds like a warped folk song, Nico’s vocal adding a great surrealness to the so-free-it’s-close-to-falling-apart instrumentation. Heroin though, is the most Velvet Underground song here, a song that tells of the use of the titular drug, alternating between a gentle guitar part and a rapid thrashing of chords, as the Reed’s vocals and thoughts barely keep up. All the while there’s a drone that gradually turns into a messy, scrambled squeak as the song enters it’s chaotic finale. It’s the free-est thing I’ve heard since Free Jazz way back in 1960, an uninhibited mess of noise and ideas that turns into something brilliant and incomparable. Then we’re back into a more accessible sound with There She Goes Again, a delightfully catchy number complete with backing vocals and ooooo’s. Nico returns for her final vocal appearance in a song where her German accent (that adds so much to her vocals) is particularly prominent, I’ll Be Your Mirror. The penultimate track The Black Angel’s Death Song is a perfect primer for the aforementioned noisy closing track European Son. There’s just enough to latch on in Reed’s vocal to keep you sane, even if a violin screeches along in an out of tune manner throughout the song. By the time European Son has come and gone, you’re left wondering who has just walked off with your mind, but you also feel strangely free.

The Velvet Underground & Nico is an experience like no other to listen to, it’s both challenging and endlessly rewarding. There’s a perfect mix of accessible stuff, and stuff that is just completely mind-bending. It’s both a mess and a masterpiece.

Song Picks: Sunday Morning; Heroin, Run Run Run, There She Goes Again

10/10