Welcome to another appendage to the Fifty Years of Great Music series. After presenting an additional 100 songs worthy of merit to the five previous decade Top 100’s last month, today I give you another hundred albums deserving of the love I previously withheld. Spanning some fifty years and plenty of genres, there should be something for everyone to embrace in here. As for me, I embrace ‘em all, from abrasive art rock to slight but irresistible pop and numerous avenues in and well outside those neighborhoods. And maybe you’ll get lucky and see me amend for past mistakes by showing some admiration for discs that you just couldn’t believe I passed over before.
The setup is the same as it was with the previous list of 100 More Essential Songs—randomly selected from the large groups of also-rans, listed by release date, etc.—with one key difference. During the 60s, music labels were slow to accept the LP as a viable/profitable means and most recording artists were slow to start thinking of their art in terms of a complete album instead of singles. And the 70s was rightly considered the era of AOR radio and the “LP as statement” gesture. Because of this, the group of great 60s albums starts running a little thin (in fact, only one was chosen here from the decade’s first four years) while the group of great 70s albums is overflowing with ones deserving. Therefore, this list contains fifteen albums from the 60s and twenty-five from the 70s.
For anyone needing a refresher on the ten Fifty Years of Great Music lists, you can find links to them below:
Top 100 Songs of the 1960s
Top 100 Albums of the 1960s
Top 100 Songs of the 1970s
Top 100 Albums of the 1970s
Top 100 Songs of the 1980s
Top 100 Albums of the 1980s
Top 100 Songs of the 1990s
Top 100 Albums of the 1990s
Top 100 Songs of the 2000s
Top 100 Albums of the 2000s
Once again, I have included some selected links to site reviews and previous Fifty Years articles for related songs/albums to these selections so you can read more about the work of artists who earned accolades here. So without further ado, after you give a listen to those other five hundred LPs, I suggest you seek these out next (sorry to keep you so busy):
This Is Our Music
by the Ornette Coleman Quartet
1960
Jazz
Don Cherry with his trumpet, Ed Blackwell’s drums, Charlie Haden on double bass, and, of course, Ornette Coleman’s alto sax—a quality quartet, if there ever was one, but unusual for its adapted standard (George Gershwin’s “Embraceable You,” only barely recognizable) and its revolution both. Coleman rarely gets the same instant acclimation outside of post-bop jazz connoisseurs granted to the likes of John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck and Miles Davis, but in 1960, nobody else seemed as eager to spin off in this direction. Distinctly melodic and joyous for music set in the avant/free jazz vein, it’s surprisingly accessible, moving from slow and luxuriant (“Beauty Is a Rare Thing”) to free and energetic (“Blues Connotation”) and back again. If the second half is less successful than the first, you can blame the brilliance of “Kaleidoscope”’s complex swing and the haunting loveliness of “Beauty Is a Rare Thing” more than any of “Poise”’s and “Humpty Dumpty”’s shortcomings.
See also: Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation (#74)
Getz/Gilberto
by Stan Getz and João Gilberto
1964
Bossa Nova
1962’s Jazz Samba was something of a lark, but bypassed scorn from “authentic” Brazilian bossa pros. So for his next dalliance in the genre, Stan Getz recruited singer/guitarist João Gilberto to join songwriter/pianist Antonio Carlos Jobim and drummer Milton Banana. Another chief contributor was a different Gilberto, João’s wife Astrud, who was launched to fame for her English vocals on “Corcovado” and one of the finest and most recognizable compositions of its time, “The Girl from Ipanema.” The concise “Doralice,” the jazzy “Só danço samba,” and the handsomely mellow “Desafinado” enriched its status as one of the finest era recordings in both bossa and jazz, and also one of the biggest sellers in either field as well. Thanks in large part to abundant imitation, bossa nova in the States wound up being a passing fad—it couldn’t even survive ‘til Sinatra finally got his hands on it in ’67—but the key figure in its popular assimilation was one of the few to not mollify, milk (or outright bandwagon-jump) and subsequently murder its brief but lasting appeal.
A Hard Day’s Night
by the Beatles
1964
Pop
Believe it or not, the Beatles didn’t always just release scene-shattering masterpieces. Back in 1964, when they were still fresh off of invading (and conquering) the States, they dropped the soundtrack to their winsome film A Hard Day’s Night, which was “merely” very good overall and “only” occasionally excellent. But no one should really care that “I’m Happy Just to Dance with You”—a Bo-Diddley-meets-Shirelles formula, and George’s sole lead vocal—isn’t all that spectacular, or that quality peters out a bit as Side B progresses. That occasional excellence still delivers timeless winners like “If I Fell,” “Things We Said Today,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “And I Love Her,” “Tell Me Why” and the unforgettable title track. This also found the Fab Four recording an entire album of original material for the first time, allowing them the opportunity to cease paying heed and begin moving in revolutionary new directions. All taken together, it may not shatter the scene, but it was about as perfect as crowd-pleasing Northern pop came at the time of its release. Stick it in today and its catchy cheer still sounds almost miraculous.
See also: Please Please Me (#83), Help! (#63)
All Summer Long
by the Beach Boys
1964
Pop
Something of a last hurrah for the Beach Boys’ frolicsome surf, hotrods and beach bunnies phase, All Summer Long was already pointing forward with the exquisite harmonies of “Girls on the Beach” and the misty nostalgia of the luminous but regretful title track. Also staring ahead is the gorgeous melancholy of “Wendy,” one of the group’s most unsung arrangements. And they also capped off the period with two of their all-time best spirited pop rockers—“I Get Around” and “Little Honda.” Impaired by the head-scratching inclusion of the studio banter track “Our Favorite Recording Sessions,” but that’s a minor hiccup in an otherwise superlative collection. The transition from this to Pet Sounds (comprised of a mediocre covers record and the schizophrenic mood/sound of Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)) had more growing pains than the Beatles’ steps from Help! to Sgt. Pepper; yet no matter the discomfort ahead, the Beach Boys closed out this carefree chapter with finesse, style and maturity.
See also: "I Get Around" (#63), Today! (#56)
A Love Supreme
by John Coltrane
1965
Jazz
Along with My Favorite Things and his double bill with Duke Ellington, A Love Supreme represents John Coltrane as quartet leader at his most spectacularly reachable, and it’s more advanced and technically astounding than the other two, as well. The more immediately satisfying hard bop themes and the sweet, fluid melodies underneath clashed with the more atonal and unpredictable measures of the free jazz movement. On “Acknowledgement,” hear the way Coltrane’s saxophone bleats merciless modulations during the central passage only to recoil into a more passive and ebbing figure that slowly nods off to sleep in the second half. That repetition then benefits the titular vocal mantra that practically hypnotizes the listener into his or her own sleeping trance. From there, A Love Supreme’s intent as a spiritual tone poem is embellished, creating a four-part suite that is separated only by recessions of the sound. On the final movement, “Psalm,” Coltrane performs an actual devotional, substituting his sax for the real words—doing so creates more emotion than language could ever possibly provide. If this album indeed is an admission from Trane that his talent belongs not to him but rather a higher power, these movements should replace traditional hymns in churches.
See also: Ascension (#100)
The Angry Young Them
by Them
1965
Rock
Not giant, mutant ants on the rampage but a quintet of rowdy Irish garage rockers with savvy pop chops (though they were originally called the Gamblers and renamed themselves after those giant, mutant ants), Them launched the career of the incomparable Van Morrison. But Them was no mere springboard for blue-eyed soul and brown-eyed girls; The Angry Young Men is a genuine garage rock classic. As typical for genre records of the day (especially rock n’ roll debuts), it’s a mix of originals and covers, with fine but unspectacular redos of “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66” and “Bright Lights, Big City” (but their take on John Lee Hooker’s “Don’t Look Back” is a small marvel, mostly because of Morrison’s powerful vocal). Also typical for genre records of the day (debuts or not), its success hinges primarily on the depth of the originals and the number/quality of the hits. Morrison’s “I Like It Like That” and “Little Girl” are both stirring winners, but it’s the random miracle of “Mystic Eyes” (an impulsive lyrical whim during instrumental tinkering) and the sex-soaked proto-punk anthem “Gloria” (as much an iconic classic as nearly anything else Morrison would ever record) that really put this one on the top shelf.
See also: Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks (#9)
Black Monk Time
by the Monks
1966
Rock
This is one of those cases where omission arose from poor recollection; it’s Top 50, without a doubt. But apology crosses paths with incredulity in this case—how could I have possibly forgotten about the proto-krautrock haywire beat band the Monks? It’s hard to forget their appearance (matching black garb and bonafide monastetrial tonsures), harder still to forget their outlandish reinterpretation/reinvention of garage and R&B far from any scene of influence. They were, after all, disgruntled GIs stationed in Germany mimicking West Coast acid rock keyboards and NY-scene beat-drone without ever devouring anything from the States to begin with! And on their lone true LP, it’s tough to gauge how they could sound so controlled and lock-step on the grooves and thumps while Gary Burger’s guitar and vocals would just leap out of the speakers in deranged fits—“I hate you with a passion, baby,” he’d howl, before the back-ups added, “But call me.” Then there’s Larry Clark’s organ, which might be the most dysfunctional element in an already epileptic combo. Being so far from the intrusive producers and studio heads in the cross’lantic battle of wills helped them imagine something like Black Monk Time, a record that sounds less dated than a lot of the most celebrated touchstones of its time.
Freak Out!
by the Mothers of Invention
1966
Rock
Before Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd could make this form a monument to acid pop, Frank Zappa was transposing the appeals of doo wop and classical over freak rock without losing the experimental edge or ignoring the basic appeal of melody/hooks. His Mothers of Invention outfit was responsible for some of the least purely debased avant garde music of its time—weird and malformed, to be sure, but really no less rational than set-in-stone pop classics like “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Good Vibrations” (and Freak Out! predates both). Despite their inherent alienation and ghostly pessimism, tunes like “Hungry Freaks, Daddy” and “Who Are the Brain Police?” are actually quite accessible, and “Wowie Zowie”’s doo wop spirit and chipper xylophone plinks sound even childlike. Admittedly, it does meander a bit on some of the stranger detours on sides three and four, but, hey—a debut as self-consciously adventurous but confident as this (and a double album to boot) is still worth a good measurement of amazement. Any album that Paul McCartney notes to be a direct influence on the Beatles in crafting Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band must deserve high marks.
Parable of Arable Land
by the Red Krayola
1967
Rock
If you believe that “Sister Ray” is far too controlled, melodic and sensible, your favorite record of all time might be Parable of Arable Land. The Red Krayola (then spelled Crayola) have no shrewd precautions and adhere to no tuneful rules. There’s a good ten minutes of pop music on this thing, almost a half hour more of the sort of screeching, undisciplined skronk that might make free jazz-devouring saboteurs grit their teeth. Mayo Thompson even kinda burns like post-Newport Dylan at times, especially the hungry yearn of “Hurricane Fighter Plane,” but that song takes more than a hundred seconds to sort out an urgent bassline from the introductory clamor and spends more than ten minutes at the end going through one of their “Free Form Freakouts,” culled from some fifty or so friends of the musicians just banging and scraping away on whatever fits their fancy. Wait, did I hear a harmonica in there? Some ramshackle semblance of a drumbeat? Really, unpeeling is counterproductive with this thing; if you don’t quit early from brain-fried exhaustion, you might call it a slapdash masterpiece. Or you’ll go deaf.
Scott 2
by Scott Walker
1968
Pop
Always an eclectic maverick in his style and showmanship, for Scott 2’s baroque pop smorgasbord, Scott Walker comes across as much like Irving Berlin, Nelson Riddle or Tom Jones as he does Van Dyke Park (and a million miles from “The Cockfighter”). The schmaltzy decadence of some of the orchestral arrangements can be a bit overbearing at times, but despite Walker’s complaints that he comes across as lazy and self-indulgent on record, his voice knows no impediment and his lyrics are frequently engaging: mellifluous for purposes of vivid splendor and tart when needed to contradict the over-the-top lilt of the melody. The smarm of, “Cute in a stupid ass way,” provocative references to “authentic queers and phony virgins,” and oily quips on homosexuality (“The queer lieutenant who slapped our asses as if we were fags”) got him in trouble with the BBC, but those phrases came from Jacques Brel tunes Walker was giving new life. Instead pay attention to lines like, “Suffocating eyes and fast hellos and last good-byes surround the night of me,” in “The Girls from the Streets” and you get a sense of the profundity amidst the profligacy.
See also: Scott 4 (#78)
The United States of America
by the United States of America
1968
Rock
Usually for ballast (and detail), the Monterey-era acid sound and everything that followed is described as psych-rock, psych-pop, and so on. The United States of America is just psychedelia—it warps, it whirls, it drips, it frolics, and it freaks out. Excessive, explosive and completely impulsive, the titular six-piece works beyond boundaries; even though they go further than early Pink Floyd, the Velvet Underground, or even the Mothers of Invention at great frequency, their niche wasn’t harsh in the slightest (assuming you can follow elegant to alien-insane and back without flipping a lid). Founder Joseph Byrd’s work with the Durrett Synthesizer could honestly be described as pioneering—no one else anywhere in the world was fooling around with electronic music like that—and Dorothy Moskowitz’s vocals resembled a more ethereal and expansive Nico, who attempted to join the group at one point. It would have been a short tenure regardless; the USA only had on single, one album, and one tour in them before they vanished. Way too special to be mere relic, way too animated to be mere monument.
Bookends
by Simon and Garfunkel
1968
Folk
Simon and Garfunkel may have helped revolutionize the implementation of pop music in Hollywood films when Mike Nichols and Lawrence Truman tapped them to fill the soundtrack to The Graduate. Yet The Graduate remains one of the least essential blockbuster movie soundtrack releases since it was filled with songs that fans already owned, and the key new addition, “Mrs. Robinson,” only showed up in alternate, truncated forms on vinyl. You had to wait until Bookends to get the proper complete version. It’s hard to argue that “Robinson” isn’t Bookends’ greatest claim to fame, if for no better reason than because its spry, jangly strum stood out from the folk duo’s typically mellow, bittersweet brand, but it also includes classics like “America,” “A Hazy Shade of Winter,” “Punky’s Dilemma,” and all two minutes and seventy four seconds of “Fakin’ It.” More witty and urbane than one had come to expect from S&G, too, pointing in the direction of Simon’s most satisfying lyrical constructs after going solo. Front to back (even though the back greatly outweighs the front), it’s almost certainly the duo’s most satisfying LP.
See also: “The Sounds of Silence” (#51)
Life
by Sly & the Family Stone
1968
Soul
Sly & the Family Stone excel at a lot of things, among them something as simple as titling their albums with precision and suitability. If Stand! was about society standing up together and There’s a Riot Goin’ On is a sour, drug-frayed depiction of failure and strife, the also aptly-named Life is about its titular sprawl—a kaleidoscopic summation, exploration and celebration. This was before ulcers and pessimism drove Sly to spiraling drug addiction; here, he and his multi-cultural cohorts are still standing on the precipice of hope and encouragement. The music follows suit—the jovial stomp-along “Love City,” the unifying party tune “Fun,” the chipper pop number “Harmony,” the heavy guitar groove and gospel-driven spirit in “Dynamite!” Even when it gets a bit more topical and accusatory, they stick to needling groupies (“Jane Is a Groupee”) and phonies (“Plastic Jim”); hardly controversial attacks, to say the least. Although it can’t meet the highs of the group’s two undisputed masterworks (and was considered a commercial failure at the time of its release, with only one single barely cracking the Top 100), its status as a progressive step is critical to the band’s, erm, life story.
See also: Stand! (#17), There’s a Riot Goin’ On (#39)
The Gilded Palace of Sin
by the Flying Burrito Brothers
1969
Country
Rock and country were no more comfortable bedfellows in ’69 than they are today. Formed by Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman after they both departed the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers was sort of like the country-gospel version of the Velvet Underground—never sold all that well, but became an enormous influence on their contemporaries (from Elvis Costello and the Eagles through Alan Jackson and Dwight Yoakam). Their cover of the soul standard “Dark End of the Street” remains one of the most exemplary versions, the close harmonies and enthusiastic lyrics of “Christine’s Tune” offers a solid opener, “Do You Know How It Feels (To Be Lonesome)” is worthy of Hank Williams, the spry hillbilly twang of “My Uncle” somehow sounds traditional and modern in its interpretation of country roots, and despite the lightweight title, the two “Hot Burrito” tracks offer nearly peerless examinations of regret and redemption. Sneaky Pete Kleinow worked magic on the pedal steel and Chris Ethridge was no slouch with the backbeat, but it was the pairing of Parsons and Hillman that drove the train—the talented, undisciplined visionary and the polished professional bringing out the best in each other.
In a Silent Way
by Miles Davis
1969
Jazz
Miles Davis didn’t care about you or his followers or the musicians who wanted to be like him or the musicians who wanted to play with him—he just wanted to make music. Being ahead of the game for a good decade at this point, the only stop left before he made jazz fusion the next big thing was to prove that sometimes music benefits from emptiness and notes left unsaid (er, produced) and the logical organization of conventional pop music; meanwhile, going “electric” hadn’t been this controversial since Dylan. There’s not much “silence” per se; the beat is almost always continuous, if fluid, “Shhh/Peaceful” has a melting organ drone, and instruments creep in and out of frame to insert reminders of moments minutes in the past, and extended motifs are repeated like “jazz refrains.” Yet the brain stays alight, sensing the natural progression, and then hiccupping when Davis and his crew break, unwind, disappear, reassert. Teo Macero came on board with his controversial but sensational technique of editing long performance takes into seamless, unbroken (and worst of all, structured) compositions, which upset jazz purists as much as Davis’ creative wellspring. In a Silent Way sounds less bold today because the concepts and techniques have been insinuated into nearly every form of modern music (and because the next logical step, Bitches Brew, was even more successful), but simply being an innovator didn’t make Davis a legend. He still probably wouldn’t care regardless.
See also: Bitches Brew (#27), Sketches of Spain (#15)
