Search Results for: 60s

What were the 60's all about then? Well in terms of music it was a period of construction, building on the impact of the emergence of Rock and Roll in the 50's, where Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry laid down a ground-breaking, sexual blueprint and taking that ignition into a million other spaces. The artists of the 60's found themselves in a brave new world and whilst the decade started with the 7" single very much to the fore, it ended with albums becoming just as important, forming bodies of work, rather than a snapshot. But whatever the format, the power of song was key. The songs that were being written at the end of the 60's couldn't have been imagined at the start and there are a multitude of factors for this, sexual permissiveness, mind-altering recreational drugs and the social movement of a youth culture that wanted to define itself by what it wasn't, namely anti-establishment and pro-innovation. So if we define the 60's as a period of building, what did it lay the musical foundations for? The answer is pretty much every type of music you love and cherish today be that pop, rock, folk, metal, soul, dance or funk. More importantly, it laid down the blueprint for how songs were written and performed. Whilst the ethos of what a band could stand for was created, the medium of their message was ultimately in the songs they wrote. Some ground rules, here are twenty songs that were ground-breaking, but it's limited to one song per artist and in each case, it's the song that defined them. Timothy Leary famously said 'Turn on, tune in and drop out.' Whilst the first two parts of his sentence are certainly true of the 60', the songs here are nothing to do with dropping out, in their own way they all helped to shape the music of subsequent and future decades and in 1,000 years' time the 60's will continue to be revered as much as the time of Shakespeare in literature is today. So read on and remember, turn on and tune in, but don't drop out. 1. Jefferson Airplane White Rabbit http://www.youtube.com/watch?vWANNqr-vcx0 Jefferson Airplane's Grace Slick created an incredible dynasty; artists from Patti Smith, PJ Harvey to Florence Welch have surely been influenced by her style, vocal gymnastics, and ethereal lyrics. Alongside Janis Joplin, Grace Slick carried the flag for female pioneers in the rock music of the 60's, which was no mean feat for an arena that was very much the playground of the boys. But Jefferson Airplane was by no means a one-woman show, and the band made wonderfully weird music that you could somehow hum along to. 'Somebody to love' became their most famous song, but 'White Rabbit' was their masterpiece, a subversive and not at all subtle reference to the effects of hallucinogenic drugs that were the source of inspiration for many musicians of the mid to late 60's. What makes 'White Rabbit' such an important song is the way it juxtaposes two key elements that came, to sum up, 60's music as the decade came to a close innocence and menace. The innocence is executed wonderfully, using a children's story as the basis for the lyrics, however, the musical setting is anything but, it could have been the theme tune to a Hammer Horror film. This innocence and menace literally came to life in the festivals at the end of the decade, and Jefferson Airplane played 'White Rabbit' at both of them - Woodstock with its wide-eyed exuberance and fun versus the darkness and tragedy of Altamont. So here's a song that provides a synopsis of the late 60's for you to analyze to your heart's content, or alternatively, you can just sit back and listen to a wonderful piece of music and enjoy. 2. The Monkees - Porpoise Song (Theme From Head) https://www.youtube.com/watch?vsezVApK9rTk In the days before American Idol and The X-Factor, The Monkees were the first 'manufactured' band and when the call went out for members of a group who would have to live in the same house, make a hit TV show based on The Three Stooges and release the odd record, there was no shortage of credible musicians who auditioned. The Monkees were an instant hit but where they really made a mark in the 60's was when they decided to do their own thing. Breaking away from their TV show, they made the amazingly subversively titled film 'Head', and 'Porpoise song' was the lead song from it. On the face it this is a copy and paste of late-era Beatles, trippy laid back drums with heavily reverbed vocals, but what made this such a landmark in the sixties was that was complete commercial suicide committed by a successful, manufactured group, think of them as the lead character in The Truman show, realising that they were living their lives on TV for the benefit of the masses. Because that was the reality for The Monkees, they were put together in exactly the same way that One Direction was, a group of good-looking individuals designed to have wide-reaching appeal and tap into Beatlemania. Well the plan worked well, and provided some great songs in 'I'm a Believer' and 'Last Train to Clarksville', but 'Porpoise Song' embodied the singularity of the 60's, they got tired of being puppets, and decided to do what they were best at, even if that meant saying goodbye to their teenage fans and record sales. 3. The Count Five - Psychotic Reaction http://www.youtube.com/watch?vfBTT3VPriV8 The Count Five were the ultimate garage band and 'Psychotic Reaction', which was their only hit but a true beat anthem, stands up there with the best of anything that was released in the 60's. The song mined a timeless theme (boy meets girl, boy gets the girl, boy loses girl) and set it to a tune which seamlessly glued two different tunes into a wonderful whole. The lyrics could have been written at any point in time, who can hear the line "I feel depressed, I feel so bad, because you're the best girl that I ever had, I can't get your love, I can't get satisfaction." and not have felt that way at some point in their lives? And how many guitar bands have strived to have written as compulsive a beat and riff-driven tune as this? The answer is all of them, no matter what genre of music they play. The Count Five were certainly idiosyncratic (they chose to dress up as vampires when they played live) but here they laid down the marvelous template for garage bands that can still be heard today, decidedly low-fi, catchy as you like, an uncommercial take on commercial rock. Finally, what a tune, there comes a point where you should stop analyzing and just listen to how good song this is. And then listen to it again. 4. Buffalo Springfield For What It's Worth http://www.youtube.com/watch?vgp5JCrSXkJY This is a cri de coeur but in keeping with the hippy vibe of the times, one of the most laid back protest songs ever written. The title itself perfectly sums up the mood of the song, that of a weary acceptance of oncoming change. It heralded a new type of anti-establishment song; in the 60's songs that spoke about social unrest moved into the mainstream and became the voice of the masses. 'For what it's worth' has been the subject of debate about the actual event that inspired it, (it was apparently a ruck outside a club where the band had a residency) but the literal inspiration is far less important, this is a song that is all about drawing the battle lines between the emergent counterculture and the establishment. The lyrics "What a field day for the heat, a thousand people in the street, singing songs and carrying signs, mostly saying, "Hooray for our side." signposting an imminent battle, and stating the individuality that any music scene has, it's us against everyone else, particularly against those in power. It was also a landmark in establishing two of the leading lights of 60's music, providing the home for Stephen Stills and Neil Young, who would go on to define the supergroups of the 70's, but that's a story for another time. 5. The Walker Brothers - The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore https://www.youtube.com/watch?v0q6YWDm0GSU Scott Walker, there would be no Jim Morrison, no Jarvis Cocker and no benchmark for what it meant to be a cool, detached poet in pop music. He was pop music's original existentialist, and that's what made him a wonder. What made him even more of a wonder is that he pulled off all of this despite being the 60's heartthrob equivalent heartthrobyles. He dressed up the glamour of his supermodel good looks with songs of the blues and heartbreak and with 'The Sun Ain't gonna shine anymore' played an ingenious trick on the record buying public, there was a hit with a catchy chorus that had some of the saddest and solitary lyrics you will ever hear, can you imagine One Direction singing a line such as "Loneliness is a cloak you wear, a deep shade of blue, is always there"? What made the song so magical was that it tapped into what was going on in the music of the time, multi-tracked vocals, strings, flirting with Phil Spector's 'Wall of sound', to create a heady ballad that sounded light-years ahead of anything recorded so far in the history of pop. Scott Walker would go onto make equally intensely serious records, but here he laid down his game plan and this was an unstoppable work of art. 6. The Byrds Eight Miles High http://www.youtube.com/watch?vyoSwOrytf_M The Byrds virtually influenced virtually every guitar band that you hold dear. Roger McGuinn was the master of the Rickenbacker 12 string guitar, which gave a cathedral chime to all the songs that they recorded, but they had so much more about them than that. They wrote songs of love and politics with equal aplomb, sometimes combining the two effortlessly. They had a whole heap of songs that are undisputed standards in the classic musical canon, but 'Eight Miles High' is their masterpiece, stepping into a much darker place than other classics such as 'Feel a whole better' and 'Turn, turn', both of which wrote the template for feel-good music of later decades. 'Eight Miles High' went somewhere that they hadn't visited before and confirmed the 60's as a period of construction. They turned their heads away from early Beatles records and looked at freeform music such as that of John Coltrane. This is arguably the first song of the decade that truly embraced eastern influences; Ravi Shankar was an influence on this year before The Beatles decided to go to Marrakesh, with drone and repetition to the fore. What was also incredibly daring was that they eschewed the traditional chorus and initiated an approach to songwriting that structured the mood of the tune to match the lyrics, which would be emulated to great effect in songs such as '2,000 light-years from home' by The Rolling Stones and 'Tomorrow Never Knows' by The Beatles. But The Byrds did it first, and it's an exceptionally thrilling piece of music, its influence stretched beyond guitar band and dance acts of latter decades got the repetition displayed here and made wonderful careers from it. 7. Nancy Sinatra And Lee Hazlewood - Some Velvet Morning https://youtu.be/oCpCrbCAOBo So let's go back to the initial point about the music of the 60's being a decade of construction. 'Some Velvet Morning' is an utterly beguiling piece of music that is truly psychedelic; the darkness of Lee Hazelwood's voice mixed with Nancy Sinatra's butter wouldn't melt sweetness makes for a truly disturbing and beautiful tune. Feel free to Google what the song is actually about, but the point is how wonderful the music sounds and the influence it had on songs that followed it. It combines an orchestral introduction, with a gunslinger entering the picture, a dark country and western tune for Hazelwood's parts to tell his side of the story 'Some velvet morning when I'm straight, I'm going to open up your gate' with the light pop of Sinatra's parts, where she sets herself up as the ultimate muse, the interchange between the two voices gets shorter as the song goes on and gives the hallucinogenic effect of speeding the song up. In later decades the awful term 'post-modernism' arrived, essentially defining a meshing of styles, or if we want to be properly streetwise then the word is mashed up, and if you loved 'Stan' by Eminem and Dido or any hip-hop band, well love this even more, it set the template nearly 30 years beforehand and was the original mash-up, two completely distinct styles making a symbiotic howl. 8. Dusty Springfield - You Don't Have To Say You Love Me https://www.youtube.com/watch?vQR4vE9xL3yk Dusty Springfield was the leading exponent of girl power in pop music, and the standards she laid down in the 60's were the equivalent of world records that would never be broken. She made a series of records that enchanted and enthralled, but 'You don't have to say you love me' was the gold medal that would never be equaled. It starts with an orchestra and then her voice kicks in and the song sets a pace for how a soul ballad should be sung. /Getting away from other artists, the notable Cilla Black's and Sandie Shaw's, Dusty Springfield was a masterful singer in every way. But with 'You don't have to say you love me' she moved into a different space, epic and masterful, which begs the question, why on earth didn't she do a James Bond theme? She'd have been perfect for the role and era-defining. This was such a defining song of the 60's that no less a god than Elvis Presley himself covered it. And what a testament it is to Dusty Springfield that he got nowhere near the grace, class, and elegance of her version. If Dusty Springfield helped to define the whole notion of what it meant to be a torch singer of ballads so grandiose yet heart-breaking, then this song is the 'How to do it' manual. She was Scott Walker's musical soulmate, listen to both their versions of 'If you go away' and have a weep about the fact that it was the greatest duet that never was. 9. The Ronettes - Be My Baby https://www.youtube.com/watch?vjrVbawRPO7I Phil Spector put his fingerprints all over the 60's with his wall of sound and infamous recording techniques, but this was his finest moment, a heartfelt plea to be loved. Spector was very proud of both the sound of his songs and the stories that they told, and is there a better lyric of the decade than this? "The night we met I knew I needed you so, and if I had the chance I'd never let you go, so won't you say you love me? I'll make you so proud of me." The drums, bass, and reverb set a pace that The Beatles were so besotted by they hired Phil Spector to produce their album 'Let it be', so why was that? Well, despite all his now apparent flaws, as a record producer, Phil Spector only had one peer in this decade and that was George Martin. He embraced the whole theory of construction and mind expansion, making a huge sound for a defining era of music that would lay the foundations for millions of songs. So why is this a landmark song of the 60's? Well no matter what the production values, The Ronettes voices are what make it a wonderful experience to listen to, unbelievably cool women who are telling a heart-breaking story of love. With this song, they provided the template of how to be goddesses in pop. 10. The Kinks Waterloo Sunset http://www.youtube.com/watch?vYpL4xbfmXlQ Without a doubt, one of the best views in London, if not the world, is the one you can get walking across Waterloo Bridge, which takes in a view of Big Ben, the Thames, The Strand and in recent times the Tate Modern. It's arguably the most romantic bridge that you can walk across. So what better than one of the most romantic songs you will ever hear about being alone, overwhelmed by the city, but holding on to the power of a city, a love song to a city that made you? When The Kinks started out, they seemed hell-bent on matching The Who power chord for the power chord, and their songs had an innate punch, but unlike his counterpart, Pete Townsend, in the 60's Ray Davies had a sensitivity as a songwriter that also translated to the music. His charting of the emotional climate of the time meant that there were many contenders for their defining song, for example, the majestic 'Days' was a wonderfully bittersweet diary of a fleeting affair, but 'Waterloo Sunset' was not only one of the few songs to articulate London, but inspired the Britpop movement as much as The Beatles did. Ask yourself a quick question, would 'Parklife' by Blur had of existed without The Kinks? So 'Waterloo Sunset', with its end of a decade ennui not only defined a feeling of weariness, but also the happiness of solitude and provided the perfect antidote to the all-inclusive 'All you need is love' vibe and was a wonderful demonstration that there are two sides to every cultural story. 11. The Who - I Can't Explain http://www.youtube.com/watch?vh3h--K5928M The Who was a mass of contradictions. Were they pure pop purists? Were they revolutionaries? Well yes and no, they were many things besides, but first and foremost they were angry agitators and the first Heavy Metal band, who literally punched their instruments to death. Whilst 'My generation' was an important song of the 60's, it could have been written at any point in musical history, close your eyes and you can imagine The Sex Pistols singing it. 'Can't Explain' was their defining moment of the 60's. It was an incredibly important because of the music, a short, sharp punchy three chord trick, inspired the dancing scene of Mod culture and tapped into the spirit of Northern Soul. And then the words, aloof, confused yet defiant. Within its three minutes, it defined an attitude, spirit, and beat that showed how mod music should be delivered. There are lots of drugs references for different types of 60's music, and for Mods, the drug of choice was most definitely speed. With Can't Explain, The Who tried to capture this, and define the Mod sensibility, tight, sharp, intense, narcissistic and wide-eyed with a love of life and music. It's not typical dance music, but as soon as Pete Townsend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon kick into the riff it's impossible not to try a shake a leg to it. 12 The Supremes - Where Did Our Love Go? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v2xgklZHORgw No article of landmark songs from the 60's could possibly be complete without the behemoth that was Motown records, the hit factory that defined the rules of songwriting for both bands and songwriters. The mission statement was simple, to craft tunes and lyrics that people connected with, providing them with connection and catharsis, the 'that's exactly how I feel' moment. Motown was the master of this because they didn't have the distractions of having to think about a bands identity, they were focussed on the songs, which in turn became the bedrock of their artist's identity. So picking a landmark from what they did from the 60's is a task equal to doing the same for The Beatles and The Stones, but there is a clear winner here, and that's 'Where did our love go?' by The Supremes. If there was an examiners checklist for a Motown song then this ticks all the boxes. Within these golden three minutes there is a lyric to die for, three sassy divas delivering the vocals, which are of Olympic standard, a tune you can't get out of your head and an arrangement that sounds ridiculously simple, but that on closer inspection is as complex as anything The Beatles or The Beach Boys served up. But the key strength is this, the words. The utter pleading, misery, and desperation of what The Supremes are singing should knock your socks off. Rarely has a song of heartbreak sounded so happy, but that's what makes it a genius composition. 13. The Beach Boys - God Only Knows https://www.youtube.com/watch?vAOMyS78o5YI The Beach Boys were a perfect example of the construction that took place in the 60's, starting out as clean-cut, West Coast surfer boys, they quickly moved with the changes that were taking place to create some of the most out their compositions of the era. Legend has it that when The Beatles released their two masterpieces, 'Rubber Soul' and 'Revolver', Brian Wilson decided to match them punch for punch and wrote 'Pet Sounds', from which 'God only knows' emerged as their piece de resistance. Lennon and McCartney, realizing that they were in a title fight, hit back with 'Sgt Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band'. This delivered the metaphorical uppercut to Wilson, whose attempt to fight back hit the ropes when he couldn't finish the 'Smile' album. But that's the end of the story, and here's the start, 'God only knows' is one of the most wondrous songs you will ever hear, a total declaration of love with some of the sweetest words ever written. Going against the emerging hippy chic of 'I love everyone', this is very much a story of 'I love you'. With lines as humble as "I may not always love you, but as long as there are stars above you, you need not ever doubt it, I'll make you so sure about it." Not only did they raise the bar for production, vocal harmonies, and baroque arrangements, they laid down a statement of intent that The Beatles themselves felt that they had to raise their game to surpass. How many songs can say that? 14. The Velvet Underground - Venus In Furs http://www.youtube.com/watch?vAwzaifhSw2c Well, we couldn't have an article about landmark songs from the 60's without including Andy Warhol's Velvets, a band who took one look at pop in the 60's and decided one thing, which was 'Here's how it's done'. To make their seduction of the listener they realised that they had to play the game to an extent, songs such as 'There she goes again' which were borne from Lou Reeds' previous day job as a songwriter for hire, but it was 'Venus in Furs' that really set them apart from the competition and would be an everlasting influence for the more outré guitar bands up to the current day. There are so many things to say about this song and the first thing is that is it incredibly vicious. As a paean to S&M, it has no peers, John Cale's viola sounds like a whip to the back and the drone of the other instruments makes the experience sound arduous and unpleasant, whilst its compelling it's a story you want to hear about, not experience. What made this such a landmark was that it showed that the musicianship didn't need to be masterful, but have the requisite raw power to blow the listener away, Lou Reed's voice bears no comparison to Scott Walker on a technical level, but it doesn't need to. Without this song, most of the guitar bands that you love wouldn't exist. 15. Jimi Hendrix - Hey Joe http://www.youtube.com/watch?vOm3JfoMkYbo This is one of the coolest, kick-ass moments in musical TV history, where a tribute blows the idol of affection not just out of the park, but off the planet. This is an amazing example of what Jimi Hendrix could do with six strings, holding the groove down with simple rhythm playing and that amazing blues/soul voice and an unbelievably tight rhythm section. But what made this so inspiring is when he said '"We're going to stop playing this rubbish..." and breaks into an instrumental of 'Sunshine of your love' by the recently defunct Cream. Can you imagine a band doing that today? Because 'Hey Joe' was the song that announced him, and whilst he had a string of other classics, 'Hey Joe' was so important because it was the antithesis of what was to become guitar hero culture of the 60's and 70's, this was a storyteller who used the guitar to help him tell the tale Whilst ', Purple Haze' and 'Fire' were tremendous examples of his ability as a player, this song and 'The wind cries Mary'is the real breakthroughs, no one this macho had unleashed such femininity to their playing before. And lest we forget, what a voice. Credits: whatculture.com

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