Full disclosure part 1: I listened to this on a streaming service so a few tracks were missing, the videos were included in the track list, and I really have no idea how it would compare to the actual boxed set. (No booklets, etc.) Full disclosure part 2: the time for me to have listened …
Tag: 1968
Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach (1968, Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub)
I’ve spent much of my adult life cultivating an interest in movies made before I was born and so I have a high tolerance, for someone my age, for the slower rhythms of past films. (I have watched so many old movies in part because i really want to know where things come from, but …
S. F. Sorrow (1968) by The Pretty Things
If being first counts for anything, this record deserves more attention than it has received (in North America, anyway). Tommy is viewed by so many people as the first ever rock opera but it wasn’t first (this came out five months earlier in the UK), however a delayed release of this record in the US …
The Marble Index (1968) by Nico
If you only knew Nico from Chelsea Girl (i.e. you had never heard The Velvet Underground & Nico nor were you aware of her subsequent reputation), I have trouble imagining the shock of this record. It’s a little like what later happened with Scott Walker, albeit not nearly as radical, but it took Nico less …
Bradley’s Barn (1968) by The Beau Brummels
The usual history of country rock goes something like this: The Byrds invented it with Sweetheart of the Radio. A more sophisticated version of that story is that the International Submarine Band invented country rock, but nobody heard their record, so the Byrds popularized the genre when they hired ISB singer-songwriter Gram Parsons and he …
Shine On Brightly (1968) by Procol Harum
Procol Harum remind me of The Moody Blues in a way; not in terms of their sound but in terms of their place in the history progressive rock, and how it evolved. Both bands got in on the ground floor, which makes them pioneers, at the very least. But both also got in before progressive …
The Hurdy Gurdy Man (1968) by Donovan
Donovan put out so many damn albums in the late ’60s that I have a hard time believing it sometimes. So I stupidly assumed Mellow Yellow was the last one and was going to compare this to it. But no, there was a double album in between – which was confusingly released as two albums …
The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp (1968)
This bonkers album is probably only known because Michael Giles and Robert Fripp went on to form King Crimson. Without Crimson, I cannot imagine too many people would be aware of this record.
Tell Mama (1968) by Etta James
Somehow this is the first time I’ve managed to give an Etta James album my requisite three listens. I definitely checked out at least one other, but for some reason dropped it from the podcast list.
Outsideinside (1968) by Blue Cheer
I don’t know what it is exactly, whether it’s the lack of novelty or something more concrete like weaker songs, but this record does not feel like it is the equal to Vincebus Eruptum. Making the comparison is not fair to begin with, simply because the debut is arguably one of the most important records …
Cheap Thrills (1968) by Big Brother and the Holding Company
In the version of the ’60s I got from ’90s music television, Cheap Thrills is one of the seminal documents of the San Francisco psychedelic scene. But listening to it for the first time all these years later, it’s hard to see why it was such a big deal. I guess it’s considered the best …
Cancer Ward (1966, 1968) by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
I have no idea why it took me so long to finish this one. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, but something about it turned into a slog for me. (It also happened that I was listening to podcasts when I supposed to be reading, which was a problem.) Anyway, the time it took …
Hair (1968) by the Original Broadway Cast
This is not the first cast recording of Hair but it is the first Broadway cast recording (I think) and, more importantly, it was the hit, it’s the version that hit #1 in 1968 – the last Broadway cast album to do so, according to Wikipedia – and sold millions of copies. So whether or …
Aerial Ballet (1968) by Nilsson
Nilsson is just one of those guys I don’t get. I have listened to a few of his records now and every time my reaction is “This is what Nilsson sounds like?” You see, I am not really a fan of pop, and though this music is relatively adventurous – I stress the “relatively” as …
Life (1968) by Sly and the Family Stone
Much like Dance to the Music, this is a well-played record that lacks quality songs. I find myself with a bit of deja vu.
It’s All About (1968) by Spooky Tooth
This is one of those records I thought about listening to a decade and a half ago and I’m just getting to it now. That’s often a recipe for disappointment as my tastes in my mid 30s are definitely not what they were in my early 20s.
Os Mutantes (1968)
Like so much popular music from countries other than the US and the UK, there is a tendency to overrate Os Mutantes’ debut simply because it is not American or British. I’m not sure this record would be considered so seminal had it been made by an American or British band singing in English. I’ll …
Randy Newman Creates Something New (1968)
For someone with my oft-stated supposed ability to tolerate weird, unconventional voices, I sure seem to struggle with them lately. On first listen to this record, I thought about dropping it, as I wasn’t sure I could deal with the 1968 iteration of Randy Newman’s legendarily unconventional voice.
Aretha Now (1968) by Aretha Franklin
Listening to this without thinking about context, I’m tempted to call it a near classic. But then I looked up my review of Lady Soul and remembered how great I thought that one was…
The Pentangle (1968)
This is some pretty good folk jazz / jazz folk stuff, that is classified on RYM as “progressive folk” and “folk rock” for some reason. (Well, there is a reason: it’s possible they don’t recognize the existence of the folk jazz / jazz folk sub-genre, despite how much of it there is out there.) Anyway…
Dance to the Music (1968) by Sly and the Family Stone
It’s easy to understand why this band captured everyone’s attention; though the music is undeniably funky for the era, and soulful, there’s also enough of other elements that it’s accessible to people who would not have listened to James Brown or Stax or what have you.It’s significantly less psychedelic than I assumed it was, but …
Bookends (1968) by Simon and Garfunkel
Simon and Garfunkel were one of the groups I listened to more than most when I was in my childhood/tween oldies phase. I want to blame that for why I have such a hard time with them as an adult but I think it’s mostly because I find Paul Simon to be perhaps the most …
Safe at Home (1968) by International Submarine Band
This record invented country rock. As such, it’s one of the milestone records of the 1960s. (Country infected popular music in the 1970s and the country rock phenomenon of the late 1960s and early 1970s and Safe at Home is a big reason why.) But with the benefit of hindsight I am tempted to criticize the …
Eli and the 13th Confession (1968) by Laura Nyro
I was barely aware of Nyro when I listened to this record – I had heard her name, likely from seeing it listed in credits and mentioned here and there I guess, but I didn’t know what I was in for.
Excitable Boy (1978) by Warren Zevon
My only previous experience with Warren Zevon is Sentimental Hygiene. An idiosyncratic songwriter backed by REM – I thought it was going to be really up my alley. But, alas, I really don’t love that record. It was enough to put me off listening to him again. So I find myself listening to this record …
Taj Mahal (1968)
It’s interesting and illuminating listening to a a blues musician who came of age in the rock era, as opposed to the older ones making music at the same time. (Mahal was 25 at the time of this record.Albert King and BB King were in their 40s, for comparison.)
Did She Mention My Name? (1968) by Gordon Lightfoot
This is my first experience of Lightfoot outside of hearing 5 or so songs of his ad nauseum on Oldies Radio when I was a kid. I guess I associated those songs with my childhood and so I’ve never had an urge to explore his oeuvre. Reading about this record, I was shocked to find …
Lady Soul (1968) by Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin’s fourteenth studio album could have almost tricked me into believing it was a Greatest Hits/Best Of album focused on a particular era of her career, except for the fact it is missing “Respect” and a few other songs.
Gris-Gris (1968) by Dr. John, The Night Tripper
This is my first Dr. John record for some reason.
Sing Me Back Home (1968) by Merle Haggard and the Strangers
The way I think about music is dominated by the idea of artistic progression: did this artist improve or change from the last album. But country music poses a challenge to this outlook (just like soul does) because, for much of the genre’s history if not all of it, stasis or consistency has been deemed …