64.Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde (1966)

 

1. Rainy Day Women #12 & 35
2. Pledging My Time
3. Visions Of Johanna
4. One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)
5. I Want You
6. Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
7. Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
8. Just Like A Woman
9. Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)
10. Temporary Like Achilles
11. Absolutely Sweet Marie
12. Fourth Time Around
13. Obviously Five Believers
14. Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands

In which Bob Dylan goes beyond the impossible and records an album even better than Highway 61 Revisited. You know, the one I already gave a ten? It's like he shat out great songs during this period. This album represents the ultimate flourishing of his rock period, and was far too great to fit onto one album, so we have here the very first double album in rock history. It's characteristically filled with surreal imagery and historical characters swordfighting or whatever Dylan feels like going on about.

The album begins with 'Rainy Day Women #12 and 35', a booze-and-weed fueled party that happens to contain a song. It's such a joyously discordant track that I'm amazed that it managed to become a hit. From there, the album leaps from strength to strength in an astonishing 70 minutes. There's all sorts of moods and emotions conjured up by the bizarre imagery, as well as the skilled performances by the players on this album. Who woulda thought that a bunch of country session musicians could help make one of the all time great rock albums?

The more quiet tunes on the album, like 'Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' and 'Visions of Johanna' have this sort of atmosphere that I can't really put a finger on, but I'm pretty sure it's magic.You know, the stuff that makes magnets and rainbows work? Yeah, it works on Dylan songs too. And the lyrics are so great that I will not shut up about them for the entire review. Even 'I Want You', with its incredibly lazy chorus and catchy melody that's probably the closest this record comes to a pop song, drops shit like 'The guilty undertaker sighs, the lonely organ grinder cries, the silver saxophones say I should refuse you' in the first friggin' line. We've come a long way from 'I Want To Hold Your Hand'.


I could meticulously describe each of these songs in detail and really get into what makes them all masterpieces, but this album doesn't really need that. It's one of those masterpieces that doesn't really grip you as a masterpiece at first listen, but then eventually it creeps up on you and all of a sudden you've got more Dylan albums than you know what to do with. 10/10

63. The Byrds - Fifth Dimension (1966)

1. 5D (Fifth Dimension)
2. Wild Mountain Thyme
3. Mr Spaceman
4. I See You
5. What's Happening?!?!
6. I Come And Stand At Every Door
7. Eight Miles High
8. Hey Joe (Where You Gonna Go)
9. Captain Soul
10. John Riley
11. 242 Foxtrot (The Lear Jet Song)

In which the Byrds finally enter the exciting world of psychedelia. Except only slightly, really. It's more like they're dipping their feet in. Fortunately, this resulted in one of the true psych classics, 'Eight Miles High'. With its weirdo-12 string guitar solos (apparently an attempt to emulate Ravi Shankar, as well as John Coltrane), fuzzed up bass and ethereal harmonies, this song was nothing short of a sensation. Except it didn't make quite as big a splash as it should've, mostly due to the fact that everyone thought it was about drugs.


Unfortunately, after the recording of that song, Gene Clark, the band's main songwriter up to that point, left the group. The other Byrds then had to record the rest of this album without him, and the result is an album with 4 covers and an instrumental. It's not as bad as you might think, though! 


The general Byrds sound is still around, with the harmonies and the endless jangling, particularly on the almost-hits '5D (Fifth Dimension)' and the quirky 'Mr. Spaceman', which sounds like a precursor to their later country-rock direction. However, they change up their sound a bit on this record, adding strings to a couple of songs, and even the sound of a jet plane on '2-4-2 Foxtrot', which is the weird awkward cousin amongst the dysfunctional family of this album.

Not all of the songs are successful, though. Their version of 'Hey Joe' isn't exactly gonna make people stop listening to the Jimi Hendrix version, and 'Captain Soul' is nothing to write home about.


Overall, this album is good, but flawed. A bold step forward for the Byrds, but not a step fully made. 7.5/10

62. Fred Neil - Fred Neil (1966)

1. Dolphins
2. I've Got a Secret (Didn't We Shake Sugaree)
3. That's the Bag I'm In
4. Badi-Da
5. Faretheewell (Fred's Tune)
6. Everybody's Talkin'
7. Everything Happens
8. Sweet Cocaine
9. Green Rocky Road
10. Cynicrustpetefredjohn Raga

After 2 mindblowing game changing albums in a row, the list decides to throw me a curveball and give me an album with no pretensions towards fame and glory. There's no intricate studio wizardry here, just a collection of pleasant folk-rock tunes. 

Pleasant is the perfect word for this album, really. It's almost dreamy in the way it moves along at such a peaceful, easygoing pace. This is definitely not the Bob Dylan sort of folk rock. It's a lot more Byrds-y, but without all the harmonies and popular appeal. The only thing on this album that approaches popularity is 'Everybody's Talkin'', which would gain far more fame when it was covered by Harry Nilsson for the soundtrack of the film Midnight Cowboy.


My favorite song on here would have to be 'The Dolphins', a nice laid-back cut with shimmering guitars and a good opportunity to show off Fred's resonating deep voice. It's a nice change from the not exactly tuneful vocal stylings of one Mr. Dylan, that's for sure!


The sore thumb on this album would have to be the rather enjoyably titled 'Cynicrustpetefredjohn Raga', a jam session mixing folk and Indian music. The result is not quite like anything you've heard before. It's not bad, but it definitely doesn't fit in with all the blissed out folk rock.


Unlike the grand titans of Revolver and Pet Sounds, this album was not a success and remains largely obscure. It did influence a number of artists though, including Tim Buckley, who'll be showing up sooner or later. This may have seemed a bit disappointing after all the critically acclaimed masterpieces, but I'd take this over Ella Fitzgerald any day. 8/10

61. The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds (1966)

1. Wouldn't It Be Nice
2. You Still Believe
3. That's Not Me
4. Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)
5. I'm Waiting for the Day
6. Let's Go Away for Awhile
7. Sloop John B.
8. God Only Knows
9. I Know There's an Answer
10. Here Today
11. I Just Wasn't Made For These Times
12. Pet Sounds
13. Caroline, No

First Revolver and now this? This list is trying to spoil me or something!

This album is fairly intimidating to review, actually. Over half the Western world are convinced that this album is the greatest album to ever album. If you take a glance at acclaimedmusic.net (a very handy site if you're a list obsessed freak like me) it is number one with a bullet. What does one say to such unrelenting praise? One joins in enthusiastically, I suppose, because this really is a good album.

Pet Sounds is the crowning achievement of Brian Wilson's break from touring. Each song is ornately crafted to the point where you're hearing new things practically every time you play this album. I gave the Beatles credit for their increased usage of studio musicians to expand their sound on Revolver, but this album tops that easily. There's nothing but studio musicians, the Beach Boys barely play their instruments at all, and if they do you can't hear them under the 50 studio musicians playing on each track (seriously, look at the credits for this thing!).

The end result is one weird-sounding motha. While the Beach Boys have always been a pop-oriented band, you're never quite too sure who they're trying to appeal to here. While there's catchy radio hits sprinkled in here, most of the songs sound far too...spiritual or elaborate or whatever it is to get much popularity. There's some weird sounds thrown into the mix as well, such as the bicycle horn in 'You Still Believe In Me' or that wonderful bass harmonica/banjo interlude in 'I Know There's an Answer'. No matter how weird the instruments get, they always have this ethereal beauty to them that you're constantly left wondering "How the hell did he do that?"

The vocal harmonies are, as always, top notch. One need only listen to 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' to be convinced of that. The nifty thing about this album is while it prominently features harmonies (what Beach Boys record wouldn't?) but it doesn't rely on them. Three of the most beautiful tracks on here-'God Only Knows', 'Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)' and 'Caroline, No' have little to no harmony singing at all. Sometimes just a simple vocal melody is all you need.

While I certainly don't think it's the greatest thing in music ever, it is definitely a very well-crafted album. Some of these songs are so beautiful that I don't even feel like hating Mike Love! 10/10
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60. The Beatles - Revolver (1966)

1. Taxman
2. Eleanor Rigby
3. I'm Only Sleeping
4. Love You To
5. Here There and Everywhere
6. Yellow Submarine
7. She Said She Said
8. Good Day Sunshine
9. And Your Bird Can Sing
10. For No One
11. Dr Robert
12. I Want To Tell You
13. Got To Get You Into My Life
14. Tomorrow Never Knows

Wow, another year already? Stuff starts moving at a lightning pace once you hit the mid Sixties!
And so are the Beatles, for that matter. After the artistic triumph of Rubber Soul, this album was released a mere 9 months later and proved to be an even greater triumph. This album, from beginning to end, is a serious work of art that covers almost all of the sounds that pop/rock consisted of at the time in its breadth. It's the first album on the list to dabble with that grand old '60s cliche, psychedelic rock. An extraordinarily ambitious work, Revolver marked the fruition of a new direction for the Beatles. By writing songs with more complex arrangements that made heavy use of studio musicians, they would essentially guarantee their future success as a studio band. In fact, most of these songs were totally impossible for the Beatles to play live in those days, so it's no surprise that this year was the last they would tour.

All 3 of the songwriters grow in leaps and bounds here, including (much to John and Paul's surprise, I imagine) George Harrison, who actually gets the first track on the album with 'Taxman', a sneering critique of taxes in the UK. Hooray for welfare states!

'I Want to Tell You' is an interesting enough song with its more personal lyrics, but by far the biggest break from tradition is 'Love You To', an Indian-influenced pop song with sitars and tablas a-plenty with lyrics that sound like stereotypical trippy '60s sentiments nowadays (Make love all day long! Make love singing songs!). Makes me want to break out the beads and dashikis. Perhaps the first rock song to break from traditional Western songwriting structure. Good on it!

Lennon, by my estimate, had spent much of the latter part of 1965 and '66 on LSD, and it shows in his songs. Whether lazing the day way in 'I'm Only Sleeping' which has some really neat reversed guitar, or questioning the need for material possessions in 'And Your Bird Can Sing', you can get a glimpse of his drugged-out state of mind at the time. However, none of these songs can prepare you for the acid trip that is 'Tomorrow Never Knows'. With walls of manic distorted tape loops bouncing all over the place, the constant droning melody, the constant frenzied drumbeat, and the lyrics inspired by LSD guru Timothy Leary, this song sounded like nothing else at the time. As much of a cliche as this is, this song really was quite ahead of its time by a considerable amount of years. Popular music wouldn't catch up to this until the Chemical Brothers came close to ripping it off 30 years later.

And after that mindblowing track (well, there's a reason it's the last one!), it's up to McCartney to keep conventional. This album is quite the step up for him, actually. He was more and more influenced by classical music, as best shown in the rather depressing couplet of 'Eleanor Rigby' and 'For No One', both featuring classical instruments heavily in their arrangements. The sharp, dramatic strings on the former and the mournful French horn solo on the latter enhance the desolate tone of the words to both songs, whether illustrating the tragedy of loneliness or that of lost love.

As usual, Ringo gets the worst song. 'Yellow Submarine' is probably the best he's gotten so far, with its whimsical children's song feel and its innovative use of sound effects. Don't worry, Ringo, at least you have all that acting talent to fall back on!

I'd just like to invite you to go back and listen to With The Beatles again so that you can realize that it was recorded less than 3 years before this album. Say what you want about these guys, but they probably had the most fascinating and dramatic examples of musical evolution within such a small span of years. Gone would be the frantic touring and constant use of filler to make up hastily-released records at a rate of 2 (or more!) per year. From now on, the Beatles would do whatever the hell they felt like, and influenced bands all across the world to do the same.

Shit just got real. 10/10

59. The Who - My Generation (1965)

1. Out In The Street
2. I Don't Mind
3. The Good's Gone
4. La La La Lies
5. Much Too Much
6. My Generation
7. The Kids Are Alright
8. Please, Please, Please
9. It's Not True
10. I'm A Man
11. A Legal Matter
12. The Ox

Enter the third great titan of the British Invasion. The Who changed so much throughout their career that it's funny to listen to their debut album and marvel at how unambitious it is compared to the legendary classics they would soon be recording. That's only with the benefit of hindsight, though. By the standards of this year, this album was fairly ambitious, with its completely wild sound (just listen to those drums!) and the fact that a mere 3 songs were covers-quite a feat in those days. Pete Townshend wastes no time in establishing his lyrical voice, and you can already hear evidence of the trademark wit that he would develop over the years.

The covers tend to drag the album down a bit though, particularly the James Brown songs. I said this before on the Rolling Stones debut, I'll say it again here: Do not try to emulate soul legends on your first album if you are white. It won't really end well.

The originals are really something, though. Most everyone knows the title track by now, with its famous stuttering delivery, the bass solo, and the fact that "Hope I die before I get old" sounds that much funnier 45 years on. Keith Moon's drumming at the end of the track is enough to make you run for cover. It's even worse on 'The Ox', a furious instrumental that has everyone playing on overdrive and Pete Townshend doing God knows what to that poor guitar of his. Sometimes it feels like there's more protesting howls of feedback than actual guitar solos on this album!

Amidst all this sound and fury, there's actually a good number of cheerful pop songs. 'The Kids Are Alright' is Beatlesque in its upbeat, carefree catchiness. My personal favorite is 'A Legal Matter', a charming song about divorcing your pregnant wife 'cause you're bored (I told you Pete had a sense of humor!) . The harmonies aren't quite as full as the Beatles', but the music has a bite that the Beatles wouldn't be able to match until 'Helter Skelter'.

This album set the terms for what a proper debut album should be: Unique, proud, laying down a distinct sound, yet showing a glimpse at the glories to come. 8/10

58. Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

1. Like A Rolling Stone
2. Tombstone Blues
3. It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
4. From A Buick 6
5. Ballad Of A Thin Man
6. Queen Jane Approximately
7. Highway 61 Revisited
8. Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
9. Desolation Row

Perhaps rock music's first masterpiece? Quite possibly. I suppose it'd be more fun if I defied expectations and trashed albums like this in the name of slaughtering the sacred cows of rock, but this is a cow I'm quite happy to continue feeding grass until it belches the ozone away for all I care. This is by far the most literate album of the decade, namedropping all sorts of historical figures and authors into the most bizarre situations. But what makes this album truly amazing is how, for the first time on a Dylan album, the music becomes just as important as the lyrics. He's got a great band here, who take the blues-rock songs from Dylan's last album and expand on them. And I do mean expand, there's got to be at least 3 keyboard tracks on most of these songs.

Quite a lot of words have been written about 'Like A Rolling Stone'. It's a testament to the spirit of the '60s that this 6 minute vicious diatribe of a song hit #2 on the charts, by far the longest single released at the time. It's a vehicle for Dylan's acidic bitterness, and I like to imagine it came as quite a shock to all those well dressed teenagers listening to their Dave Clark 5 and Herman's Hermits. How's the real world taste?

'Tombstone Blues' is another frantic blues-rock tune with magnificent playing from the band, especially guitarist Mike Bloomfield. His raw soloing only highlights the bizarre lyrics, with such winners like 'The sun's not yellow, it's CHICKEN!' If that isn't lyrical skill, I don't know what is.

For me, none of the lyrics can match the sheer fury and scorn of 'Ballad of a Thin Man'. This song is nothing short of intense. From the dramatic crashing piano chords at the beginning to the swirling organ part that seems to match the lyrics for emotional weight, this song is relentless. The Mr. Jones referred to throughout the song may or may not be a real person, but here he takes the place of every conventional square that's ever existed, and he's sent through a nightmare cavalcade of freaks and oddities while being absolutely skewered by Dylan. A lot of people don't really like Bob Dylan due to his voice, but it's a testament to his singing that he makes lines like "You're a cow, give me some milk or else go home!" sound positively menacing.

'Highway 61 Revisited' is a nice jolly tune that relates the story of Abraham and Isaac (Charming fellow, that God chap) and then just gets weirder and weirder. "I got forty red white and blue shoe strings, and a thousand telephones that don't ring" is a problem that I hope never to experience. He even manages to sneak in social commentary in between all the Dadaism.

'Desolation Row' is notable for being what might be the first rock song to exceed 10 minutes, during which we're taken through a circus of historical figures and god knows what else. It's not every song that has Cinderella, T.S. Elliot and Ezra Pound sharing a stage, after all. The bizarre onslaught of imagery makes me feel like I'm reading Naked Lunch or something.

Listening to the masterful lyrics and the spirited musicianship on this album nowadays makes me wonder how all those folk purists back in '65 could've possibly hated this album. Those poor, deluded fools. 10/10