66. The Kinks - Face to Face (1966)

1. Party Line
2. Rosie Won't You Please Come Home
3. Dandy
4. Too Much on My Mind
5. Session Man
6. Rainy Day in June
7. House in the Country
8. Holiday in Waikiki
9. Most Exclusive Residence for Sale
10. Fancy
11. Little Miss Queen of Darkness
12. You're Lookin' Fine
13. Sunny Afternoon
14. I'll Remember

The Kinks: one of the few bands that actually truly mattered during the British Invasion. Unfortunately, by the time they began turning into a truly great band, most Americans had already stopped caring. That suited the Kinks just fine, though, because if there's one thing I've noticed about this album, it's actually British. I know, half the damn list is British, but since rock music came from the States, most of their music was trying to emulate the American sound. The Kinks decide 'Sod that!' and went off to write what is called one of the earliest concept albums in rock music. It's a pretty simplistic concept (character sketches of ordinary British people), but it does the trick.


The Kinks certainly have changed quite a bit from their power-chord abusing beginnings. These songs, while they aren't quite the ultra-constructed music of Pet Sounds, have stuff like random sound effects and a surprisingly large amount of harpsichord. Which, by the way, is played by Nicky Hopkins, who appears on quite a lot of these albums, and he even gets a song written about him called 'Session Man', which has to be the first rock song on this list to satirize an aspect of the music industry.


There's a lot of good and witty material on here, as you would expect from a record with song titles like 'Most Exclusive Residence For Sale'. 'Sunny Afternoon', the big hit here, is a wonderful satirical barb at the upper crust of British society (they get brought up a lot on this album. I guess Ray Davies wasn't making as much money as he'd have liked) that totally turns Taxman on its head. 'Dandy' was rather interesting because for years I only knew the Herman's Hermits version, but here we have the original in all its rough-around-the-edges glory.


Basically, the Kinks invented Britpop. Years and years before it actually became popular. While the songs aren't quite as fully realized as they would be within a year or so, this album is a bold step in an exciting new direction. 8/10

65. The Monks - Black Monk Time (1966)

1. Monk Time
2. Shut Up
3. Boys Are Boys And Girls Are Choice
4. Higgle-Dy-Piggle-Dy
5. I Hate You
6. Oh How To Do Now
7. Complication
8. We Do Wie Du
9. Drunken Maria
10. Love Came Tumblin' Down
11. Blast Off
12. That's My Girl

 IT'S MONK TIME!!!!

This album is something else right here. It's another one of those lost classics of the time that would only become influential years and years later, when weirdos like The Fall listened to it. As worn out as this cliche is, this album sounded like nothing else at the time. It's intensely rhythmic, loud, and bizarre in a way that most people besides the Fugs and Frank Zappa couldn't even think of in 1966.

These guys were a group of American army folks stationed in Germany in the mid-60s who decided to form a band. At first they were your stand,ard '60s garage band with the simplistic music and the endless Louie Louie covers, but then they turned into something far, far different. I suppose they figured that since they obviously weren't going to become a massive success in the English-speaking world by playing to Germans, they could experiment as much as they wanted to. The Germans just wanted loud beat music, they weren't going to care about the lyrical content! As a result we get lyrics like 'Why do you kill all those kids in Vietnam!? Mad Viet Cong! My brother died in Vietnam! James Bond, who was he?' screamed in an absolutely manic voice.

The band also chose to experiment musically as well. These guys  have the loudness and the rhythmic attack of the Sonics, but much more proficient in their musicianship. There's a lot of great organ solos on here. Oh, did I mention that one of the members plays a banjo? And every instrument is fuzzed up to maximum potential. The Sonics brought the loud and simplistic playing to punk, but these guys gave it something far more important: an attitude. 9/10

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