Six Great Albums From the 1960s (Part Two)

Hey dudes! Welcome back to the second part of my totally groovy article about albums from the 1960s. Peace and love man! Cringe-inducing opening bit aside (apologies), last time we looked at three fantastic LPs: two inarguable classics with Cream and The Doors, and words of praise for an underground masterwork by the Monks. So, in this second part, I thought I’d drill down even further into the more… alternative spear of 60s music, with a couple more great cult classics to wax lyrical on. Fear not though, the Fab Four do make an appearance. In fact, they’re first up!

The Beatles – Magical Mystery Tour (1967)

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the absolute best Beatles LP. Now, put your pitchforks down and let me explain. Sure, all their best renowned albums, ‘Sgt. Pepper’, ‘Revolver’, ‘White Album’, ‘Abbey Road’, they’re brilliant, I agree, but there’s just something about ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ that appeals above all others to me. Perhaps what it is is the sense of pure creative abandon it gives off. Riding high off the success of the century-defining ‘Sgt Pepper’ record, the group, spearheaded mainly by Paul, thought it would be a cool idea to put a film together to let off some steam. The film itself is joyously campy and surreal, but it’s the songs that come along with it that really make it something special. Despite what some gaming journalists would have you believe, the opening title track is fantastic. Those fantastic bursts of horns followed up by a strutting beat, laid back acoustic guitars and optimistic vocals make for an amazing introduction, that just sounds like pure happiness and adventure, and the way they further augment the orchestral instrumentation is genius. Obviously though, it’s not just one standout that makes it, as every song on this LP (yes, I’ll address it later) is top notch. ‘Fool on the Hill’ starts out as a beautiful piano-flute ballad, with McCartney delivering a performance both tender and dramatic in equal measure, with that soaring chorus being goosebump-worthy. Then, as the track transforms into a delightfully kooky marching band romp, I just can’t help but smile ear to ear. 

Make no mistake though, this is far from just being ‘The Paul Show’, as the other members contribute some of the absolute best songs here. The Lennon-penned ‘I Am The Walrus’ is a masterclass in absurdity. The way the wonky, warbly pianos mix with the lush string layers in the intro is genuinely quite beautiful, and then as the track gets fully underway with another great Ringo beat, it leaves you to bask in its strangeness. The track itself is fairly minimal musically, with only the drums, bass, piano, and strings accompanying John’s wonderfully “deep-fried” vocals, and of course, with it being a classic George Martin arrangement, the way the strings are very effectively peppered throughout the track works a dream to add to its relentless sense of whimsy, all before descending into madcap tape loop chaos. Then, there’s George Harrison’s contribution of ‘Blue Jay Way’ – the best song on the album, and probably my favourite Beatles song ever. The organs on this track, for one, are absolutely beautiful, at once wistful, psychedelic, warm, yet subtly creepy, and the way the pounding verse drums and understated melodies accompany Harrison’s warbled vocals, along with the brilliant use of tapes and soundplay, fosters a vibe that I don’t think the Beatles ever did before or after. It’s ominous in the absolute perfect way, and the sophisticated strings that cascade their way in on the outro are again, wonderfully utilised. How more people aren’t head over heels for this song is beyond me.

Even the tracks on the first side that make less of an impact have a lot of very loveable qualities. ‘Your Mother Should Now’, with it’s jaunty pianos, jazz swing beats, and smooth, seriously catchy vocal lines, seem like a great, reverential call back to classic British music hall, somewhat fitting give the title, and its imbued with just enough of a sense of cheese and campiness to be thoroughly endearing without becoming annoying. It’s a fine line to walk, but they do so with impeccable style. ‘Flying’ is admittedly the black sheep of the bunch, but is a great little piece of fun. As well as having the novelty of being one of the few songs written by all four members, it perfectly distils the album’s jaunty, colourful, relaxed appeal in an easily digestible musical chunk. Really cool, slightly western style guitars cascade over a steady beat, where soon after joyous mellotron melodies and gang vocals enter the picture. It almost feels like a drinking song on a kooky alien planet with its pure sense of joy, wonder and fun. Of course, in addition, I’m always up for some tape loop shenanigans, and this track’s coda provides such very nicely. See? Even the very deepest of deep cuts are loveable here.

The B-side is where things get a bit complicated. See, the band initially wanted the album pressed as just the soundtrack EP, as it was in the UK, but in the US, the EP was combined with a few of the group’s most notable non-album tracks from around the time, to create a full album. Much to the chagrin of the band themselves, the US LP version is the one that most fans consider “canonical”, meaning I’ll be covering it here as well. That’s great news for me, because unsurprisingly, I think all of these tracks are amazing. The genius of ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ speaks for itself by now. The intriguing, otherworldly mellotron sounds give way to a psychedelic rock extravaganza, with a delightfully peppy beat, some great percussion, super awesome, raga-inspired guitars, and endlessly charming storybook vocals. Add to that yet more fantastic and regal orchestral sounds provided by Martin, and a brilliantly colourful frenzied percussive outro, and it’s no surprise that this first post-Revolver track had the seismic impact it did.

The rest of the tracks on the B-side, while not as sonically groundbreaking, make up for it in just being brilliant pop-rock songs. ‘Penny Lane’ seemed to forecast the carefree attitude of ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ pretty damn well. A jovial ode to McCartney’s upbringing, it’s fitted with fantastic, bright piano chords, infectious vocals, and an endlessly joyous attitude, brought home by a euphoric chorus and brass section. ‘Baby, You’re a Rich Man’ follows much the same template with similar success. While not quite possessing the pomp and circumstance of ‘Penny Lane’, the word that keeps cropping up is joyous. A wonderful foundation of piano and a super awesome flexible bassline form the basis to this track, with brilliant lead vocals from John, an undeniable, shout along chorus, and a lovely raga tinge brought on from the madcap keyboards. I must say I have a real soft spot for this one particularly. It’s like a pub shanty through a rainbow filter, almost. Admittedly, one could call the tracks ‘Hello, Goodbye’ and ‘All You Need Is Love’ pretty cheesy, and be mostly correct, but I don’t know, I find them irresistible all the same. Particularly with the former, the way McCartney’s exuberant vocals shine above Ringo’s peppy beat and George’s slightly tropical guitars is such a joy, and the chorus is just great. ‘All You Need Is Love’ on the other hand, while it might not be the strongest song they’ve ever written, it has so many enjoyable qualities regardless of possible corniness. Again, the chorus with its feel of a sloppy, end-of-the-night boozer chant with the lopsided horns I find endlessly endearing, and the eventual collapse into colourful chaos in the outro is certainly welcomed as well.

What makes this album so great to me I think is that it feels like a real victory lap. While not as high concept or sophisticated as ‘Sgt Pepper’ or ‘Revolver’, it shows the band revelling in their successes, just kicking back, and having fun, while at the same time, displaying all the fantastic songwriting talent that made those same albums so iconic. Plus, through taking input from any and all directions in later years, they were able to craft albums that were at once incredibly diverse, but also effortlessly cohesive, arguably not so more than here. To reflect back on my continued references to it as a “happy” album one final time, this feels, at least aurally, like this was the Beatles at their most relaxed, and at peace with themselves as a unit, before tension sadly brought them apart, and I think that’s a beautiful thing. You don’t always need pressure to make diamonds. Sometimes they just come naturally, and this is a tour I’ll always be happy to go on for that very reason.

Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band – Trout Mask Replica (1968)

As some of you might know, I’ve actually (sort of) raved about this album at length before, which you can read here. I tried to keep this brief, but as you can see, it’s just impossible. I can’t promise anything. The only word I can really use to describe this album accurately is mental, and that doesn’t even begin to cover it. It’s essentially every 60s fringe hippyism and trend wrapped up into one, eighty minute package, ready to unleash on unsuspecting listeners. Blues, free-jazz, hard rock, proto-punk, psychedelia, slam poetry, it’s all here. It really is full on from the word “go” too. ‘Frownland’ presents a barrage of contrasting, polyrhythmic, polytonal guitars, seemingly slapdash drums, and seriously animated bass-playing, and all the while Captain Beefheart bluntly barks his optimistic lyrics over top. The fact that this is followed by an otherwise silent 2-minute poetry reading should indicate to you, if you didn’t know already, that this isn’t easy listening. If this album’s mission is anything, it’s to put you on the wrong foot and keep you there. It only gets more difficult as it progresses really. Listening to this album damn near feels like an expedition. The tonally tense and dark ‘Dachau Blues’, underpins creepy and metallic guitars with a trotting, momentous drum beat, and an unhinged squeaky oboe even makes a prominent appearance, I think you’ll agree, a fittingly uncomfortable backdrop for the holocaust-centric lyrics. ‘Ella Guru’ does have one of the more palatable choruses on the whole album, but the music that underpins it, and indeed the delivery of the chorus, certainly mean it’s nowhere close to accessible, even if on this song, and throughout the LP, guitarists Jeff Cotton and Bill Harkleroad play some damn funky licks. Tracks that aren’t nearly as together however, like ‘Hair Pie’ and ‘Bills Corpse’ are just insane. The two-part former is an absolutely unforgiving saxophone freak out with an equally wonky and harsh accompaniment, despite some bright spots, while the frantic pace and descriptive lyrics frame Beefheart as some kind of grandpa and his friends telling stories and playing psych-rock songs after one two many tabs, which to be fair, may as well be the reality. They’re very occasionally cohesive, but if you expect that to last longer than 6 seconds, bad luck mate, no dice.

It really doesn’t let up the longer it goes on either. In fact, it saves some of the stranger moments until you’re fairly well immersed in it. ‘Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish’ features Beefheart essentially playing a game of mad-libs with a mad, rollocking backbeat, and his joy is abundantly obvious. How else can you explain passages like “fack ‘n feast ‘n tubes, tubs, bulbs In jest, incest, in jest, injust, in feast, incest”, or, “squirmin’ serum ‘n semen ‘n syrup ‘n semen ‘n serum, stirrupped in syrup.” A lot of the more lo-fi moments are pretty damn strange too. ‘China Pig’ would be a fairly enjoyable, “normal” piece of deep south style blues if it weren’t for Beefheart’s constant oinking, ‘Dali’s Car’ is a very intriguing, dissonant, two part guitar piece with some great little phrases, and the other two of Beefheart’s spoken poems do nothing but get weirder and weirder than the last, with enough vocal inflections to fill a musical theatre warm up book. Bad analogy I know, but you get it. Speaking of vocals, ‘Hobo Chang Ba’ might be my favourite Beefheart performance on the whole record. The track itself actually has some really good guitar parts, and an especially brill bass part, but that’s all instantly dwarfed once the Captain swaggers in, doing his best “old man wildly yells at cloud while on tabs” impression as he nonsensically jangles bells around. I know it’s not comedy rock, but with some tracks you can’t help but laugh. Incidentally, humour is another great weapon deployed throughout its long run. Whether it’s the numerous pre-track banter takes or comedy sketches, or Beefheart’s previously mentioned absurd lyrics, which on some tracks really came to the forefront. The Lewis Carroll type character portrait on ‘Old Fart at Play’ is beyond charming, bringing life to the album’s iconic cover, and ‘Big Joan Sets Up’ is patently ridiculous, with its insane description of a fat, small handed woman being very funny in a completely befuddling way. Other characters like the mystical hippie shaman lady on ‘Pachuco Cadaver’, or the god fearing cross dresser on ‘My Human Gets Me Blues’, are genuinely pretty captivating tales, showing that Beefheart’s lyrical ability went far beyond just “dada wackadoo.” Another great moment comes on ‘The Blimp’, where, backed by The Mothers of Invention over an impromptu phone call, Beefheart has one of his bandmates recite his brand new, delightfully bonkers poem. It’s cited as a highlight by many for good reason I think.

What are actually, I think, a bright spot in the tracklist are stretches of tracks towards the end that give you a bit of relative breathing room. Relative being the operative word of course. Tracks like ‘Moonlight on Vermont’, ‘Sweet Sweet Bulbs’, ‘Sugar N’ Spikes’, and ‘She’s Too Much For My Mirror’ among others, don’t so much fall into the background as such, as the music is still delightfully kooky, but rather channel their influences of hard rock, blues and psychedelia in a more straightforward way, resulting in songs that, aren’t just catchy by accident, but strangely for this album, seem engineered almost as a kind of cuckoo subversion of straight pop music. It might not be the most outwardly revolutionary, but they are still pretty cool songs. Of course, there are also a few highlights that fit nicely in this structure. ‘Wild Life’ may not have been top 40 material, but the shots of subversively catchy riffs and repetitive, hooky lyrics make sure it sticks in your head. ‘Ant Man Bee’ seems to be Beefheart’s mild flirtation with soul and Motown music, and that goes over a lot better than you might think. The guitars sound really cool and bright, and for as animated and slightly mad as Beefheart is, the horn solo demonstrating this very clearly, he does seem to actually be trying to come together with a sensical melody line here, and it actually works. The best of these though, has to be ‘Veteran’s Day Poppy’, where a raucous, proto-punk like, lyrically potent intro, gives way to a genuinely beautiful, serene outro. It’s a fantastic way to end off, showing yet again, that his band was on another level. I would honestly sit through the whole LP just for this, as great as the rest is.

So, it’s long, it’s winding, it’s confusing, it’s insane, and a hell of a lot more other things on top of that. Listening to this album is almost like a rite of passage for music nerds in a way. Some people see it as the ultimate trailblazing work, paving the way for the 55+ years of great avant-garde music that followed. Others, while still recognising its artistic and cultural significance, hate it anyway. I am firmly in camp number one. 

The Stooges – The Stooges (1969)

Some may say that the birth of punk came with the arrival of the Sex Pistols in late 1975. Some may argue it was The Ramones and the CBGB club. Or, if you wanted to go for a real deep cut, you could suggest the long forgotten band Death, formed in 1971. To all of this, I say no. Like I said with The Monks, from about the mid-60s onwards, there were rumblings of fringe rock groups experimenting with new, abrasive sounds, a lot of which were great. But to me, the only true claimants to the title of punk forefathers, and those that truly set punk in motion, were The Stooges, with their debut LP in 1969. I will say right off though that those of you expecting a straight thrash ‘n’ bash will be disappointed by this, but to me it seems obvious that it won’t be. The style we now know as punk wasn’t just fully cemented in one go, but the building blocks are absolutely present here. Made up of the dynamite duo of the Asheton brothers Ron and Scott, their friend and bass player Dave Alexander, and legendary vocalist Iggy Pop, these four Michigan guys created a sound that was rawer, more primitive, louder, and crazier than anything else around (and yes, I am counting the MC5 in that).

For one thing, the music on it is really good, as rudimentary as it might be, a far cry from the “punks can’t play” stereotype. The grooves coming from Scott and Dave on tracks like ‘1969’, ‘No Fun’ or ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ are super militant. They have this awesome feeling to them, like the musicians are locked unwaveringly in the groove, while at the same time driving forwards with tremendous force and nimbleness. This gives the more “rocky” tracks a serious gravitas, despite the comparatively tame, 60s John Cale production, at least by modern standards. Arguably though, the rhythm section’s real power is most visible on the more atypical tracks like ‘Ann’ or ‘Little Doll.’ With the former, not only is the initial part really cool, with Dave’s elastic, expressive bass providing some serious sinister undertones, which Scott adds to with a cool, casual ride cymbal beat, giving it a really nice sense of space. Then, at the crescendo, the duo switch to a relentlessly pounding bolero rhythm, giving the climax a fitting sense of darkness and power. With ‘Little Doll’, Dave absolutely steals the show, with his fast paced, fuzzy and immensely catchy bassline taking centre stage, with Scott cleverly choosing to play around the beat rather than on it, making very nice use of the toms and cymbals, and creating a circular, tornado like effect. It’s really awesome, and one of the many examples across the two LPs that prove the true heft and power really is in the rhythm, a fact the Stooges make great use of.

It’s not where ALL the power comes from though of course, because Ron and Iggy sure as hell bring some absolute chaos to the party. Ron’s guitar, sonically, is absolutely brilliant. The super distorted, gritty, fuzzed out sound cuts through the mix like a razorblade, while his wah-heavy, noisy leads on tracks like ‘Real Cool Time’ or ‘1969’ are just the icing on the auditory cake of madness. His playing sounds straight up feral at some points. But Ron isn’t just a simple noise merchant, oh no. As the MC5 and millions of others will attest to, he is one mean riff writer. Perfect examples would be on tracks like ‘1969’, ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ and ‘No Fun’, where not only are the riffs beyond infectious from a catchiness standpoint, in large part down to how simple they are, but the pure feel of them is incredible. I’ve talked about this before, but as seized upon in a conversation between Iggy and RHCP’s Flea, Ron was actually more akin to a funk or RnB player than a punk player. So the riffs might not be delivered at breakneck speed, but the heavily rhythmic approach Ron takes with his playing, allows them to come across with serious impact. Funnily enough, it parallels something Johnny Rotten once said about his own band The Sex Pistols: “the songs are well slow-tempoed, but they come over blistering”, and that’s exactly the case here. I’m telling you, the first time you here ‘No Fun’ or ‘…Dog’, you might initially find yourself humming the very catchy melody at the heart of it, but eventually, as you get into the feel and the rhythm of the music, you step back and realise “jeez, these riffs are gnarly as fuck!” They’ve had me doing a variant of the “guitar riff scrunch face” a few times for sure. 

Then there’s Iggy. Where do I even start? Discounting his inarguably incredible stage antics, even at the age of 20, he decisively proved himself to be an incredibly compelling vocal presence. With the best will in the world I would aptly describe this album as “slacker music” but with an extra dose of crazy thrown in, a re-mit Iggy mirrors perfectly on the vocal end. He talked in interviews before about his mission to write songs with 25 or less individual words, so obviously you won’t be plumbing the depths of philosophy, but the ones that are there perfectly put across the album’s central ideas of malaise, boredom and delinquency. By a similar token, while Iggy certainly isn’t your standard crooner, he had a serious knack for creating melodies that were, again, primitively simple, and perhaps bordering on atonal, yet you couldn’t stop yourself from singing along. To this day, Iggy, and maybe Mark E Smith, are the only people I’ve known to ever be able to do that. Just take ‘1969’ for instance. That’s hardly the melody to a chart pop smash, but you can’t deny, it’s damn memorable. While most of his performances are actually relatively reserved, a handful of his performances are also just maniacal as well, forecasting the snarling, brutal approach of many classic punks to follow. His primal grunts on shouts of “C’MON!” on tracks like ‘No Fun’ and ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ really nicely display that restlessness and the desperation for a release of aggression, and the screamed, gargling climaxes on ‘1969’ and ‘Ann’ would be cool even on modern punk recordings. He’d develop it much more on ‘Funhouse’, but this is a really cool display of the heights he could reach.

Finally, the one main outlier on the album, ‘We Will Fall’, is also immensely interesting. To prevent having “a load of rock tracks in a party line”, they threw us this curveball. While its runtime of nearly 11 minutes might be excessive, the combination of the creepy ohm chants, raga-style wah guitars, minimal percussion and ominous, dejected vocals create a really awesome, dystopian mood. It’s genuinely quite scary, and, as intended, it showed everyone that, if you didn’t already think so, the Stooges were a far throw from the other relatively scuzzy garage bands of the time. They were truly unique. While this album was succinctly summed up by Iggy as a “Good, sharp little poke”, it’s obviously so much more. The heavily groovy riffs, punchy rhythms, and juvenile, ungroomed vocals set a table that hundreds of bands will eat at for the rest of time. Often, originators of sounds are overshadowed by later, frankly better bands, but along with Sabbath, The Stooges are one of a few that could easily hold their own

It took a while, but those are some of my six favourite albums from the 1960s. As you might have noticed, while I do occasionally prefer the albums that are a bit more “off the beaten path”, even I have to admit the widely known classics are classics for a reason. I think it’s important that when talking about music, we not only acknowledge the surface level, but also dig down into the underground, in search of less exposed or accessible gems, that there often are in abundance. I may well try this again with the 70s in future, although an all out ban on bell bottomed flairs will be thoroughly enforced.