The Smiley Smile Message Board

Well it's pretty obvious if you see what albums were released this year :)
There wasn't a better year for music then 1967 :]

Jimi Hendrix
Are You Experienced?

The Beatles
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

The Beach Boys
Smile/Smiley Smile

The Beatles
Magical Mystery Tour

The Who
The Who Sell Out

The Doors
The Doors

Pink Floyd
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

The Kinks
Something Else by The Kinks

The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground & Nico

The Rolling Stones
Their Satanic Majesties Request

Cream
Disraeli Gears

Love
Forever Changes

Probably.  I think since you said "Rock and Roll" though that you could make a really strong case for 1956, 57, or 58. 

Here's some from 1957.

Jailhouse Rock   Elvis Presley
Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On  Jerry Lee Lewis
That'll Be The Day  Crickets
Bye Bye Love  Everly Brothers
Great Balls Of Fire  Jerry Lee Lewis
School Day  Chuck Berry
Rock And Roll Music  Chuck Berry
Peggy Sue  Buddy Holly
Lucille  Little Richard
Rocking Pneumonia  Huey "Piano" Smith & the Clowns
All Shook Up  Elvis Presley
Searchin'  Coasters
You Send Me  Sam Cooke
Wake Up Little Susie  Everly Brothers
Susie Q  Dale Hawkins
I'm Walkin'  Fats Domino
Keep A 'Knockin'  Little Richard
Matchbox  Carl Perkins
C.C. Rider  Chuck Willis
At The Hop  Danny & the Juniors
Little Darlin'  Diamonds
Oh Boy!  Crickets
Get A Job  Silhouettes
Book Of Love  Monotones
Maybe Baby  Crickets
Young Blood  Coasters
Not Fade Away  Crickets
Walking After Midnight  Patsy Cline
Got My Mojo Working  Muddy Waters
Too Much  Elvis Presley
Diana  Paul Anka
Silhouettes  Rays
Short Fat Fannie  Larry Williams
Hey Bo Diddley  Bo Diddley
Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby  Carl Perkins
Teddy Bear  Elvis Presley
It Hurts Me Too  Elmore James
Treat Me Nice  Elvis Presley
Honeycomb  Jimmie Rodgers
Mr. Lee  Bobbettes
We Belong Together  Robert & Johnny
Bony Moronie  Larry Williams
To The Aisle  Five Satins
A White Sport Coat  Marty Robbins
Everyday  Buddy Holly
Be-Bop Baby  Ricky Nelson
Stood Up  Ricky Nelson
Blue Christmas  Elvis Presley
Jenny, Jenny  Little Richard
Raunchy  Bill Justis / Ernie Freeman
Words Of Love  Buddy Holly
The Stroll  Diamonds
My Special Angel  Bobby Helms

that's a great year but 1967 is a tad better :) considering it's hendrix debut..pink floyd's debut...velvet undergound's debut.. and smile/sgt. pepper.

Here's some from 1958.

Johnny B. Goode   Chuck Berry
Summertime Blues  Eddie Cochran
Good Golly Miss Molly  Little Richard
For Your Precious Love Jerry Butler and the Impressions
Sweet Little Sixteen  Chuck Berry
Yakety Yak  Coasters
La Bamba  Ritchie Valens
Since I Don't Have You  Skyliners
Lonely Teardrops  Jackie Wilson
Sea Cruise  Frankie Ford
Rave On  Buddy Holly
All I Have To Do Is Dream  Everly Brothers
Reelin And Rocking  Chuck Berry
Rebel Rouser  Duane Eddy
Chantilly Lace  Big Bopper
Willie And The Hand Jive  Johnny Otis Show
Breathless  Jerry Lee Lewis
Stagger Lee  Lloyd Price
Tequila  Champs
It's Only Make Believe  Conway Twitty
Tears On My Pillow  Little Anthony & the Imperials
Dizzy Miss Lizzy  Larry Williams
One Night  Elvis Presley
Carol  Chuck Berry
Sixteen Candles  Crests
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes  Platters
Bird Dog  Everly Brothers
Splish Splash  Bobby Darin
I Wonder Why  Dion & the Belmonts
Rock And Roll Is Here To Stay  Danny & the Juniors
Whole Lotta Loving  Fats Domino
(Night Time Is) The Right Time  Ray Charles
Come On Let's Go  Ritchie Valens
Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree  Brenda Lee
Run Rudolph Run  Chuck Berry
Donna  Ritchie Valens
Little Star  Elegants
High School Confidential  Jerry Lee Lewis
It's All In The Game  Tommy Edwards
Twilight Time  Platters
Ten Commandments Of Love  Moonglows
It's So Easy  Crickets
A Lover's Question  Clyde McPhatter
Poor Little Fool  Ricky Nelson
Hard Headed Woman  Elvis Presley
There's A Moon Out Tonight  Capris
To Know Him Is To Love Him  Teddy Bears
Well...All Right  Buddy Holly
So Fine  Fiestas
Western Movies  Olympics
The Twist  Hank Ballard & the Midnighters
It's Just A Matter Of Time  Brook Benton
Devoted To You  Everly Brothers
Talk To Me, Talk To Me  Little Willie John
Lonesome Town  Ricky Nelson
Ooh! My Soul  Little Richard
Lollipop  Chordettes
Wear My Ring Around Your Neck  Elvis Presley
Fever  Peggy Lee
Tom Dooley  Kingston Trio
For Your Love  Ed Townsend

... but 57 had significant singles or albums from Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, The Impressions, Ritchie Valens, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Patsy Cline, Bo Diddley, The Everly Brothers, etc. 

I know it's cool to say '67 is the best year, and it may be, but don't gloss over how ground shakingly great the early music was.  It was the last time in a long time (outside of HipHop) that music changed completely, and changed the world along with it. 

Also you didn't even mention the Mamas and Papas.  What kinda list you tryna run here dude?  Or Janis Joplin who had her first success in '67. 

i agree with you 1957 changed music forever but so did 1967 and also 1971 was one hell of a year too

Marvin Gaye
What's Going On

David Bowie
Hunky Dory

John Lennon
Imagine

T. Rex
Electric Warrior

The Who
Who's Next

Black Sabbath
Paranoid

The Rolling Stones
Sticky Fingers

Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin [IV]

janis joplin is ok..i just named a few groundbreaking albums i didnt think she big brother company were qualified to even be on my list.

1966>1967

Off the top of my head 66 has :

Revolver
Pet sounds
Blonde on blonde
Sounds of silence
A quick one

thats my favorite year!!!

If it wasn't for that year that you so easily and casually brush off, all of those other groups wouldn't even exist.

if that's the case then let's all praise 1955 :]

That was an important year. After all, that's when the flux capacitor was invented. People, it made time travel possible!

It's tough to group things like this by year, because nothing happens in a vacuum, and the year when the song was actually created and recorded may be more important to the year it was released. Likewise the year it became a hit may be one or even more after the year it was made or released. Everything happening around it contributed to the creation of a classic record, the true classics.

In that way I think it's hard to separate 1966 from 1967 from 1968, musically at least. Socially, the world of 1966 was different than 1967, especially after that summer. That's a media thing, though. It took them some time to finally catch on and catch up, and when the public caught on, it was all over.

1966, 1967, 1968 - it's hard to separate them in terms of the music because it was one of the most creative and most aggressive (and progressive) musical time periods of the past 100 years, in terms of pop music and pop culture. By the latter part of 1968, the optimism was gone. The music was still great, but the optimism wasn't there.

The only reason why I might separate 66-67-68 from any time in the 50's was the notion that kids could pick up their guitars, write their own songs, form a band in a garage, cut a 45rpm single, and become stars. The late 50's, apart from notables like Buddy Holly and Phil Spector with his Teddy Bears, were much more controlled in how the big show process worked. You wanted to be a star, the machine swallowed you up and you went along with it.

Not that it doesn't and didn't happen every year after up to this day, unfortunately, but the whole post-Beatles 60's garage rock phenom was a glorious time for kids who loved to play music, and being a polished show-biz professional wasn't as important as making a great record no matter how rough or raw.

^this is true.

1966 and 1967 are almost inseperable. It seems to be when everyone was trying to get to the most experimental and in turn influential music. Not only that, but it also saw the release of some of the most acclaimed albums ever made. Those years were the end of the transitional period that rock was really going from another form of music to becoming art. However 1966 almost seemed to be the final transition into 1967 and beyond. It was the difference between beauty and perfection. Rock music hit an almost kind of perfection in that year that really has yet to be surpassed.

Personally my favorite year for rock/pop music was 1966, it was a peak year for creativity, some great albums from 66 are

Revolver
Pet Sounds
Blonde On Blonde
A Quick One
Freak Out
Aftermath
Buffalo Springfield
Fifth Dimension
Hums of the Lovin Spoonful

ALL OF YOU PEOPLE HAVE GREAT TASTE IN MUSIC :)

I'm a 1966 guy myself. I think apart from a few major artists, the pop album didn't really hit mainstream until 1967. Were there great albums before that? Absolutely - but I think that the single still was the thing until 67. I am not one to privilege one over the other, quite honestly. Part of what makes 1966 great are the albums (my top two favourites - Revolver and Pet Sounds, but also Blonde on Blonde, Aftermath, etc.) but mostly it is driven by incredible singles: Paperback Writer/Rain, Good Vibrations, Try a Little Tenderness, Ain't Too Proud To Beg, You Can't Hurry Love, Gimme Some Lovin', I Am A Rock, Hold On I'm Coming, and so on. Man, what a great time that must have been.

I almost forgot Simon and Garfunkel's excellent two 1966 albums, Sounds of Silence and PSR&T.

Are we just outright dismissing R&B/Soul music?

I'd say that 1965 to 1971 were all equally the best years for rock/pop music. If I had to pick one specific year, I'd go for 1968.

I don't care for years or decades. But if I had to pick something, I'd go with the 50s. Probably '56/'57.




+1

R&B/Soul wasn't album-orientated until a little while later - 'Hot Buttered Soul' and 'What's Going On' being pioneering. The first couple of Sly and The Family Stone albums aren't strong either - 'Stand' being the first coherant one.

I don't know man.  It's easy to think that, but the notion that it was easier to be a start in the late 60's than the late 50's I don't believe is true.  I don't know why you'd only mention Buddy Holly or Phil Spector of all people, you realize there were tons upon tons of singers (virtually everybody you've heard of) who did just that, don't you?  Sure much of it was driven by the machine, but did the machine have anything to do with Chuck Berry?  Little Richard?  Jerry Lee Lewis?  Those are the founding fathers right there, and they all did things their way.  They went from nothing to everything on their own merits.

Hank Ballard and the Moonlighters.  Hank was a completely self-made man, he wrote and got famous on his own.  Elvis Presley literally worked his ass off to get famous.  Johnny Cash became famous by writing his own music and working from nothing to superstar.  Etc. Etc. list goes on and on.

I think there's nothing any more or less "big Show" about the late 50's and the late 60's.  Hell look at the Beach Boys.  They started the band in their living room.  It was completely possible to make yourself a star with your own music in the late 50's, just as much as it was in the late 60's. 

You must have never heard of Mr. James Brown.  Hot Buttered Soul and What's Going On were certainly great albums, but the black community was well aware of albums full of themed music way before then.  There's nothing pioneering about What's going on other than how it crossed over into the White Pop mainstream.  James Brown and the Famous Flames were selling albums in the 50's that weren't driven by singles.  I'm not suggesting they're on the level of Hot Buttered Soul or What's Going On, but the whole discussion we're having is about "best year in music".  James Brown was making great songs and great music back in the 50's.  Ignoring R&B outright before 1971 because we've never heard the albums the singles were released on is just pedantic.  R&B was nearly as important as Rock (and certainly part of it's inception) well into the 70's. 

Right on - ignoring R&B for not making 'album' albums would be like dismissing pop music for the same. Which you don't seem to be doing.

Giving albums priority over singles doesn't make sense, anyway, regardless of when this genre or that moved into and out of albums as the dominant format. It doesn't mean anything about the quality of music. You could just as easily say music got better in 198x (I have no idea what year) because people started making 74-minute (or however much it was) albums because that's how much space a CD could fit.

That's right, Captain.

1966 was prob better, PS was released, Revolver was better than Sgt Pepper which has very few strong indiviudal tracks and is not as grand as claimed as a whole piece either. Satanic Requests is a low point for the Stones in this period, just a cheap rip at doing something Beatles-like with not-great results. there is a reason why they abandoned this path. Piper at gates of dawn is ok, but would be considered mediocre if PF had not become famous a few years after.

Satanic Majesties Request is definitely the most under-rated psychedelic album of all time and musically imo far more superior to Sgt. pepper.

They have some very ugly sounding songs on there Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! ,Within You Without You & When I'm Sixty-Four...I still feel like Smile tops it..though many people would disagree..

I disagree. I do like TSMR a lot - some great songs including my favorite Stones song, She's A Rainbow. Nevertheless there are a few too many blank spots on the album for me to consider it excellent. That extended jam in the Sing This Altogether reprise is the most obvious example and really bores me. The same goes to the "tribal" jam that ruins Gomper. I also find the attempt at psychedelia in In Another Land is kind of lame, but overall that's not a bad song, just hampered by the vocal effect and the snoring at the end. Sgt. Pepper like just about every Beatle song is like a poem - no moment is wasted. The Beatles knew a thing or two about saying what they had to say with economy.

TSMR is totally under-rated maybe in a couple more decades everyone will catch up ;)...The Beatles were the biggest group so anything they did that was mediocre(for them) was blown up and praised...even revolver was better than Sgt pepper (musically) but Sgt pepper had an incredible impact on pop music..still Smile tops both of them put together..

I don't understand. Explain.


To what? Your opinion? It must be lonely being so far ahead of the pack.


At the time, The Beatles did receive positive criticism but there wasn't a lot of serious criticism being done on any pop music in the 60s, at least not until around 1967 and even then the serious criticism was scarce. So I'm not sure what you mean by this either. Essentially what you appear to be saying is that because so many people enjoyed The Beatles music, so many people said it was good. Seems to me that that would be the fairly obvious consequence.


Again, not sure what you mean by "musically." Personally, I prefer Revolver more but I don't play the "better" game.


What Smile are you talking about? Disc 1 of the boxset put out last year? Or the unfinished tapes from 1966/67?

I second this.

I don't think any of those (with one or two questionable exceptions) are rock n roll albums.

Add "How great thour art". Although Gospel is not everyone's thing, this album has great production and sound.

It was a great year but I would say any year from 1951-71 was pretty great.

This is easy. 1967 was the year of psychedelic rock and 1957 was the year of rock n roll.

I add Television, Elvis Costello. the best of Bruce Springsteen, solo Lou Reed, Sex Pistols and the Clash, Al Green, Brian Eno....

What a year. Little Darlin. I can count on one hand the number of songs from that list, that I can bear the thought of ever doing without.
I think if you make the same size list, for all the top songs from subsequent years, more and more non-essentials
would be popping up. Not a huge , mind you, just an ever so slight increase. That's just me, though.

Now this is a great post - and only partly because I am sick of the Rolling Stone magazine mentality that acts like rock 'n' roll began with the Beatles. Oh, sure, they occasionally make a token reference to Little Richard or Chuck Berry, but all the real praise is heaped on the acts that came of age in the late 60's/early 70's and later. I'll take a stack of Elvis and Chuck Berry 45's anyday over those latter day oh-so-serious bands of the hippie era.

right on, lonely summer!

Tell me how Rolling Stone magazine enters this picture when the years I'm describing were mostly before they even existed and the garage bands I'm talking about were not featured in their pages, and far from hippies. At least get the facts straight before going on a tangent about hippies and Rolling Stone.

A few listens to Nuggets and a few episodes of "Little Steven's Underground Garage" might help fill in some of the missing parts of the story. There may even be a few classic Roland Janes guitar licks turning up on some of those garage records from 1966...those kids in the 60's had great taste.

Garage bands...hippies...Rolling Stone...?  :)

Since we're heaping praise on posts from February, I'll say the sentiments are nice but they're also just a bit too naive and getting into rose-colored-glasses territory about how terrific the "Fabulous 50's" really were. As the years go by it's easy to forget or whitewash entirely the Payola affair, the Morris Levy business deals (Google him), and the overall corruption, graft, and outright theft that ran rampant during this time. Not to mention the hundreds of artists who got snookered out of future royalties for their songs and records by certain figures who could steal royalties with one hand and get your record on the national charts in a matter of days and plenty of cash-stuffed envelopes (and other vices promised to DJ's and programmers) with the other.

Fun stuff. The machine.

And see how it was almost a systematic way in which the bigger stars of rock and roll seemed to disappear around 1958-59-60 through various reasons, to be replaced by strictly formula, assembly-line pop stars, similar to what the Disney enterprise churns out today for the youngsters. It's cliche but true.

Mind you, I'm talking about *national* hits: Regional and local hits like the original "Surfin" single for one example were what was keeping the flame going in the early 60's for guitar-driven rock until the Beatles blew the doors off and opened it up for guitar bands to once again get signed and get promoted on a national level. That is a fact. If the Beach Boys in 1962-63 did not have a surf or car angle to work in other parts of the country and just had a stash of songs about girls, there may not have been something as easy for the machine to latch on to and promote them nationally rather than staying content as a local California success.

Spector was an anomaly. He had his finger on the pulse of what a different kind of teenage listener would want to hear. Fortunately though learning the inner workings from his pseudo-apprenticeship with Leiber and Stoller he was able to use orchestration and large ensemble sounds to hammer home the point of his records - teenage symphonies. In lesser hands it would have been a disaster.

"The Machine" as Ron calls it may not have given birth to Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, or Little Richard, but the machine sure had a big f***ing hand in getting these artists on television, in the movies, and on the right radio stations so Jerry Lee wasn't only considered a "country" act and Chuck and Little Richard could play venues other than the Chitlin' Circuit, and be featured in motion pictures.

A lot of times the artists themselves had to feed the machine by doing foolish things like signing over future rights and royalty payments to someone other than themselves who wrote the song. Or sometimes the machine hired very nice managers who had very smart lawyers who could drop a 300 page contract on the big desk in front of the artist, tell that artist "This is the best thing for you, you'll be on the big screen, radio, and television in a few months after signing this...I looked it over, it's good...", then have that artist proceed to sign away a ton of money to someone who didn't earn it. Or worse, have those signing ceremonies take place with a gun involved somehow, no choice in the matter.

So do I think a record like "Little Girl" or "Liar Liar" from '66 or thereabouts was as Earth-shattering as Little Richard? Of course not. Never said anything of the sort. But I do think there was something very powerful and culturally significant  about a group of kids banging out a three-chord song in a garage in the mid 60's then seeing it go national against all odds and against the accepted practices of "The Machine" and how a hit record was supposed to be made...for those 60's kids who were just a bit too young to have really *felt* that initial influence of Elvis, and Little Richard, and Chuck Berry, and Eddie Cochran, and all of their peers...for those kids who saved their money or convinced the parents to buy them a cheap guitar and amp after seeing the Beatles on Sullivan in Feb. 64...it was pretty amazing for the times. And it defined a lot of the attitude which would resurface in future decades and proceed to destroy the Machine's way of making a hit record.

Rolling Stone had nothing to do with it.

 Interesting, guitarfool. You like your garage rock. 

I suppose it's possible, that there might be a garage-
rock shaped hole in my heart, that I don't even know is there.
I guess it's time to purchase a compilation.

You misunderstood my post, please re-read it. And I'd take 1966 over 1967 anyday.

I would highly recommend whatever version of the original "Nuggets" compilation is available - I know there is a version featuring British bands too, but the one featuring mostly American garage bands that added onto Lenny Kaye's original tracklist is essential. It's nowhere near complete but it is a great overview of the scene. Also, if it's available anywhere online, look for Little Steven's "Underground Garage". He mixed in the classics with some kitsch, and added the current bands who are still playing that style of rock.

It never fails to get me excited about basic rock and roll, the sheer joy of playing rock music without too many complications.

See if this one moves you: "Don't Look Back" by The Remains, 1966
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8bG6o0VKDc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8bG6o0VKDc)

For my money, the music heard from 1:06 to 1:54 on this tune is one of the most joyous blasts of pure, rock and roll fun from the 60's. That is one of the many treats found on comps like Nuggets.

Me too. 1966 was the year.

But it is hard to separate the two because so much of what was really happening in '66 naturally bled over into '67, then when Pepper hit it was almost like every record label in the country going to Seattle to sign the next Nirvana in the early 90's. The icing on the cake looked great but the cake itself was stale. They missed the best part of what made an album like Pepper...an album like Pepper!

I didn't agree with the original post/reply from February, or the way it was slanted, suggesting there was something not correct about only mentioning Buddy and Spector...in a thread about 66-67, was it necessary to go down the full list of all great, unique rockers from the 50's in order to make it complete? The 50's were not exactly what the legend would now suggest, though the cream of the crop as far as music people still find appealing is still a part of the popular culture. Then again, not all that much has changed as far as "The Machine" in the years since, either.

Okay, I had a nice long response typed out, and the board froze up on me.....not typing all that again.  :(

Can't believe this has been going on for three pages.....why don't we just ask him?


rockandroll, what was your greatest year?

I was waiting for someone to repost the anecdote about the hole in the sole of Elvis' shoe.