Top 15 Greatest US 60's Psychedelic albums
A far more complicated affair than picking the best from the UK – wildly varying definitions and far more to choose from. Anyway, here are mine (for today anyway)...
15 – The Monkees – Head. Not just a great psychedelic film but also a great album. Neil Young, Stephen Stills and Leon Russell all play. Top of their game originals and for once, fully cohesive brought in songs. Who could fail to love Porpoise Song!
14 – Silver Apples – Almost chose The United States of America who similarly experimented with electronics, rock and psychedelia, but rather than sounding like Jefferson Airplane with added beeps though, this sounds genuinely like an album from the (then) future.
13 – Quicksilver Messenger Service. Like The Charlatans, they recorded their debut far too late. Still, despite most SF bands currently being out of favour, John Cipollina's quicksilver guitar sound can still be heard in modern rock and indie.
12 – Del Shannon – Charles Westover. Coming just after his aborted Immediate album (which is equally fantastic) this fell into a similar void of being unheard. Shame, as it's full of some of his best material, great singing and a woozy sunshine vibe throughout.
11 Grateful Dead –Anthem of the Sun. Quite a unique album for them – a strange mix of the SF sound+their future extended jams but full of SGT Pepper studio experimentation. Sadly a bit disowned by them and later remixed in an attempt to be more GD. Wish they'd done more like this
10 – Country Joe and the Fish – Electric Music. Just pips Feels Like I'm Fixin' due to darker sound and heavy use of organ. Less accomplished songs but just feels more trippy.
9 – Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow. Perhaps the classic SF album. At least at one time. Other than White Rabbit and Someone to Love, JA and the SF sound seem to have fallen of the radar. Some young band should sort that out.
8 – Kaleidoscope – Leonard Cohen's backing band on his first band. Really unique and original band, mixing country rock, folk, psychedelic jams, Eastern sounds and delved a little further into ragga than the Byrds.
7 – The Four Seasons - The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette. This really is brilliant. Their original harmony sound mixed with Sgt Pepper! Was going to chose the equally great Crimson and Clover album. America really could mix pop and trippiness perfectly. Rubbish UK cover though
6 – Kak – Kak. Possibly doomed to failure due to the terrible name. Great songs, production and superb guitar work. The only thing they did though the singer would join Blue Cheer.
5 - Buffalo Springfield – Again. I'm a big fan of the first album but the diverse nature of their second really stands should above everything else they did. And of course, Neil Young's emergence as an A list songwriter
4 – Moby Grape – Another doomed album that has for a long time, rightly been regarded as one of the high points of 60s music. Appalling mismanagement (that is still occurring to this day) meant it sold very few copies (and is still difficult to buy)
3 – Thirteenth Floor Elevators – Psychedelic Sounds of – A band taking Garage into an entire new dimension, seemingly just working in their own void. Immense.
2 The Doors .There seems to be a current new generational trend to re-assess the cultural importance of classic rock, especially The Doors. While there might be some value in certain areas, no 17 year old's Pitchfork 'essay' can take away from the brilliance of their super debut
Bubbling under.....Almost made it and the garage into psych detour!
1 – Love – Forever Changes. There can only be one and this was always going to be number one, and will probably always be in the top 5 musical statements from the last century, in any genre.
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🧵Rock's most significant moment?-Beatles on Ed Sullivan? Elvis meeting Sam Phillips?Little Richard and Earl Palmer recording Tutti Frutti?Bobby Gillespie and Country Girl?No.But with what may seem like too much time on my hands I've managed to find official and scientific proof>
>It is the 1960 Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran tour of the UK, and more specifically the tragic crash which killed Cochran and brought that tour to an end. Or did it? Because the coincidences and strange connections splintering from it would shape the future of popular music>
>Most music fans will know the more obvious story surrounding Dave Dee (more on this later) and perhaps even the Marc Bolan connection but these only touch the surface. Unsurprisingly, of coarse The Beatles feature heavily so let's start there...>
Revolutionary Folk From Scotland.
The original sequel to Big Gold Dream was an attempt to dispel a myth: that rather than being beardy light entertainment,Scotland's folk-music was actually an important and radical part of the foundations of late 60s UK/US counter-culture music.>
The film never happened–due to potential contributors shuffling off to the great folk club in the sky. It is returning as a book however so here are some of the more interesting players who,along with the UK's other scenes would play a huge role in creating a musical underground>
1. Jimmie Macgregor and Robin Hall. Mostly known as the hosts of the White Heather Club, the epitome of everything uncool. But they also hosted The London Folk Song Cellar and gave hugely important early exposure to Anne Briggs, Martin Carthy+ Watersons.
Secret Bands:
While listening to The Great Unwashed this morning, who are really NZ's Indie-Pop heroes, The Clean I thought I'd put together a few of my favourite recorded band pseudonyms.
It does not include C/lash, Human League, Stranglers or Cure.
XTC / The Dukes of Stratosphere - Mole From the Ministry. The summer of 1967 pushed even further.
Kaleidoscope / Fairfield Parlour / I Luv Wight
Let the World Wash In.
Even another name change and recording the theme song of the festival could not help this most unfortunate band.
3rd Feb 1959 is often referred to as 'The Day The Music Died'. That's certainly when young Buddy Holly died but in many ways that phrase, when in related to his death, I think should really be the day music was born. On this anniversary, here's a celebration of Buddy Holly >
Buddy still casts a huge shadow over all popular music today.He was there at the absolute dawn of Rock and Roll–playing with Elvis and Bill Hailey in 55, and along with them helped form the DNA of all Rock that is played today.Music didn't die with him–he helped give birth to it>
Two days before his death, a 17 year old Bob Dylan saw him perform. In his Grammy speech for Time Out of Mind Dylan said 'I was three feet away from him... and he looked at me. I just had some sort of feeling that he was...with us all the time we were making this record"
#HollywoodGate Thread 3.5
I spoke to 4 crew members from this production yesterday.The separation of local crew / not local can be calculated in a few ways (attached) so have had various figures. At lowest 70/30 was claimed and at the very, very best it was 50/50, now likely less
What is confusing to me is why Screen Scotland, on record, when asked about the split said "predominately from Scotland, some are from the south, but most are based in Scotland".This statement does not appear to be based on verifiable data and I'd like to know why it was said?>
If a screen agency have being asked by the news to speak on a very specific subject then surely they would do their homework before hand in order to answer any questions accurately? It is not difficult to obtain very accurate figures, and that is not confidential information.
Sister Albums: An inconsistent premise of my top 10 records that share an element of kinship beyond a single artists natural, chronological output.
No.10 – Iggy Pop's The Idiot and Bowie's Low. The Exemplar!
No.9 – The Clash Sandanista and Ellen Folley's Spirit of St. Louis.
While its own thing, Spirit of St. Louis could be considered the 7th and 8th side of Sandinista as it was recorded on completion with the same writing, performing, producing and engineering team.
No.8 – The Human League's Dare! and Heaven 17's Penthouse and Pavement. The two rival albums from the core of the original Human League. Huge competition and both excellent but Penthouse and Pavement sounds fresher today, to my ears anyway.