Join us as the HGWTY Tardis lands in its earliest year yet as we wind the clock all the way back to 1961.
A reminder of the premise of the thread
Rate the music of the year out of ten, based on the albums, singles, gigs, whatever that stand out for you that year. Non-musical nostalgia is welcome in the thread but that’s beside the point of the poll.
Everyone may nominate one album and one song from the year which will then be collated into side-polls on the final day of the thread (in one week) - please make it clear when you post a nomination for the poll, e.g
Leaderboard
| Rank | Year | Rating | Top Album | Top Song |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1997 | 8.60 | Radiohead - OK Computer | The Beta Band - Dry The Rain |
| 2 | 1967 | 8.48 | Love - Forever Changes | Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood - Some Velvet Morning |
| 3 | 1992 | 8.29 | Pavement - Slanted & Enchanted | Pulp - Babies |
| 3 | 2013 | 8.29 | Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Push the Sky Away | Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Jubilee Street |
| 5 | 2019 | 8.14 | Self Esteem - Compliments Please | Big Thief - Not |
| 6 | 2004 | 8.10 | Madvillain - Madvillainy / Arcade Fire - Funeral | The Walkmen - The Rat |
| 7 | 2014 | 7.69 | FKA Twigs - LP1 | FKA Twigs - Two Weeks |
| 8 | 1970 | 7.61 | Neil Young - After the Goldrush | Curtis Mayfield - Move on Up |
| 9 | 1976 | 7.47 | David Bowie - Station to Station | Bob Dylan - Hurricane |
| 10 | 1986 | 7.42 | Talk Talk - The Colour of Spring | New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle |
| 11 | 2005 | 7.39 | Sufjan Stevens - Illinois | Amerie - 1 Thing |
| 12 | 1965 | 7.38 | The Beatles - Rubber Soul | Frank Wilson - Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) |
| 13 | 2009 | 7.10 | Fever Ray - Fever Ray | Animal Collective - My Girls |
| 14 | 1974 | 6.95 | Neil Young - On The Beach | Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson - The Bottle |
| 15 | 1985 | 6.53 | Tom Waits - Rain Dogs | Prince and the Revolution - Raspberry Beret |
In 1961 construction of the Berlin Wall began, the CIA failed to overthrow Cuba’s Fidel Castro at the Bay of Pigs invasion, Yuri Gargarin became the first human being to go into space, JFK was sworn in as president of the USA and both Amnesty International and the WWF (wildlife, not wrestling) were founded.
We said goodbye to Ernest Hemingway, Carl Jung, Erwin Schrodinger and George Formby, and hello to Barak Obama, Diana Spencer, Eddie Murphy, George Clooney and Michael J Fox.
How good was the music?
Past experience shows we don’t have as much engagement on the earlier years when few of us were alive and many of our favourite genres hadn’t emerged, so only going to run 4 days nominations and two days voting for this one meaning you have until Sunday 17th April to nominate one album and one song which will then go into a poll along with a number rating poll for year overall out of 10, which will close on Tuesday 19th.
Some lists for inspiration:
Best Albums of 1961 : Best Ever Albums
https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/1961/
100 Greatest Albums of 1961
https://www.albumoftheyear.org/ratings/6-highest-rated/1961/1 (don’t actually think this is very useful, not enough reviews aggregated that early)
Nominations will be tallied here as the week goes on:
Album Nominations
Track Nominations
