How Good Was The Year (in music) - 1966?

In the previous thread, the year 2000 secured 5th in the leaderboard (which is now 80% complete, with exactly 8/10 years in each of the 6 decades polled) with a strong score of 8.69.

Next up is 1966 and all that.

A reminder of the premise of the thread

After a period of posting and reminiscing, Polls will be posted to rate the music of the year out of ten (based on the albums, singles, gigs, whatever that stand out for you that year) and voting for your favourite of the nominated albums and songs.

Everyone can nominate one album and one song from the year which will then be collated into side-polls which will be open for a few days - please make it clear when you post a nomination for the poll (as opposed to when just posting about songs and albums you like, which are very welcome).

Leaderboard
Rank Year Rating Top Album Top Song
1 1994 9.46 Portishead - Dummy Beastie Boys - Sabotage
2 1991 8.98 Slint - Spiderland Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy
3 1988 8.93 Pixies - Surfer Rosa Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Mercy Street
4 1980 8.83 Joy Division - Closer The Cure - A Forest
5 2000 8.69 Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven PJ Harvey - Good Fortune / At The Drive In - One Armed Scissor
6 1968 8.67 Van Morrison - Astral Weeks Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman
7 1997 8.6 Radiohead - OK Computer The Beta Band - Dry The Rain
8 1967 8.48 Love - Forever Changes Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood - Some Velvet Morning
9 1995 8.45 Radiohead - The Bends The Smashing Pumpkins - 1975
10 1977 8.41 Kraftwerk - Trans-Europe Express Donna Summer - I Feel Love
11 1969 8.35 The Velvet Underground The Stooges - I Wanna Be Your Dog
12 1998 8.3 Boards of Canada - Music Has The Right To Children Massive Attack – Teardrop
13 2013 8.29 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Push the Sky Away Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Jubilee Street
13 1992 8.29 Pavement - Slanted & Enchanted Pulp - Babies
15 2019 8.14 Self Esteem - Compliments Please Big Thief - Not
16 2007 8.13 LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver / Radiohead - In Rainbows LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends / M.I.A. - Paper Planes
16 1975 8.13 Neil Young - Tonight’s the Night / Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Cortez the Killer
18 2004 8.1 Madvillain - Madvillainy / Arcade Fire - Funeral The Walkmen - The Rat
18 2001 8.1 The Strokes - Is This It Roots Manuva - Witness (1 Hope) / Mogwai - My Father My King
20 2002 8.06 Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights LCD Soundsystem - Losing My Edge
20 1981 8.06 The Cure - Faith New Order - Ceremony
22 1979 7.96 Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures Joy Division - Transmission
23 1982 7.76 The Cure - Pornography / Kate Bush - The Dreaming The Associates - Party Fears Two
24 2014 7.69 FKA Twigs - LP1 FKA Twigs - Two Weeks
25 2010 7.66 Kanye West - MBDTF / Joanna Newsom - Have One One Me / Beach House - Teen Dream Robyn - Dancing On My Own
26 1973 7.63 Stevie Wonder - Innervisions Iggy & The Stooges - Search & Destroy
27 1970 7.61 Neil Young - After the Goldrush Curtis Mayfield - Move on Up
28 1972 7.53 Can - Ebe Gamyasi Stevie Wonder - Superstition
29 1976 7.47 David Bowie - Station to Station Bob Dylan - Hurricane
29 1990 7.47 Sonic Youth - Goo The Cure - Pictures of You
31 2015 7.44 Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell Sufjan Stevens - No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross
32 1986 7.42 Talk Talk - The Colour of Spring New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle
33 2005 7.39 Sufjan Stevens - Illinois Amerie - 1 Thing
34 1965 7.38 The Beatles - Rubber Soul Frank Wilson - Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)
35 2017 7.36 Protomartyr - Relatives in Descent Kendrick Lamar - Humble
36 1987 7.32 Sonic Youth - Sister The Cure - Just Like Heaven
37 1999 7.3 Mogwai - Come On Die Young Björk - All Is Full Of Love
38 2006 7.28 J Dilla - Donuts TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me
39 1983 7.26 REM - Murmur Robert Wyatt - Shipbuilding
40 2016 7.13 Frank Ocean - Blonde Frank Ocean - Nikes
41 2009 7.1 Fever Ray - Fever Ray Animal Collective - My Girls
42 1974 6.95 Neil Young - On The Beach Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson - The Bottle
43 2011 6.88 PJ Harvey - Let England Shake Low - Especially Me
44 1963 6.57 Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan The Ronettes -Be My Baby
45 1985 6.53 Tom Waits - Rain Dogs Prince and the Revolution - Raspberry Beret
46 1962 6 Howlin’ Wolf - Howlin’ Wolf Dick Dale - Misirlou
47 1961 5.16 John Coltrane - My Favourite Things Roy Orbison - Crying
48 1960 4.93 John Coltrane - Giant Steps The Shirelles - Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

In 1966 John Lennon proclaimed the Beatles to be bigger than Jesus, Star trek debuted on TV, Indira Gandhi became the first (and only) female Prime Minister of India, Myra Hindley and Ian Brady were sentenced to life imprisonment for the Moors Murders, Frank Sinatra - 50 - married Mia Farrow - 21, and hosts England won the World Cup after the final against West Germany went to extra time.

We said goodbye to Walt Disney, Buster Keaton, Elizabeth Arden, Mississippi John Hurt and Lenny Bruce, and hello to Mike Tyson, Gordon Ramsay, Janet Jackson, Cindy Crawford, Kiefer Sutherland, Adam Sandler, Salma Hayek, Halle Berry, Sinead O’Conor, Hristo Stoichkov, David Schwimmer and Helena Bonham-Carter.

But how good was the music?

There will be a week or two to nominate one album and/or one song which will then go into polls along with a number rating poll for year overall out of 10, which will close a few days later. Please state when something you share is a nomination so I can catch it for the poll, but feel free to share as much as you wish during the thread!

Some lists for inspiration:

Best Albums of 1966 : Best Ever Albums

https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/1966/

https://www.albumoftheyear.org/ratings/6-highest-rated/1966/1

https://www.acclaimedmusic.net/year/1966a.htm

https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/single/1966

https://www.acclaimedmusic.net/year/1966s.htm

Nominations will be tallied here as the week goes on:

Album Nominations

Song Nominations

2 Likes

Nominate album: Beach Boys - Pet Sounds

8 Likes
5 Likes

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tOLS8NeGL4U&list=PL8F5DB6F54A8ACB74&index=1&pp=iAQB8AUB

I’m not massively clued up on 60s music but I’m going to nominate The Monks - Black Monk Time for album cos I happen to know it came out in ‘66 and it’s great and they were great. And my link hasn’t come up as a nice thumbnail so that’s annoying.

5 Likes

4 Likes

Bert Jansch - Jack Orion

3 Likes

Love - Da Capo

5 Likes

Fuck it.

Nominate album: The Beatles - Revolver

Nominate song: The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations

12 Likes

The 13th Floor Elevators - The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators

5 Likes

Sam & Dave - Hold On, I’m Comin’

6 Likes

Nominate Album. Nina Simone - Wild Is The Wind.

6 Likes

Nominate song: The Gentlemen - It’s A Cry’n Shame

2 Likes

Nominate Song. The Electric Prunes - I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night.

5 Likes

Baden Powell & Vinícius de Moraes - Os Afro-sambas

Just one of the most important and iconic Brazilian albums ever

3 Likes

Easy for me

Nominate album: Simon & Garfunkel - Sounds of Silence

Nominate song: Simon & Garfunkel - The Sound of Silence

Bonus: go and watch The Graduate (although it came out in 1967)

10 Likes

Nominate album Bob Dylan Blonde on Blonde


Nominate song The Byrds Eight Miles High

8 Likes

Ooh, an interesting year. At the cusp of the album era, but the single is still where it’s at. So there are amazing songs all over the flipping place this year but still relatively few classic albums (but lots of albums padding out said amazing songs with cover versions and other filler and artists with two or more albums out in the year).

That said, I’m still going to dive in with an early song nomination rather than faff around like I usually do.

Song nomination: Ike and Tina Turner - River Deep - Mountain High

Two absolute wrong 'uns involved in Ike Turner and Phil Spector. But one of the greatest singles of all time for my money. Because of Tina Turner. What. A. Voice.

2 Likes

One of my single favourite jazz compositions, with an incredible ominous groove (written by Alan Shorter, Wayne’s brother; haven’t really got into the rest of the album):

Same song also appeared in the same year on the Marion Brown Quartet album (as does Alan Shorter), also for me a genuine all-timer

2 Likes

And then you’ve got the two editions one of Coltrane’s best and most far out, Ascension (although I’m usually more partial to smaller ensembles).

Not to mention this Noah Howard Quartet album, one of my current most-played (sort of an acquired taste even by the standards of this kind of thing I think)

2 Likes

could do more jazz, but also a great year for garage/psych/beat stuff.

In the process of writing this post I found out Sundazed put a seven-volume series of compilations of it - Garage Beat ‘66 - that I’ve never even heard of, that’ll be a decent amount of listening.

Anyway, small almost random selection of ones I already knew

Psychotic Reaction, obviously:

Pretty good version of Hey Joe by The Leaves with some cool fuzz:

A Yardbirds classic, great Jeff Beck feedback/solo:

Shadows of Knight (pretty good versions of Gloria and Boom Boom Boom on the same album):

etc. etc.

3 Likes