The problem with years like this is there’s surely some outstanding psych, freakbeat or Northern Soul that just wasn’t known about at the time and you’d struggle without specific research to put a date to now.
That said, this was also the year of…
Nominate Album: The Kinks - The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society
…and, released eight days into the year…
Nominate Song: Otis Redding - (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay
Nominate Song: Shirley & Dolly Collins - Bonnie Boy
Lots of good British folk revival stuff from that year but this Shirley Collins track is possibly the most brilliant & haunted of them
But then I could have had…
…or…
…or, sod it, this might be my favourite of the lot…
Lee Hazlewood - Love and Other Crimes
Incredible year for soundtracks:
The Beach Boys - ‘Friends’ album
Nominate album The Byrds - ‘The Notorious Byrd Brothers’
Nominate song Glen Campbell ‘Wichita Lineman’
And Sweetheart of the Rodeo came out in ‘68 as well didn’t it? Can’t be many bands who’ve managed to put out two classics in a single year.
Nominate album International Harvester - Sov Gott Rose-Marie
Nominate album: Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
Still blows my mind every time I listen how someone so unpleasant could have produced something so delicate and beautiful.
Nominate Track: Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra - Some Velvet Morning
Heavy metal year zero (black sabbath formed)
Nominate song: The Jimi Hendrix Experience - All along the watchtower
NOMINATE ALBUM: Scott 2 by Scott Walker
NOMINATE SONG: Touch Me by The Doors
Looks like 1968 was a big moment for bubblegum pop. The Archies released their self-titled debut album this year (although the world would have to wait till '69 for the all-conquering Sugar, Sugar) and Ohio Express had a UK top five hit with Yummy Yummy Yummy—although I personally prefer Chewy Chewy, another OE single from this year:
Great year for obscure and semi-obscure heavy psych too, unsurprisingly
Big fan of Mad River, some cool proto-prog mixed in with the psych
Still thinking about a nomination but haven’t seen this one mentioned yet
Amazing record - guessing was a pretty huge influence on Ty Segall too
I had intended to get to that one!
Another pretty much perfect record:
The Uniques - Absolutely The… Uniques
Version of the band that recorded this album (and a bunch of singles) were together for just over a year and consisted of Slim Smith, Jimmy Riley and Lloyd Charmers which is about as stacked a line up as you could get at the time. Unsurprisingly all three found huge success as solo artists in the years afterwards, but this is still my favourite record by any of them
That Gal Costa song sounded hauntingly familiar to me. Took a bit of googling to work out why: it’s sampled on this Bill Ryder-Jones track from last year.
