40. The Zombies: "This Will Be Our Year"(Chris White)
1968
Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (N/A)
Available on Odessey and Oracle
Like the rose-colored finale of a feel-good musical, this proto-twee anthem has always felt over (the top) before it begins-- an incandescent, elegiac bit of closure. "Time of the Season"'s the more generally beloved track from Odessey and Oracle and has received the most Hollywood hippie lip-service, but this track's baroque pop brevity uplifts more grandly: Like "Happy Together" lined with rays of psychedelic sunshine (vocal-harmony mouthing piano, trumpets, ornate choral harmonies, and warm drums that link it in my head to Pet Sounds and Forever Changes). When singer Colin Blunstone says, "And I won't forget the way you said/ 'Darling I love you'/ You gave me faith to go on," he creates a smeared palimpsest that tugs my heart every time. It's ironic that the group who penned this eternally optimistic song had disbanded by the time the album hit the shelves. --Brandon Stosuy
(Mick Jagger/Keith Richards)
1968
Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (N/A)
Available on Beggars Banquet
It was a ballsy move for Mick Jagger to sing about Satan in the first person, and it was even ballsier to make him so damn likable, a charming rake with a sense of decorum and a way with words. "Sympathy" may be Jagger's finest lyrical moment; in a few quick strokes, he weaves the Crucifiction, the Hundred Years' War, the October Revolution, World War II, and the assassinations of the Kennedys into an interlocking tapestry of human cruelty, and then he takes credit for all of it. Even ballsier may be the Stones' use of the sort of rippling African grooves that palefaced rockstars usually deploy when they're trying to sound warm and life affirming. It's an exhilarating piece of work, especially as the song builds and Keith Richards starts using his guitar the same way the Bomb Squad used sirens, a trebly fuzzbomb exploding into the sinuous mess. --Tom Breihan
(Ziggy Modeliste/Art Neville/Leo Nocentelli/George Porter, Jr.)
1969
Chart info: U.S. (#23), UK (N/A)
Available on The Very Best of the Meters
When the first moments of the first song of your first album are as crisp and chilling as the "Aaaaaa-yah!" and fat chords that open "Cissy Strut", hyperbole tends to abound. New Orleans demi-gods and house band for Allen freakin' Toussaint before they were out of their infancy, the Meters were the peak of precise, slashing through each other's instruments and whipping up funk like it was chicken salad-- thoroughly, deliciously, and fast.
Art Neville ran shit from on high behind that keyboard, but the interplay between guitarist Leo Nocentelli and drummer Zigaboo Modeliste is near impossible to compute. Which explains why the track has been flipped more than 20 times on hip-hop records ranging from Onyx's "Bacdafucup" to Raheem's "5th Ward". There are few songs that pop with the kind of instrumental arrogance "Cissy Strut" carries. In doing so, and basically laying the concrete for funk music, they set the standard for talking loud and saying nothing. In a good way. --Sean Fennessey
(Paul Simon)
1965
Chart info: U.S. (#1), UK (N/A)
Available on Greatest Hits
"Hello darkness, my old friend." Few songs sink their hooks into a listener as instantly as this classic ode to alienation. Paul Simon's tautly crafted lyrics unfold effortlessly as his harmonies with Art Garfunkel grow in emotional intensity. Those elements were already in place when the duo recorded "The Sound of Silence" for its folk-damaged debut, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.
But after that album flopped and Simon and Garfunkel called it quits (for the first time), producer Tom Wilson took the folk frame of the original and added a rock edge. Inspired by the Byrds and Dylan's evolution to electric, Wilson overdubbed electric guitars, bass, and drums. Not only did the new version reach #1, those additions also helped shed the original's choirboy wimpiness. --John Motley
(Roky Erickson)
1966
Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (N/A)
Available on The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators
I need to do the research, but I doubt the electric jug was ever put to such good use. For this convulsive harmonica-singed garage-psychedelia blast, Tommy Hall pilots it as a twittering army of sopping-wet percussive mini-moogs. Then, of course, come Roky Erickson's vocalizations, threats, and promises ("oh, you're gonna miss me") with patterns that feel less like rock lyricism and more like looped jazz frenetics (or, hey, Astral Weeks). This was the Austin band's first single and only real hit, and its history seems endless: Erickson recorded it once before with his earlier band, the Spades; forty-something years later, it's the title of Keven McAlester's documentary about the man's life/work. It even greets you on Erickson's website. He's unfortunately become one of those figures, like Daniel Johnston or Syd Barrett, fetishized by some for his mental illness. Fuck that. Listen to this track, recorded before he spent time in an institution and allegedly received shock therapy: Erickson was already possessed with rock'n'roll genius. --Brandon Stosuy
(June Carter Cash/Merle Kilgore)
1963
Chart info: U.S. (#17), UK (N/A)
Available on The Essential Johnny Cash
That Cash could adopt a goofy conceit like this (not just any ring of fire, a burning one), drape it in mariachi music, and still come out looking twice as big a man as your favorite uncle, father, and grandfather combined says more than any glorified MOTW ever could. If composure in the face of death is proof of character, composure in the face of love is downright molecular; here's a man singing about "wild desire" and "falling like a child" straight from the ashes at the bottom of his stomach. That "Ring of Fire" was one of his biggest hits is no easily explainable trick of the chorus either-- there's a booming posture to this that, 50 years removed, still extends out across his many decades. It's why people loved seeing him sing even more than they loved hearing him. --Mark Pytlik
(Pete Townshend)
1965
Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (N/A)
Available on My Generation
That big opening chord sounds like a challenge to the Beatles of a "A Hard Day's Night". Sure enough, the Who turn in a gorgeous, sophisticated pop song that focuses the band's sick instrumental prowess into three minutes of kinetic melancholy. Those vocal harmonies positively soar on Pete Townshend's guitar jangle, and the modulation at the end is brilliant, preceded by just a tiny snatch of raucous sturm-und-drang. Roger Daltrey's vocal has just the right tinge of sadness as he heaves the inner conflict stoked by his relationship on the table for all to see. --Joe Tangari
(James Brown/Betty Jean Newsome)
1966
Chart info: U.S. (#8), UK (#13)
Available on JB40: 40th Anniversary Collection
For all of its sweat-soaked machismo and fist-pump funk, Brown's most potent 1960s statement was a relatively quiet, distinctly feminine testament to intrinsic dependence. "A man who don't have a woman," squeals the conflicted soul man, "he's lost in the wilderness." It's as if he could foresee his post-70s wasteland, when allegations of domestic abuse outnumbered hit singles, but was utterly helpless to stop the spiral. The ballad's titular emphasis and man-made roll call only serve to underline its loneliness and desperation. Against arch string plucks, lagging piano, and snap rimshots, the man works his demons hard. And this direct feed into his struggle is as stunning as the ensuing wreckage is stunningly pitiful. --Ryan Dombal
(Ennio Morricone)
1966
Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (N/A)
Available on The Ennio Morricone Anthology: A Fistful of Film Music
Film was the most important medium of the 20th century, and Ennio Morricone was among its chief architects. "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" didn't simply reinvent soundtracks; it reinvented movies. For even the most uncouth audiences, the titular theme-- hell, just the opening "wah-wah-wah"-- is synonymous with stoicism, murder, and pop-art delirium. Despite the Wagnerian crescendos and theatrical irony, every effect is critical and unforgettable: pacing boots, tribal flutes, flaring surf guitar, Indian warwhoops, field-recording flotsam, meth-mangled trumpet solos. In just under three minutes, Morricone condenses all the greatest elements of music-- from opera, garage, musique concrète, peyote songs, whatever-- and layers it over stampeding horses and shotgun blasts. It's kaleidoscopic, exhilarating, and incontrovertibly badass. --Alex Linhardt
(Jackson Browne)
1967
Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (N/A)
Available on Chelsea Girl
30. The Shangri-Las: "Leader of the Pack"(Jeff Barry/Ellie Greenwich/Shadow Morton)
1964
Chart info: U.S. (#1), UK (#11, #3 for 1972 reissue)
Available on Myrmidons of Melodrama
Teen melodrama was a valuable commodity in the 1960s, but few girl-groups did it as darkly or as well as the death-obsessed Shangri-La's. "Leader of the Pack"-- on which the Weiss and Genser twins spun spoken-word and saccharine singing into the tale of a local tough who's killed in a motorcycle crash on the night the narrator breaks up with him, per her father's orders-- is part concise musical theater, part novelty song, and all avant-garde, thanks in no small part to George "Shadow" Morton's inventive production. Every element of the song mimetically refers to its tacit catastrophe-- the cardiac percussion limns heart-pumping urgency; stately piano chords suddenly tumble as if they've hit wet asphalt; and while the crisis is never explicitly named, the throaty motorcycle revs, horrible crashing sounds and cries of "Look out look out look out!" leave little room for ambiguity. --Brian Howe
(Ray Davies)
1967
Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (#2)
Available on Something Else by the Kinks
The protagonist's ritualistic observations have always reminded me of Death in Venice minus the overt dissipation: The "dirty old" Thames, Waterloo Station, and a 1960s orange-red nighttime London sky re-imagined as a private paradise by the window pane's light. Ray Davies' airy harmonies compliment the rarefied aestheticism: "Busy-busy" causes vertigo, taxi lights scald eyes, it's too cold to venture outside. This was supposedly the first track he produced on his own and every detail works to reconfirm a sensibility: The sporty intro sidesteps into the unmistakable vocal melody played first on guitar, then sung by Davies. Throughout, a scrappy rhythm guitar abuts an angelic harmonic web, balancing vicarious experience with the gorgeous hands-on pageantry of the city. --Brandon Stosuy
(Steve Cropper/Otis Redding)
1968
Chart info: U.S. (#1), UK (#3)
Available on Very Best of Otis Redding
Released at the beginning of 1968, Redding's posthumous hit was a lamenting-- and prescient-- cry of resignation after the Summer of Love. It's as immortal a song as r&b ever produced, renouncing all references to the transitory pleasures of love, rage, or infatuation. There's merely Redding's piteous hum, balanced by buoying guitar and slumberous horns. He sounds like a disappointed god, bored by infinity and captivated by his own constancy. The voice is soft and sleek, and traces of anger still disturb the serenity. The lyrics pass from calmness to sorrow, pleasure to damage, bemusement to barrenness. It's a repudiation of empty promises: Nothing's blowin' in the wind, no changes are gonna come, there's "nothing to live for, and looks like nothing's gonna come my way." He drives all the way to San Francisco just to remind himself that his life will never change. And then there's that final nonchalant whistle, the most haunting and elegiac sound you could ever hear from a dead man's #1 record. --Alex Linhardt
(Lou Reed)
1967
Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (N/A)
Available on The Velvet Underground & Nico
"The Man is never on time," William Burroughs typed in 1959's Naked Lunch. "First thing you learn is that you always got to wait," Lou Reed complained eight years later on The Velvet Underground & Nico. Buffeted by krautrockist guitar blocks and insatiable jackhammer drums, Reed's deadpan vocals makes a delinquent of early rock ‘n' roll piano and urban-twang lead licks. Dude takes the present-day 4/5/6 to East Harlem (that's "SpaHa" for the noobs), $26 in hand not adjusted for inflation, then oh look at the time splits cause hey I'm running late. To think in Jamaica they'll just plop heaping bags in your palm for a mere Andrew Jackson (I'm told)-- though context suggests it's probably the junk Reed's really on about. Whatever, he's feeling good, he's gonna work it on out, and that brownstoned walk home is easy to imagine even if most of us have never experienced it. Oh, also many people heard this and then formed bands. --Marc Hogan
(John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
1967
Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (N/A)
Available on Magical Mystery Tour
"I Am the Walrus" wasn't the first psychedelic song the Beatles recorded, but where the others were about the trip, this was about the destination: A tour of a surreal, strikingly vulgar place far out there (or far inside Lennon's head), following a march beat that doesn't quite fit your feet. Although the production is dense and full of disruptive voices and found sounds, your ear always knows where to go, thanks to that wobbly back-and-forth theme on the electric piano. And while Lennon barks the words, he also reminds us why the Beatles were the least scary available tour guide to this strange new place. After all, John (or was it Paul?) was The Walrus, a post-human growth on the collective subconscious-- but he still looked silly with those giant flippers. --Chris Dahlen
(Mick Jagger/Keith Richards)
1966
Chart info: U.S. (#1), UK (#1)
Available on Aftermath
Mick conjures his charm school squall and Brian Jones makes that sitar chirp like a newborn blue jay, but it's Charlie Watts' crashing kit that slugs most every other Stones tune out of the way of this depression-incarnate. Perhaps overplaying his hand too soon (subtlety has never been Mick's fastball), Jagger's lyrics bellyache from start, "No colors anymore, I want them to turn black", to finish, "I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky." But it's the persistent snare thumping and cymbal shattering that has led so many people to believe there's some sort of demonic undertone to the song. There really isn't. Seems Jags got dumped (or perhaps saw an emotional emptiness inside himself) and wants the whole world to look black. Kind of childish if you break it down to the literal, but to think about that swaggering cocksman now and imagine him crumpled and crying, scrawling, "Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts" in 1966 is kind of heartening. --Sean Fennessey
(Lamont Dozier/Brian Holland/Eddie Holland)
1966
Chart info: U.S. (#1), UK (#3)
Available on The Ultimate Collection
"If you're not with someone, then they're not meant for you," Art Brut's Eddie Argos declared in the middle of "Emily Kane" at this summer's Pitchfork fest. So here we are, mustache-deep in love songs and hate songs and Rolling Stones songs, and "You Can't Hurry Love"-- a little Holland-Dozier-Holland bouncer about the pointlessness (and frustrating inevitability) of getting all broke up over heartbreak-- is still one of the few that tells us what we really need to hear. The ostinato bass, tingling tambourine chirp, shy Herman's Hermits guitar, and especially Diana Ross' suavely teenybop vocals (plus the hear-a-symphony backing oohs) stand in uneasy harmony. While the Beatles, Beach Boys, and Stones got all the white straight rock geek worship, the Supremes shimmied their way to pop perfection in 1966. Neither "Lust for Life" nor "Someday" nor any other beat-ganker does it better. Phil Collins can eat poop. --Marc Hogan
(Mack Gordon/Harry Warren)
1961
Chart info: U.S. (#47), UK (N/A)
Available on The Essential Etta James
When love finally comes, Etta James meets it with the unhurried cool of someone shuffling to catch an early bus. Maybe she's too wounded, or maybe she's an ascetic, but probably she's just savoring-- too used to going without to remember how to be excitable. Instead she's content to stretch the moment out like taffy, itself a new kind of wait. But where her measured delivery suggests she's entering into this thing one limb at a time, as if slipping into an icy pool, the orchestration tells a different story. With "life is like a song", she even confesses as much. While she stands solid and resolute, dispensing her release in controlled bursts, the strings' backflips, twirls, and knots do the rest of her work. They're the butterflies, the relief and the joy, and they've never been more beautifully expressed than they are here. --Mark Pytlik
(Barrett Strong/Norman Whitfield)
1968
Chart info: U.S. (#1), UK (#1)
Available on The Very Best of Marvin Gaye
Not even the California Raisins could fuck this one up. Gladys Knight and the Pips took "Grapevine" to #2 in 1967, a full year before Gaye's was released, but when was the last time you heard Knight's version? Gaye's take on the song remains perhaps the darkest, fuzziest, most unglued moment in Motown history. Gaye's voice was usually an ecstatic lilt, but here it's a frozen paranoid sneer, the sound of a man collapsing inward into doubt and regret and hate. Gaye clamps down on the "you mean that much to me" line with so much venom that we know it isn't really true, not anymore. The murky Funk Brothers arrangement offers no respite: the organ bubbles, the Bernard Herrmann strings screech, the guitars echo and moan, and you know just as well as Gaye does that his life is about to end. There's no hope anywhere in the song. It's terrifying. --Tom Breihan
(Mike Love/Brian Wilson)
1966
Chart info: U.S. (#1), UK (#1, #18 for 1976 reissue)
Available on Endless Summer
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