isnt this the year the world broke

Electric Flag - A Long Time Comin'

Blues rock with a horn section. Mike Bloomfield, Buddy Miles, and Barry Goldberg. "Over-Lovin' You" is awesome.

This could be a long list, but I'll leave most of the really obvious ones alone, except for:



V. Morrison~ Astral Weeks- needs no description by me

And the maybe not so obvious ones:



Blood Sweat & Tears~ Child Is Father to The Man- Debut and the only one worth having due to Al Kooper's looming presence. Filled with Kooper's original songs (his piano playing on I Can't Quit Her IS the song), interspersed with a few covers, it has aged very well, at least for me. The horn section and orchestral backing made this a very different sounding record from what was being done all around at the time of its release.



Townes Van Zandt~ For The Sake Of The Song- Debut that changed my listening habits on a wholesale level. Flawed only by Cowboy Jack Clements overblown production, for which he should have been beaten with heavy chains and set on fire.



Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood~ Nancy & Lee- OK, so there's some genuinely cringe-worthy moments, and neither of them ever had...uhhh...much vocal range, but the best of it appealed to me at the time in some odd and twisted way, and still does (I have a pristine first generation vinyl copy that still gets played from time to time). Besides, Hazlewood had a killer mustache. And I lusted after Nancy in my heart.



Steve Miller Band~ Children of the future- Before he morphed into a giant load of Top 40 elephant shit, Steve Miller put out a couple excellent albums, this debut being one of them. In spite of, or because of, Boz Scaggs' involvement, psychedelic, blues based rock and roll that works. Good stuff.



Pearls Before Swine~ Balaklava- Proto-psych-folk. Considered by many to be Tom Rapp's best work, an ethereal moonscape subtly but clearly devoted to protesting the Southeast Asian conflict going on at the time. Never a household name, if Rapp's band ever truly emerged from obscurity, it was a brief visit, even thought its influences are acknowledged by contemporary artists such as Marissa Nadler and Damon & Naomi. The closing song, a totally inexplicable dirge titled Ring Thing (yes, Frodo, THAT ring) spoils an otherwise perfect album.

i don't get White Light/White Heat. My least fav VU record by faaaaar. Here's two to add to the list. They shout late 60s with the best of 'em.

Caetano Veloso's debut. I am not one to speak confidently on the topic, but from what I read, it was like an explosion in Brazil. Easy to see why. Despite the album cover, this was not so much a psychedelic album as it was a fusion of Brazilian and Western forms. Some really great melodies here and... hell.. Billy G can most certainly speak more on this than I can. I just know it's a fucking great (and important) record.

And then, there were The Small Faces, who released TWO essential records in 1968:

Steve Marriott sang every song as if it were "The Most Important Song In The World" (yes, even the word "The" should be capitalized). One of the greatest, most-passionate singers in all of rock and roll, ever. And these two albums contain a ton of (if not most of) his greatest songs and greatest performances, ever.
From Ogdens:
"Afterglow (of Your Love)", "Lazy Sunday", Rollin' Over", etc...

From There are But Four...:
"Itchycoo Park", "Talk to You", "I Feel Much Better", "Here Comes the Nice", "Tin Soldier", etc...

Both are essential and show what a different band Small Faces were from their later, better-known (in the States) incarnation with Rod Stewart and Ron Wood.

The best of the best...

And another:
Harry Nilsson - Aerial Ballet

This is Harry as he was approaching his peak, as both a songwriter and as a singer. This is the album that put him on the charts, even if he was already on the map as The Beatles' "favorite American band." It has his recording of Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talking" that earned him a Grammy, and also a lot of very strange songs about desks, and little cowboys. Also, there is Harry's original recording of "One", later to be made famous by Three Dog Night. Quirky is an apt description for the album, but then, so is adventerous, although not in an obvious way. Nilsson pushed bounderies in very subtle, gentle ways, which made it all the more subversive. One of the albums that demonstrates why I have become so obsessed with this man.

Another great, eccentric band:




This one may reek a little too much of the time from whence it came, but it is still a pretty damn good psych pop album. Think The Millennium, Sagittarius, or The Association with more of a psychedelic bent. Great melodies, harmonies. Something straight out of the Nuggets box.


Pre-Monty Python, pre-Rutles insanity. Psych meets minstrel show meets 60's BritPop. Purely ridiculous. Wonderful stuff.

Pretty much everything I have from this period is on the well-traveled path. The Stones, The Band, VU, James Brown, Van Morrison, The Beatles, Aretha Franklin and the Byrds put out pretty essential albums that year.

I got this one from Billy G a few years ago - I'll let him talk about it:



and then there's this:



Strong country rock album every bit the equal of Sweetheart of the Rodeo, if that's your kinda thing. Personally, I prefer the Gram Parsons'-sung outtakes from Sweetheart to the official release by a, um, country mile, so that might not be as glowing a recommendation as it seems on first blush.

and, lastly:



I've really grown to dislike the overall sound of the 60s

Of over a thousand albums on my iPod, only three from this year...Velvet Underground: White Light/White Heat, Creedence Clearwater Revival: Bayou Country and Miles Davis: Nefertiti. They are all pretty good though.

I've been a 60s kid as far back as I can remember listening to music and for the last what 8-10 years that I've actually explored music of all times and all over, the 60s was always my favorite and just dominated everything but I've also noticed recent impatience with even some of the albums I once considered my all time favorites from the decade in favor of slightly more polished 70s records. I still listen to tons of records from the 60s and they dominate my actual vinyl collection, but a lot of it has become a sunny day, house windows open, cheap beer out of the can music and the 70s is like every other time (when I'm not making myself depressed going through current music)

At one point or another each these records might have been in my top 10 of all time. I have something like 160 albums from '68 and I need to do some trimming - a bunch of it is just half-cocked psych shit.

OK...that's not true...have a few others that are pretty good but have different years on them for being reissued/remastered or whatever. Beggar's Banquet, Folsom Prison, Songs of Leonard Cohen, The Stooges... Thought that seemed odd.

Late nites listening to "Suzanne" on cassette is one of my fondest miserable memories.

I still have never heard Nefertiti. Just one I kind of skipped over for some reason.

Some other stuff from this year:

Other stuff at the center of the whole Tropicalia thing aside from that Caetano Veloso album Todd posted. All three are pretty great, and the Os Mutantes is probably my favorite.


This is probably my favorite Gram Parsons release. Short and sweet.


Music from space by aliens. With typical '60s psyche rock dude vocals.


One of his best. Powerful, soulful, all the usual stuff.


Super-creative, eclectic debut.


Excellent, somewhat underrated debut. First of Richard Thompson's five-album run with the band. They'd get better, but this is great.


Weird, whimsical hippie folk. Was a little difficult to get into, but I've grown to really enjoy it. There's something almost Monty-Python-like about it.


Free jazz for noise fans. Brutal, harsh record. Not without melody or structure, though.


A lot of weird fucking around.

Will also apply to Fleetwood Mac when Contradiction gets us to '77.

I'm also a fan of the VM, TVZ and LH/NS albums but wanted to comment on these two. Two albums that you would never think to check out if you were only familiar with their later, more popular dreck but two great albums. I'm an unabashed fan of all things Kooper and the Blood, Sweat and Tears album was the first thing I thought of to post for 1968. That Steve Miller album is really strong too. I think Sailor was also 1968 and I might like that more but in either case very good stuff. I'd talked about some of those early Steve Miller Band albums either here or in chatzy and don't think I convinced any one to check them out so I'm glad you choose that one.



Eddie Gale was a "New Thing"/Avant Garde Jazz player who played with some big Free Jazz names in the 60's: Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, & Larry Young. He'd seemingly not be a great fit with Blue Note but Francis Wolff was a big fan and funded Eddie Gale's two 60's albums - Black Rhythm Happening and Ghetto Music - out of his own pocket. They are both really special albums but this is my favorite of the two.

I love the AMG review so I'll just quote a little bit of it here:



That pretty well sums up his vision. He was trying to distill everything about the black experience into one cohesive musical statement. It's incredibly ambitious but it absolutely succeeds. These two albums were a huge influence on Archie Shepp and others that created a whole genre of early 70's "Black Jazz" or "Spiritual Jazz." It is my favorite subgenre of Jazz music and it probably would have never have come about without these two Gale albums.





I'm actually not a huge fan of Tropicalia music. It launched the careers of some great artists but I think it's far more interesting for its back story than for the music itself. I like the Gilberto Gil the best of those three. The other two are good but I wouldn't personally put that CV very high if ranking his catalog. He really came into his own after being exiled in London. CV was a great songwriter from the start but he didn't have the musical background that GG or Mutantes had. The producers thought so little of his playing that they wouldn't let him play guitar on his own record. It wasn't until he was in London and outside the control of Brazilian producers that he was able to really control his music and find his complete voice.

Wouldn't have necessarily have been my next choices to post about but I might as well since we are on the topic of tropicalia...




These are the other three big Tropicalia releases from '68. The first is the compilation launching the movement. The second from Gal Costa is probably my next favorite after the GG album. The last is from Rogerio Duprat who is better known as a producer/arranger but also put out his own record. I'm not going to say it's great but I can't imagine that if you like the production on the GG and Mutantes albums you'll probably like this.

I'll post some of my own after I get a little caught up with work

The Everly Brothers - Roots

Not my link:



The Everly Brothers go country rock with a lot of well-chosen classic country covers. Ron Elliott of the Beau Brummels helped with arrangements, played some guitar, and contributed a few songs including "Turn Around" which also appeared on the Beu Brummels album that Radcliffe posted.



Al Kooper - I Stand Alone

The first Al Kooper solo album (and one of the best) released right on the back of the Blood, Sweat and Tears album. Lot of covers but he makes them his own and the title track alone is worth the price of admission.




Eastfield Meadows - S/T

Don't know much at all about this band except that they sound like the Byrds during the GP days. Pretty good country rock album. It's easy enough to find online too if you care to do a search.

Definitely. Both are treasures. Why was I thinking the Kooper record was a '69 release? What a knock-out combo- BS&T and I Stand Alone. "Western Union Man...send a telegram..."

Not an album, but most definitely the best single released in '68 (or, let's face it, any other year)

So, that picture was taken after Brian Jones died, right?

Agreed. If RYM is to be trusted, the first super session was '68 as well although I don't like that nearly as much. He also was largely responsible for Zombies - Odyssey & Oracle getting US release. Busy man....