This archive contains my review of every song to make the top ten in 1966. Songs are arranged alphabetically by artist and then in order by date. The date under each title marks it's first appearence in the top ten, followed (in red) by it's peak position.

A-M     N-Z

2008    2007    2006    2004-2005    1966

They're coming to take me away, ha-haa!
8/6/66 #3

Like most comedy/novelty records, the joke wears thin fast, but the sound is something else. Comedy records were often the first to seize on new production ideas—think of Stan Freiberg’s multi-tracked records of the early fifties, or recall that George Martin produced the Goon Show records before signing up The Beatles—and lot’s of people had done stuff with sped-up vocals, but I don’t know if anyone had tried the perfectly timed gradual changes in speed here. It really does sound like the product of a deranged mind, with the obsessive compulsive rhythm track pinning down the effect. Heads must have loved it.

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Tell It Like It Is
12/31/1966 #2

Besides being one of the most gorgeous soul records ever made, this is also one of the most daring, stretching the boundaries of its form while never quite breaking them. It is, in basic structure, a straightforward New Orleans blues, but writer/producer Allan Toussaint fiddles with that structure in a way that guarantees the record never becomes predictable. With Neville stretching the beat in one direction, and the horns stretching it in another, while Toussaint himself, on piano, keeps the pulse, the song floats with an eerie grace that matches the free-floating, back and forth qualities of the lyric. The teetering balance between injured pride, self-doubt, and unquenchable desire that results makes this one of the truest and emotionally complicated songs of the era.

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Winchester Cathedral
11/12/66 #1

There was a lot of pseudo-vaudeville and music hall going on in the mid-sixties. Like the nostalgia for the 60s and 70s today, artists of all persuasions, from Dorothy Provine to Country Joe MacDonald, from Thoroughly Modern Millie to Bonnie and Clyde, latched onto the 20s and 30s as a launching point, either for their entertainment careers, or for their art. No one went quite as whole hog as the British, though. It's hard to think of a rock band from the period who didn't do some music hall turn at some point in the period. Some, like the Kinks and the Rolling Stones, modernized the sounds and used it as social comment. Some, like the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, played it for laughs; some, like Paul McCartney, out of nostalgia mixed with a true love of the music. And some, of course, like Herman's Hermits or the New Vaudeville Band, did it to make money. Just like the Hermits, the New Vaudeville Band didn't actually exist—the record was the creation of songwriter Geoff Stephens, who also co-wrote The Hermits' “There's a Kind of Hush”, Tom Jones' “Daughter of Darkness”, and David Soul's “Silver Lady”, among others. There's nothing wrong with wanting to make money, but at the same time, it is almost impossible to express how hateful this record is. It reminds me of the worst of the alternative lounge music of the 90s (anybody here remember Combustible Edison?): smug, self-satisfied, superior, snobbish and condescending, with a nod and a wink to those in the audience who “get” the joke, and an implied kick in the balls to those who don't. It sold in the millions to those of a generation who took it as a sign that those young folks were finally catching on to good music, even though its pristine, sanitized, inhuman production easily marks it as an insult to the very musical values it seemed to be emulating. The New Vaudeville Band wasn't praising the music of the older generation, it was burying it.

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time won't let me
4/16/66 #5

I loved this record when I was 9 years old (my uncle had a copy and I remember playing it over and over again when I was at his house), and since I’m plagued by the belief that pop records are at their best when they're fast and catchy, I still do. This is machine tooled pop rock at it’s best, music that brings a rush of pleasure to the ear without once threatening to have any effect whatsoever on your emotions or your intellect. The only thing to hold against it is the horn arrangement, which may have provided inspiration for Blood Sweat and Tears.

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barefootin'
6/11/66 #8

Most dance songs are about drive and energy, pushing you along, forcing you into the groove. Others are more subtle, creating a pleasant, almost subliminal but equally irresistable flow that will have you moving your feet and swaying your hips before you’re even aware of it. That's what this record does. It’s like ambient or trance encased within a traditional pop structure. Like many records of the time (especially those from New Orleans), the vibe is all about togetherness, both an open invitation to join the party and the party itself. Who in their right mind would refuse?

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Lady Godiva
11/26/66 #6

Contrary to appearances, this is not a piece of modernized music hall—this is some slick pop maestro's idea of what modernized music hall should be. Not quite as self-superior in tone as the New Vaudeville Band, this is more in the smug school of “See, we can sing stuff that's beneath us and still enjoy it—ain't we silly?” With it's leering tone and smarmy sound it's about one step up from a Benny Hill routine, only posh, with all the rough edges removed, like a shampoo commercial.

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Land of 1,000 Dances
9/3/66 #6

Having gone over the top with the Lovin’ Spoonful, let me engage in a little historical hyperbole with this record, which, for me, sums up a lot of what was best about the spirit, and the reality, of the sixties. It’s a dance song (duh), and a simpleminded one at that. Wicked does nothing more than ask if you know how to do a bunch of popular dances, and then goes “Nah, na na na-na” over and over while you show off your moves. That’s it. But, like most of the great dance songs of the period, this record is an open invitation. America itself is the “Land of a 1000 Dances”, and, just to make sure everyone joins in, Pickett doesn’t waste his time with lyrics, and he makes the melody so catchy it’s impossible not to sing along. With Booker T and the MGs, the greatest multiracial band of the time, backing him up (Al Jackson’s drumming, in particular, is almost uncanny in both its spirit and precision) this is as utopian as the most overwrought “let’s all get together and love each other because all men are brothers” songs of the time—only far more effective, with a much greater sense of practical reality, and a lot more fun.

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I'm Your Puppet
11/12/66 #6

A soul masterpiece light and dreamy, that drifts gently into your consciousness without you even noticing, and once it's there never lets go. The loping waltz-time rhythm is subtly reminiscent of sideshow and carnival music, an effect the celeste accentuates. No hard sell, though, just a guy dancing, as if on a cloud, to his baby's every whim. Never did emotional slavery sound so appealing. Brought to you by the same Muscles Shoals session men who had elevated Percy Sledge to heaven a few months earlier, and who, this time around, borrowed a few tricks from Bob Dylan.

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96 Tears
9/24/66 #1

You could argue forever about the fascination some people have with 60s garage rock, but a hook is a hook, no matter how stupid or basic it is, and this has a great one. It also has really stupid lyrics and a bridge that may be even stupider than all the rest of the song put together. All that stupidity makes up for the meanness of the lyrics, though—these guys aren’t going to drive any girl to tears. Plus, the greatest two-finger organ solo in the history of rock and roll.

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kicks
4/16/66 #4

Before there were Monkees there were Raiders, the only difference being that at first the Raiders played their own instruments and then let the session men take over, while The Monkees started with session men and then took over themselves (the Raiders were better off for the change, The Monkees worse). Either way, they were both essentially cartoons, and they both got their best songs from Brill Building songwriters, in this case Mann and Weil, who had originally offered this to The Righteous Brothers. I assume they also offered it to The Animals, who had recorded their “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”, but The Animals, from the midst of their purple haze, would just have laughed it off. To put out an anti-drug song in 1966 was distinctly old-fashioned (not to mention cartoonish) and suggested a sell-out. But with the song and the arrangement providing such a kick, who cares? And who needs drugs?

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Hungry
7/16/66 #6

There are, I suppose, many reasons to like this song: it’s catchy, it’s loud and fast, and at times it’s almost clever. But I don’t like this song, and I like it less every time I hear it, and for one important reason: this is heavy metal before it knew its name. And by heavy metal I don’t mean loud and fast (or loud and turgid), I mean stupid, sexist, obnoxious, ignorant, and overwrought. Unlike, say, “Wild Thing”, “Hungry” isn’t about lust, or even sex—it’s about power and control. It’s ugly, and not in a good way.

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Good Thing
12/31/1966 #4

A test: During the verses of this record (not the choruses, where guest vocalists the Beach Boys take over), close your eyes, and try to imagine that it isn’t Mark Lindsay singing, but Lou Reed. Not as hard as you thought it would be, is it? With Reed in mind, and before the Beach Boys show up, it’s almost impossible not to hear this as a Velvet Underground record. I’m not suggesting the Velvets (who had already recorded their first album by the time this came out) were influenced by the Raiders, but I am suggesting the Raiders may have been influenced by the VU. I can’t quite picture Revere or Lindsay at the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, but I can see their producer/Svengali Terry Melcher there. If he ever mentioned them as an influence, I bet no one believed him. I’m not sure I believe it. But for those who imagine what it might have been like if the Velvets had hit pop radio, this is probably as close as you’ll ever get.

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Ebb Tide
12/25/65 #5

Songs like “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” don’t grow on trees, so when Phil Spector was looking for something suitably melodramatic for a follow-up, he fell back on the operatically orchestrated hits that ruled the radio during his childhood: first “Unchained Melody,” and then this, which had been a big hit for Frank Chacksfield back in 1953. The arrangement is impressive—Spector holds onto the tension and holds off the melodrama until the very end—but Bobby Hatfield sounds a little lost in the onrushing tide and a little shaky holding those long notes. As pretty as his voice is, he obviously prefers belting, and he doesn’t get a chance to do that until the very end. Besides, not even the most expert arrangement and production could hide the fact that “Ebb Tide” is an overwhelming ocean of sentimental slop.

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(You're my) soul and inspiration
3/25/66 #1

According to Ken Emerson’s Always Magic In the Air, this was originally written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil as the follow-up to the first hit they wrote for The Righteous Brothers, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’”. Surprisingly enough, the song was rejected by producer Phil Spector, who, out of jealousy, didn’t like writers to become too closely attached to or identified with particular artists. The Righteous Brothers knew a hit when they heard one, though, and when they split with Spector late in ’65, they immediately recorded this in a style as close to the Tycoon of Teen’s as possible, giving themselves their second, and last, number one record (they could easily have had more: Mann and Weil offered them “We’ve Got To Get Out of This Place” and “Kicks”, but for some reason they rejected both—not stately enough for them, most likely). Because it’s Bill Medley trying to copy Spector, rather than Spector merely repeating himself, the production seems fresher than most sound-alike follow-ups, and though it lacks the operatic impact of “Lovin’ Feelin’”, it’s also warmer and more human. It’s still just a grandiose hunk of schmaltz, mind you, but it’s a lot better than most.

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secret agent man
4/9/66 #3

Johnny Rivers is one of those guys I’ve always felt ambivalent about. He obviously knew what he was doing—he was particularly gifted as an arranger, and as a cover artist he was one of the best, knowing exactly what every song needed and how best to adapt it for his own voice (Dylan says that Rivers' version of “Positively 4th Street” is one of his favorite covers of his songs). The problem for me, though, is the voice. There was always something stiff and studied about it, a rich baritone that, though not without subtlety, lacked flexibility, and that always made it sound as if he were slumming a little when he sang rock and roll (even though he obviously loved it). And it’s possible that his arrangements were too studied, too perfect: even on a rousing rock and roller like this one, he never quite cuts loose the way you think he should. All that being said, I also have to admit that “Secret Agent Man” is pretty great. Like all of Rivers’ records, it’s something of a throwback to an earlier time (though just a few years earlier), with a built-in nostalgia factor, a perfect mix of surf rock and Henry Mancini-ish Peter Gunn-like soundtrack music, with Rivers’ vocal providing just the right amount of menace. It’s also gritty enough that no one would take it for just another James Bond rip-off. Another perfect trifle—there seem to have been a lot of those in ’66.

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Poor Side of Town
10/22/66 #1

Pure show business, and Rivers' biggest hit. He even borrows an idea from Ray Conniff, giving the audience an essentially wordless chorus to hum along to at the beginning. But the bitterness of the first verse is a big step away from Conniff, as is the Motown influenced vocal phrasing and the country western guitar that ends each chorus. It turns into cliché by the end, and the rising string and choral arrangement in the bridge is overkill, but that first verse still stings, so even the clichés sound like they might be truly felt, not just stuck in. Not a masterpiece, but not just a shameless cash-in, either—just Johnny Rivers doing his best, as always.

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Sweet Pea
7/23/66 #8

Tommy Roe started as a Buddy Holly clone back in the early sixties, and then, in an irregular series of hits throughout the decade (culminating in the unbearable number one “Dizzy” in 1969), slowly turned himself into a one man version of the Archies. “Sweet Pea” is cartoon pop before such a thing technically existed. You can admire the man’s dedication to musical simplicity if you want, but did he have to sound like a simpleton as well?

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Hooray For Hazel
10/29/66 #6

Less irritating than “Sweet Pea”, for sure, even ironic, and you can really hear the Buddy Holly influence in Roe's vocals, but everything I said about “Sweet Pea” still applies. This is children's music, only with lyrics that no child would ever sing. Did Roe think of this, I wonder, as a modernized version of Holly's musical simplicity and sometimes dark romantic moods? Holly was never this simple, though; he was far more subtle, and far nastier than most people realize. Roe's just happy to see Hazel crying; Holly would have made her cry himself, and enjoyed it, too.

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as tears go by
1/15/66 #6

This had already been a hit for Marianne Faithfull, and in the UK it was relegated to the b-side of “19th Nervous Breakdown”, but London Records, which chopped up the Stones’s records as mercilessly as Capitol did The Beatles’s, obviously thought they had another “Yesterday” here (acoustic guitars, strings, mournful lyrics, it was a natural), and pulled it for an A-side. “Yesterday” it wasn’t, but it is a striking contrast with most of their singles at the time. Jagger sounds almost sincere, and the string arrangement has odd slippery moments that keep it from turning into so much background sludge. The Stones would cover this same ground with much greater subtlety and skill later on, both musically (“Lady Jane”, “Ruby Tuesday”) and thematically (“Paint It Black”), but this is a great warm up.

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19th Nervous Breakdown
3/12/66 #2

John Lennon used to accuse the Stones of always following in the Beatles’ wake, but here they borrow from Bob Dylan, producing what could be considered a follow-up to “Positively Fourth Street” transferred to upper-class British society. Just like Dylan, the Stones address the song directly to the listener—”You’re the kind of person you meet at certain dismal, dull affairs”—and go on from there. The big difference, and the thing that makes this song nastier than Dylan’s, is that Dylan’s victim has done something to earn the singer’s wrath, while the woman the Stones attack is singled out for nothing more than being an emotional mess. She hasn’t done anything in particular to irritate them, they’re just fed up with her (she hasn’t really had 19 nervous breakdowns, it just feels that way—you can almost see Jagger rolling his eyes as he says it). That the song is musically and lyrically brilliant only makes the attack that much more effective and seem that much meaner. And it goes on forever, as if they were getting such pleasure out of taking the poor girl apart that they couldn’t find a way to stop. Misogyny disguised as social protest (there would be no point in attacking the woman like this if she wasn’t rich) is an age-old British tradition, but nobody did it better than the Stones. Whether they meant it or not is still open to question, but after 40 years they still sound dangerous, which is quite an achievement.

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Paint it black
5/28/66 #1

Years ago, I heard a fundamentalist preacher attack this song for its supposed Satanism. Reading the lyrics, you’d never know what he was taking about—it’s a song about a man whose lover has died, nothing more than that. But chances are that preacher didn’t even know what the lyrics were—he was going by the sound of the record, and on that score he may well have been right. Brian Jones’ sitar and Charlie Watts’ drums do sound demonic, almost as if possessed. Jagger may have been trying a little too hard to be a modern day Baudelaire, but, combined with the music, the lyric’s insistent absorption in a grief taken to its illogical extreme generates a sense of nihilism so intense that it could easily be seen as satanic. A loving God wouldn’t want to see the sun blotted out of the sky, after all. What the Stones were presenting, of course, was a world without God or Satan, but full of chaos and evil. That they would do such a thing in the summer of ’66, when the peace and love vibe was just taking off, is a sign of either how far ahead, or how far behind, the times they were. Within a year they would adopt the peace and love message themselves, and then drop it just as quickly. Darkness would prevail, just as this song suggests.

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Mother's Little Helper
7/30/66 #8

More straightforward and less dense than its predecessors, this was never a single in England. Instead, it was the lead track on the UK version of Aftermath, setting the perfect tone for an album that was, at turns, sharp, satirical, misogynistic, self-superior, and just a little hypocritical. The problem with Mom, you see, isn’t that she takes drugs, but that she takes them for all the wrong reasons—that is, in order to get through her stress-filled, boring life rather than for sheer ecstatic pleasure (unlike The Stones, whose interest in drugs was, needless to say, purely aesthetic). Her other problem—and it’s here that the song is most indefensible—is that, unlike most of the Stones’ satirical targets, she isn’t a member of the privileged classes—with her domestic frustrations and frozen steaks she’s recognizably middle-class. If the song wasn’t so catchy and funny and perfectly detailed, it would be hateful in its lack of sympathy and self-righteousness. But satire without bite is nothing at all, and this song bites hard.

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Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In the Shadow?
10/29/66 #9

A mess of a record, and the first big misstep of the Stones' career (there would be several more over the next year). The subject would appear to be the same woman, or someone very similar, who appeared in “19th Nervous Breakdown”. Only now she's offered a choice (how generous of them): the big wide world or a life of decline. The offer may very well be ironic, since the song suggests that the world is made up of nothing but confusion, dark secrets, and chaos. I suspect “Shadow” is intended as a metaphor for the choices facing English society as a whole in the mid-sixties, but that's just conjecture, since the arrangement and the mix are such cluttered disasters it's impossible to know what message the Stones were trying to convey, if any. I also suspect they wrote this song before they tried acid and recorded it after, but that's just a guess. Having compounded everyone's confusion by dressing in drag for the picture sleeve, the Stones salvaged their career by rush-releasing “Ruby Tuesday”/”Let's Spend the Night Together” a few months later. Then, of course, things got really bad.

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Snoopy vs. The Red Baron
12/24/66 #2

I confess, when I was 10 years old I thought this record was hilarious, and the next year, when I was 11, “Snoopy’s Christmas” was the first record I ever bought with my own money. I still find it pleasantly silly, and charming in its incompetence. It may be a cash-in, but it’s a loving one. Best joke: when the big dogfight starts, the record turns into “Louie Louie”— still one of the few pieces of fratboy humor I find funny.

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What Becomes of the Brokenhearted
10/15/66 #7

Although this is the grandest and most sophisticated of all the Motown ballads, it feels like a step backwards. Unlike the Supremes and the Four Tops, who countered their sentiment with up-to-date rhythmic force, this comes from straight ballad country. It could almost be an Eddie Arnold record—though the main inspiration probably comes from Jerry Butler. Since Butler’s big ballad period had been over for a couple of years by 1966, though, that still makes it sound dated. All of which probably explains why Ruffin didn’t have any other major hits. This is a great record, but it doesn’t point in any new directions, or promise anything other than more of the same—which means, of course, less of the same.

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jenny take a ride
1/29/66 #10

There were a lot of white guys trying to master R&B in the mid-sixties, but few of them were as good as Mitch Ryder. He wasn’t much of a singer, but what he lacked in soul or vocal force he made up in choice of material and sheer velocity. This is an incredibly canny record: perhaps sensing that he could never pull off a straight R&B cover, Ryder turns it into a kind of mini-R&B review, changing pace, and upping the tempo, before the audience gets bored or begins to spot his inadequacies. Live, this could go on for hours (and probably did), and you’d never get bored. On record, at just over three minutes, it’s a mad, exhilarating rush. And before the year was out, he’d do it again, and even better.

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Devil With A Blue Dress On and Good Golly Miss Molly
11/12/66 #4

The rule is that sound-alike follow-ups are never as good, and often far worse, than the original. The only notable exceptions tend to come from Motown. That is, Motown the record company. But perhaps also Motown the city, because this is another of those exceptions. Having already scored with the concept of the relentless R&B medley on “Jenny Take A Ride”, the only question one can have is why it took Ryder so long to follow up on the idea. He could have issued an entire album of the stuff and sold it as a high-priced single and kids would have lapped it up. Instead, the Detroit Wheels released three progressively less interesting, and slower, 45s after “Jenny”, each selling worse than the one that preceded it, before they decided to pull the trick again. Using Little Richard as their pattern of R&B craziness once more (is there any other?), they took everything they'd learned in the intervening ten months and came up with a record that was even better—more propulsive, more explosive, more daring—than “Jenny Take A Ride”. Mixing two classic 50s numbers was playing it safe compared to mixing one of Little Richard's signature songs with a virtually unheard of Motown single that was barely two years old. Not that song choice matters much when your main interest in both is that they sound great at 200 mph. They stop on a dime, too, which only makes them seem faster.

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the ballad of the green berets
2/19/66 #1

Could this, the biggest selling single of 1966, be the first punk record? The question is only half facetious. Since the difference between punk and, say, Reaganism was always one of politics, not philosophy, there’s no reason that this piece of rough, homemade, artless DIY patriotism couldn’t be a punk anthem, at least if it was a little faster and louder. It’s no more naïve than some of the early punk records, and it may be a little more realistic. Put him on the other side of the political spectrum, and Sadler could be Henry Rollins. Give him a sense of humor and he could be Ted Nugent. Certainly he lived the life, and if sincerity were all he would be a hero. After his stint in the army was up, Sadler wrote (or had written for him) a series of bizarre pulp novels under the general title Casca: the Eternal Mercenary, and may have done some mercenary work himself. By 1988 he was living in Guatemala, reportedly training and arming the Contras. There, in what may have been a robbery or an act of random violence, but could very well have been a planned hit, he was shot in the head while riding home in a cab. The editor of Soldier of Fortune magazine arranged for him to be transported to a VA hospital in Nashville; he died 14 months later at his mother’s home in Murfreesboro. None of this backstory, of course, makes the record any better. Because sincerity isn’t all—in fact, it may not be much of anything.

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The Pied Piper
7/23/1966 #4

The blindingly hip leading the blind, or something like that. Since the British had a tendency to write numerous songs about cheerful, smiling drug dealers, though (The Small Faces’ “Here Comes the Nice” being the best example), it could be even worse. There’s something oddly offensive about this song’s bland, insistant optimism. The real children of Hamelin, after all, either died or disappeared (no one knows for sure). Any such ironies are too obviously lost on the songwriters and St. Peters himself. Never trust anyone who tells you to free your mind; chances are he wants to chain it to his.

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Lil' Red Riding Hood
7/16/66 #2

It’s rare to find a comic song that stands up to more than two or three listens, but this almost perfect record is one of them. It actually gets funnier the more you listen to it. The song itself isn’t much, but Sam’s delivery is flawless: he starts out boastful and super cool, and ends up barely able to control himself. You know from the very beginning that Little Red Riding Hood is in complete control, and the Big Bad Wolf doesn’t stand a chance. Her sexual power, and, paradoxically, her innocence, overwhelm him. It could almost be an anthem for sex positive feminism.

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Guantanamera
9/10/66 #9

The second Pete Seeger adaptation to make the top ten in 1966, though this is no “Turn! Turn! Turn!”. Having removed any political suggestiveness from Seeger’s translation of Jose Marti’s original poem, The Sandpipers turned this lovely song into the worst sort of folky muzak, unwittingly providing a glimpse of just where the pop-folk movement that Seeger and the Weavers started would have found itself if it hadn’t been for people like Dylan and other Village folksters. The Sandpipers followed this up, believe it or not, with a version of “Louie Louie” (The Beatles’ “Things We Said Today” was the flip). No, I haven’t heard it. I don’t even like to think about it.

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gloria
5/7/66 #10

The story goes that this inferior remake of Them’s classic single was on the charts at the same time as the original but was a bigger hit because it received more airplay in the larger east coast markets. That may have been the way it seemed at the time, but it’s nonsense. Them’s original version was released almost a full year before this and barely made it into the Hot 100 (it reentered the charts and did a little better after this became a hit). The real reason was more basic and more to the point of getting airplay at the time: The Shadows cleaned up the lyrics. Instead of Gloria coming to the singer’s room and doing God knows what to make him feel so good, she just calls out his name from the front door. The fact that the singer doesn’t sound half as aroused as Van Morrison did probably made it easier for radio programmers to digest, as well. I’ll bet they knew Them’s version was the better record—but it was so obviously salacious that most of them didn’t dare play it. So instead of a masterpiece, people got to hear this paint by numbers version instead. But it’s such a great song they still bought it.

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the sounds of silence
12/25/65 #1

These guys have a lot to answer for. Ostensibly a song of protest, this is, in reality, not only sophomoric (Human Society 101, to be exact), but elitist, cynical, and defeatist. Meaningless, too, because when you're young you can pull those attitudes on and off like t-shirts (sometimes they are t-shirts). Is it pretty? You bet it is, and that's the problem. It makes revolution sound easy, melancholy defeatism look attractive, and elitism seem like a kind of higher philosophy, where being above it all—which, a couple of years later, would take the form of being out of it completely—becomes a kind of Zen. Put it all together and you have what used to be called decadence. You also have the early 70s, by which time Simon had dumped Garfunkel and was pursuing ideas somewhat more engaged with what passes for real life. I know this wasn't all Simon and Garfunkel's fault (the backing track was added without their knowledge after the original acoustic version had stiffed), but I still haven't forgiven them.

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homeward bound
3/12/66 #5

A surprisingly low-key follow-up to the strident “The Sounds of Silence”, though it does contain an echo of the previous hit in the meaningless line about “emptiness in harmony” (which, come to think of it, could almost be a description of Art Garfunkel). It’s a pleasant trifle, though the ornate arrangement tries to make far more out of it than it is (the unadorned live version on S&G’s first greatest hits album is much better). Most likely this was issued to fill a gap in airplay while they worked on their next album. The stridency and self-importance would return, in spades, on their next single.

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i am a rock
5/28/66 #3

Just to be fair, I have always held in my mind the possibility that this song, with its grandious self-pity and bombastic arrangement, is a bit of a joke. Paul Simon has his self-deprecating side, after all, and is capable of some fairly cynical bouts of humor at his own expense (the Caribbean guitar at the end of each chorus certainly suggests he saw something to laugh at in this song). With Art Garfunkel encouraging his worst instincts, however, I’m afraid this has to be taken at face value, a horrendous hunk of pretentious self-pity. But, college-camp monstrosity that it is, the song does provide an opening to much of the rest of Simon’s music, which has often been tinged with this dark, isolated viewpoint (“All Around the World, or The Myth of Fingerprints” on Graceland, is one example). That, in fact, has probably been the secret of Simon’s popularity: depressive, goth-like sentiments attached to impossibly beautiful, optimistic melodies. Back in 1965, however, when he wrote this song, he was still figuring things out, and probably putting more thought into the idea than it deserved (something that he still does on occasion). Hence this heavy-handed nonsense.

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Strangers in the night
5/28/66 #1

It’s hard not to wonder how seriously Sinatra took this song. He sings it perfectly, of course, but he doesn’t put much feeling into it, and the jokey doobie doos at the end suggest that he didn’t think much of it. Sinatra had been coasting musically for a good five or six years when this record suddenly became a hit (his first top ten since 1958), and though he may have been thinking of a comeback, there’s no reason to think he put any more effort into this than anything else. Yet it went straight to number one, and started off Sinatra’s biggest year for hits since the early fifties. It’s one of those classic pieces of generic pop, a record with nothing to say but with a melody that clicks into place the minute you hear it. You almost feel guilty for taking pleasure in it, but the pleasure is there nonetheless.

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That's Life
12/10/1966 #4

Having made number one with a watered down version of his old style, Sinatra gamely modernizes himself by trying to become Ray Charles. Not that he ever for one moment stops being Sinatra, he just toughens himself up a bit, and tries his best to sound like he’s at least once stepped into a black church, though chances are it was only in a movie. The problem is that whenever Sinatra raised his voice he tended to bellow, and when he reaches the high points here he could be leading a football cheer, or maybe working as a motivational speaker. He might well motivate you, but he wouldn’t for a second convince you that he had even an ounce of soul. For that, check out Only The Lonely, from back in the days when Sinatra really knew how to express his pain, and didn’t feel the need to shout from the rooftops to get it out.

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these boots are made for walkin'
2/29/66 #1

Tom, over at Popular, thinks this is a pop masterpiece. Me, I think it’s a camp masterpiece, which doesn’t necessarily mean I think less of it, just differently. For what it is, it’s perfectly designed and executed (even Nancy’s flat voice adds to the overall effect), an intriguing layering of facades that add up to a kind of amusement park theme ride about sassy country girls. It really wasn’t anything new, though; this particular kind of attitude had been heard on country and blues records for years—Lee Hazlewood and Billy Strange simply adapted and streamlined it for the isolated and easily awed pop audience. What makes it camp is the fact that from the very first moment not a bit of it can be perceived as anything but a performance, you don’t believe a minute of it. Great pop records make you forget the idea of performance—they make you believe. Great camp records make you love the performance as a performance, not believing it but still loving it is part of its charm. I personally think that pop is closer to true art than camp, but that may be more a matter of taste than anything else. And it doesn’t change the fact that this is a great record.

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how does that grab you darlin'
5/14/66 #7

This is about as perfect an example as you’ll ever hear of that old pop standby, the sound-alike follow-up. Unfortunately, it’s also a perfect example of how quickly the law of diminishing returns can take effect. Lacking any real vocal talent, Nancy must have known she’d have a short career, but this sounds as if she expected it to last about three months and needed to cash in fast.

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Sugar Town
12/17/66 #5

If “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” is a camp masterpiece, this is a true pop masterpiece, perfectly suited to Sinatra’s voice and personality. As a paean to irresponsibility it’s almost as great as the Spoonful’s “Daydream”, with a suggestion of country “if you bother me I’ll kick your ass” attitude. Is it about LSD? I wouldn’t put it past writer/producer/all-around-odd-guy Lee Hazlewood, though I’m not sure that Nancy knew. I wonder if Frank did.

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when a man loves a woman
5/14/66 #1

Having found his hook on the very first line, Sledge drives it home over and over again, like a mantra, while an organ drones hypnotically in the background. Then, with the horn crescendo at the end, he tops it all. This is probably the purest piece of soul music ever to make it into the top ten, straight out of church and the bedroom and miles beyond both. It’s miles beyond anything else Sledge ever did, as well, one of those miracle recordings where everything comes together in a way it never will again. We’re just lucky someone got it down on tape.

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You Don't Have To Say You Love Me
6/25/66 #4

The use and misuse of bombast is always a problem in pop music, and this record is as bombastic as they come. What sets this apart, though, and what makes many people write it off, isn’t bombast so much as instrumentation. There are plenty of rock songs I could name that are more over the top than this, but they get a pass because the melodrama is supplied by guitars instead of a full orchestra. Springfield herself turned away from this style on Dusty in Memphis, an album almost as full of melodrama, though more subtly played. Lack of subtlety, in fact, is probably the main problem people have with this record. That’s beside the point, though, since Springfield obviously loved this song, unsubtle melodrama and all. The melody is gorgeous, and from the first note she grabs hold and never let’s go, which is the only way to approach it. This is a song about passion and desperation after all; subtler romantic notions don’t enter into it.

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flowers on the wall
1/8/66 #4

Though country was enjoying an explosion of talent and invention as great as that of rock and roll in the mid-60s, the only way a country artist could reach the upper levels of the pop charts was as a comedian, and even then, you either had to be Roger Miller or blatantly rip him off if you expected to succeed. This imitation “King of the Road” is less subtle than Miller, both lyrically and musically, more intentionally comic, but it does get the job done. The fact that the pop audience probably considered the banjos and traditional country harmony part of the joke sours it a bit, though. Instead of being a song about a drunken but lovable, possibly heartbroken loser, they probably thought the guy was just crazy.

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Summertime
8/27/1966 #10

What is there to say about this ridiculous piece of verbal gymnastics? It’s entertaining, but it has about as much relation to Gershwin’s original as, well, as a lot of other versions of “Summertime” that had been released over the previous thirty-odd years. By 1966, so many people had had a go at this song, from Billie Holiday to Ricky Nelson, that, like many standards, it had become essentially meaningless. So why not play with it? Of course, familiarity has a lot to do with why this record was so popular--a few months later Stewart would try the same trick with the more obscure “Secret Love” (the original was one of Doris Day’s best records), and get nowhere near the top ten. As for “Summertime”, in 1968 Janis Joplin would restore it to something near it’s original glory, and, thank God, that’s the version most people remember.

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my world is empty without you
2/12/66 #5

Oddly enough, despite its tempo and its overall brilliance, this record may have been a little too subdued for its time (it was kept out of the number one spot by Stevie Wonder’s more straightforward “Uptight” and a batch of what were essentially novelty records). It may also have been a little too much of a down. The repetitiousness of the bass line, and the bass sax solo, may have driven the vision of a life robbed of meaning a little too hard for many listeners. And though there was always a tinge of sadness and loss in Diana Ross’s voice, here it's been emphasized a bit too much. This was the pre-dawn of feminism, after all, and the tough gal antics of “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” held more appeal than the without-a-man-I’m-lost theme of this song. None of which, of course, means that it isn’t a great record.

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love is like an itching in my heart
5/21/66 #9

Perhaps what is most amazing, and appealing, about the Supremes’ records is the combination of lush romanticism with overpowering rhythmic drive. This record was obviously intended, in some part, to cash in on the success of Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight” a few months earlier, with its raw, driving rhythm track, yet it also echoes the more sophisticated pleasures of earlier Supremes records like ‘Baby Love”. A large part of that effect can be credited to Diana Ross, who always sounds completely in control no matter what the tempo, but who always lets you know exactly what sort of passions are burning inside of her (it isn’t just her heart that’s itching, that's for sure). Sophisticated lust at a level far higher than Barry White or Mariah Carey could or ever will achieve, and a lot catchier, too.

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You Can't Hurry Love
8/27/1966 #1

This song strikes me as the culmination of everything Motown had been doing over the previous year, the slow amalgamation of the deep romanticism of mid-1965 with the more rhythmically driven records of the first six months of 1966. With white guys like Mitch Ryder or The Animals having caught on to the secret of creating hard driving R&B, Motown upped the ante, maintaining their pop romanticism but adding an emotional rawness borrowed from the church and deep soul. Starting with The Miracles “Going to A Go Go“, Motown generated a percussive energy that was like nothing anyone had ever heard, mixing it with lyrics of love and yearning that were searing in their passion and intensity. Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight”, The Four Tops “Reach Out I’ll Be There”, The Temptations “Ain’t To Proud to Beg”, Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” (not released until 1968 but recorded in late ‘65), and The Supremes' “You Can’t Hurry Love” and “You Keep Me Hanging On” marked the highpoint of Motown’s creativity and influence (or, as some might claim, the highpoints of a downhill slide that had begun in ‘65). What allowed the Supremes to take advantage of this new rhythmic emphasis, of course, was Diana Ross, whose voice conveyed a sense of deep romantic longing and loss no matter what the tempo, floating like a sorrowful angel over the heaviest background. As Camille Paglia has pointed out, there was also a distinct, androgynous quality to Ross’ voice, a tomboyish burr that could have come from either a woman or a man, added to her appeal to both, and helped turn her into a gay icon. Here, in front of one the most copied and influential rhythm tracks of all time, she delivers a basically upbeat lyric tinged with despair and disappointment. At the same time, there’s a kind of Andy Hardyish, on with the show quality to the song that ties it, even in it’s modern experimentation, with ancient (that is, hundred year old) show biz and pop song traditions. With it’s lack of gender identifiers, it was a song both women and men could happily sing along with (and cover, repeatedly, over the years). Is there any way it couldn’t have been a hit?

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You Keep Me Hangin' On
11/12/66 #1

Though the name change wouldn't be official for another year, this record is arguably the point at which “The Supremes” became “Diana Ross and the Supremes”. Stylistically, the songwriting and arrangement aren't much different from what they'd done before, but there's something about the way Ross' voice is recorded, the way her vocal stands out, that separates this from the earlier records. Ross had always been the star, of course, but this is the first Supremes record that sounds as if it were designed, at least in part, to emphasize that fact. Their next single, “Love Is Here and Now You're Gone”, would unmistakably drive the point home, but this strikes me as the first real step in that direction. This may also be Motown's first, baby step into psychedelia. The Morse Code guitar (which pans from speaker to speaker in the stereo mix) and the odd, cantering percussion track, while never losing hold of their R&B roots, are undeniably influenced by the rapid experimentation going on around them. Put those two things together, and you have the first step in Motown's slow and steady decline. None of which, however, is any reason not to consider this a great record.

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Little Girl
7/9/1966 #8

For all its apparent simplicity, this piece of Bo Diddley-wannabe white trash mish mash is something of a conundrum, which can only be straightened out by answering a very basic, but probably insolvable riddle. That is, did these guys really know what they were saying? The music and vocals are all brag and superiority, but the lyrics tell a completely different story. Bo Diddley bragged about all the women he conquered; these guys, on the other hand, brag about all the women who have dumped them. “Other girls did it, you didn't think of nothing new/you went out on me, so other girls did it too.” They're trying to convince this girl that they don’t care, and they seem to mean it, but every word that comes out of their mouths makes them sound more and more like losers. If the band wasn’t aware of the ironies involved, then they’re losers, too. If they were, that would make this incredibly silly record a, um, conscious work of art. That can’t be, can it?

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No Matter What Shape (your stomach's in)
1/13/66 #3

Although it’s been fairly common in England, it isn’t often that the soundtrack for a TV commercial makes the charts in the US (there was Bob Crewe’s Pepsi commercial, and The New Seekers’s Coca-Cola commercial, and Sonny and Cher’s Budweiser commercial, but I can’t think of any others). This one, for Alka-Seltzer, is like softened up Booker T and the MGs. It may have worked for a commercial, but as a full length single it definitely sounds as if something’s missing—a vocal, a solo, a narration, anything. With its ethereal background harmonies and chimes, though, it’s also oddly ornate (it was arranged by Perry Botkin, Jr., who did a lot of Phil Spector’s records). Strictly a studio group, of course, though just like The Champs of “Tequila” fame, which at various times included Glen Campbell and Seals and Crofts, The T-Bones hid yet another top ten group within its folds: Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds. So think of this, if you want, as a harbinger of even worse things to come.

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Beauty Is Only Skin Deep
9/24/66 #3

This lacks the depth of a lot of Norman Whitfield’s Temptations records—not that he ever got that deep, but even compared to records of the time like “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg” or “(I Know) I’m Losing You”, this is pure fluff—and he doesn’t do a very good job of covering up his steals from others—the intro sounds so much like The Impressions that when I think about this song I tend to get it mixed up in my head with “The Woman’s Got Soul”. The message is sweet, but it’s also a trite cliché, and nothing in the singing or arrangement brings it back to life or makes me believe they mean it. The record is so odd, though, in the way it mixes moods and effects (the celeste on the verses, the horn fanfares on the choruses), that compared to other R&B records of the time, even Motown’s, it sounds like something entirely new. Considering how lyrical it is in spots, the production is surprisingly rough, with all the jagged edges that Motown usually smoothed over left intact. But even though it sounds fresh, it still doesn’t add up to much.

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(I Know) I'm Losing You
12/24/66 #8

When the signature guitar riff meets the massed horns on the intro, the result is one of the most amazing sounds anyone has ever put on record, an earthquake and a thunderstorm exploding in your brain at once. This isn’t a song so much as a series of intense, rhythmically connected emotional outbursts, and in just about anyone else’s hands (except maybe Rod Stewart’s, whose version is arguably the greatest Motown cover ever—though he had to make his twice as long to get the point across) it would probably have been a disaster. But the Funk Brothers were up to anything, and Norman Whitfield’s production, which matches the instrumental texture perfectly with David Ruffin’s impassioned vocal, makes the record one deep howl of pain. Turning the solo bridge over to the horn section was a particular masterstroke. If there’s a shred of reserve left in the song by then, they tear it to pieces.

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i'm so lonesome i could cry
1/13/66 #8

This odd, funereal version of the old Hank Williams song was originally released in 1964, when it must have sounded distinctly out of place compared to everything else on the charts. Two years later, in the midst of the optimism and energy of 1966, it sounds even more out of place—the song was already sad, but this version is positively morbid. Yet there’s an ecstatic quality to the way Thomas embraces the idea of romantic desolation, his voice matching the fanfare of the horns in a sensual ascension to the heights of despair, and it was this almost spiritual sensuality, I imagine, that really sold the record. Thomas makes loneliness sound like a religious calling. It’s a wonder he didn’t become a goth (though he did become a Christian singer, which isn’t as different as you might think).

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Wild Thing
7/9/1966 #1

What is most amazing about this record (such an oldies staple that I’m not going to waste my time or yours describing it), is how lascivious it still sounds, forty years on. The reason for its outlandish success is obvious: it’s a perfect encapsulation of lust. It could almost serve as a source document for studies in evolutionary psychology: The Lizard Brain Speaks. No wonder they named themselves after troglodytes. (Almost unbelievably appropriate trivia: the writer of this song, Chip Taylor, is Angelina Jolie’s uncle. Maybe he had a premonition.)

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Five O'Clock World
1/8/66 #4

Mix Sam Cooke, the Animals, the Beatles, the Four Freshman, and, uh, Slim Whitman, and usually you would get nothing but a mess. Here you get a fairly inventive pop record about cutting loose in the evening hours. Everything is so smoothed over, though, that not only do the guy’s complaints about work not sound terribly insistent, but whatever freedom he enjoys at the end of the day doesn’t seem all that liberating either. He sounds kind of bored and enervated. Which could be social comment of a kind, though that’s probably not what they were aiming at.

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message to michael
5/14/66 #8

Though I find much of Dionne Warwick’s output irresistible—after Aretha and Dusty Springfield she was probably the most gifted female singer of the sixties—this has never done much for me. Maybe it’s the fact that the arrangement seems a little busy, at least by Burt Bacharach’s usual standard, and the tune a little too sentimental when compared to the dryness of “Walk On By” or “Anyone Who Had A Heart”. She sings it beautifully, though, with an almost spiritual grace, as if it were a hymn. But then, she sang everything like that.

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Born Free
11/26/66 #7

There has never been a shortage of hits from the movies, but except for the theme from Romeo and Juliet, this is the last of the lushly romantic instrumental themes to make top ten (unless “Shaft” counts). They didn't exactly go out on a high note. Except for the hilarious “thunder” rolls, William's piano is all staccato gimmicks—not only overplaying the dinky melody but providing ridiculous percussive highlights, pseudo-classical gestures, and sound effects throughout. Who did he think he was, James Brown? Chico Marx? Bugs Bunny? Good for a laugh, anyway.

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Uptight (everything's alright)
2/12/66 #3

In many ways, the rhythm track here was the sound of the mid-sixties—a simple, straight 4/4 with the full force of the drums coming down hard on every beat. It was a sound that not only gave the other instruments all sorts of room to decorate around it—the bass here (I assume James Jamerson) is absolute perfection—but also allowed white kids to dance and even play, or clomp, along. Stevie could almost be singing for those white kids and their cross-racial aspirations. In the same way that, despite being born on the wrong side of the tracks, he joyfully still gets the girl, the song allows all those who had the misfortune to be born with white skin to still get down and, if not exactly funky, at least on the beat with their black brethren. That was always the real power of Motown—it didn’t just make black singers and performers the equal of white singers and performers, it made the white audience want to be black (or at least Stevie Wonder or Diana Ross or Marvin Gaye, etc.). In other words, to paraphrase Swamp Dogg, Berry Gordy wasn’t selling out, he was buying in. That he did it with brilliant music was just us white folks’ good luck.

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Blowin' In the Wind
9/3/66 #9

One of the great things about Bob Dylan’s songs is how expansive they are, how open to interpretation. In Dylan’s version, “Blowin’ In the Wind” is about hard won, perhaps unattainable hopes and dreams. Peter, Paul and Mary, and a batch of lame, well-meaning folksingers, took it to the opposite extreme: they made it sound effortless; the truth was right there, all you needed to do was reach out and grab it. They sing in the simpleminded belief that the work is already done, that just singing about it makes it happen. Stevie Wonder, fueled by the same optimism, but well aware of the difficult realities faced by the civil rights movement, takes the song down a middle path. Finding the truth is easy, but making that truth reality is hard. This is Freedom March music, to be sung while walking the streets of Little Rock or Montgomery or Selma, with struggle ahead of you and with the wind at your back. It leans toward the optimistic side, of course, because that’s what movement songs do, but it doesn’t deny the hard work still to be done. A little soft, but considering Stevie was all of sixteen at the time, an amazing achievement, and probably the best version of the song after Dylan’s.

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A Place In the Sun
12/17/66 #9

All his life Stevie Wonder has been getting away with corn like this, and I always find myself wondering how he does it. It’s perfectly played, of course, but the lyrics are clichés and the background vocals are only a half-step away from Ray Conniff or Lawrence Welk—and then there’s the spoken bit. Is it the voice, which is both emotionally committed and totally charming, and the way it flows so effortlessly over the melody? Is it the melody itself, which is light and friendly without being cloying? Or is it just the simple perfection of the rhythm track? Whatever the case, for what is essentially a civil rights struggle greeting card with not much to say but a generic expression of hope, it's a pretty wonderful record.

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good lovin'
4/16/66 #1

Techno, for all its machine generated hyper-speed, is an essentially harmless, sterile experience, like riding a bullet train—sometimes you barely feel you’re moving. “Good Lovin’”, made solely by human hands, is like riding in the middle of a cavalry charge, or maybe a stampede. Not only can you feel the speed and your horse rumbling and pounding underneath you, but you can feel the wind and the dirt being kicked up in your face. Techno is like a thrill ride; “Good Lovin’” is like real life, but at double, or maybe triple speed. Not only is it a great adrenalin rush, but it’s a hilarious piece of wish fulfillment. What guy wouldn’t want a prescription for sex? “See, baby, the doctor says you gotta.” It’s like a Get Out of Jail Free card, and it needs to be used right away. No wonder he’s in such a hurry.

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