1001 Albums: 51-100

1001 Albums: 51-100

#51: Otis Redding Sings Soul
Otis Redding, (1965)

Listened to it before? Yes
Will listen again? Yes
Favourite track: I’ve Been Loving You Too Long
Fantastic album, mostly covers but many of them definitive. This third album of his was his breakthrough and certainly in the conversation for greatest soul album of all time. ‘I’ve been loving you…’ one of my favourite tracks and so an easy pick here.

#52: The Beach Boys Today!
The Beach Boys, (1965)

Listened to it before? yes
Will listen again? yes
Favourite track: Help Me, Rhonda
I like the Beach Boys, but I prefer there later, more complex stuff than this. Some standout tracks here, but I find it a bit tiring to consume the whole thing as an album.

#53: A Love Supreme
John Coltrane, (1965)

Listened to it before? Yes
Will listen again? Yes
Favourite track: NA
This is an album where you have to take it as one piece rather than pick out an individual track. It’s one I’m very familiar with. I have to say Coltrane isn’t a favourite of mine and if I was looking to listen to something in this genre I’d be reaching for Miles Davis first. This is a stone cold classic though and deserves a place in any collection.

#54: Live At The Regal
B.B.King, (1965)

Listened to it before? Yes
Will listen again? Yes
Favourite track: Every Day I Have The Blues
It’s one of the best live albums of all time.

#55: Rubber Soul
The Beatles, (1965)

Listened to it before? Yes
Will listen again? Yes
Favourite track: In My Life
Not enough superlatives for this one – I think the first truly great Beatles album. Iconic Lennon/McCartney banger after banger makes it incredibly difficult to pick a favourite. A regular listen for me.

#56: Bert Jansch
Bert Jansch, (1965)

Listened to it before? No
Will listen again? No
Favourite track:
Folky guitars. Went into this one with high hopes but frankly it bored the arse off of me, and a day or so later I can’t remember enough about it to pick out a favourite track. Let’s move swiftly on.

#57: Mr. Tambourine Man
The Byrds, (1965)

Listened to it before? Yes
Will listen again? Yes
Favourite track: Chimes of Freedom
A whole lot of Dylan covers. Like many I think the Byrds were my gateway into Dylan, and they are probably responsible for the often stated (wrong!) belief that Dylan sounds better when it’s not sung by Dylan. I keep using the word Dylan, when I should be focusing on the Byrds. This album is lots of fun, but the Dylan numbers stand out from the original compositions as the clear highlights of the album. I hope we get ‘Sweetheart of the Rodeo’, which for my money is the best Byrds album. Dylan.

#58: Highway 61 Revisited
Bob Dylan, (1965)

Listened to it before? Yes
Will listen again? Yes, obviously
Favourite track: Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
The second album in Bob’s 18 month purple patch: probably the most impactful recording period of any artist ever. This is one of the best albums ever recorded. No way back from electric at this point. Looking at the next few albums coming up in this list and… wow. What a few months to be alive. And have ears.

#59: My Generation
The Who, (1965)

Listened to it before? Yes
Will listen again? Yes
Favourite track: The Kids Are Alright
Listened to a lot of Who as a student: I was slightly obsessed with ‘Tommy’ for a period when I really got into concept albums. This is a good album with a raw sound, but if I was going to pick a Who album to listen to today it would be something later like Who’s Next. I’d forgotten about the James Brown covers on this album so that was a nice suprise.

#60: Revolver
The Beatles, (1966)

Listened to it before? Yes
Will listen again? Yes
Favourite track: For No One. But they’re all great, really
Considered by many to be their favourite Beatles album. Not me, I’ve always preferred ‘The Best of the Beatles’. In fact, this is quite far down the list for me. it’s still an absolute classic though.

#61: Pet Sounds
The Beach Boys, (1966)

Listened to it before? Yes
Will listen again? Yes
Favourite track: Sloop John B
Meanwhile Brian Wilson is doing his best to keep up. His finest work here is always in the conversation for greatest album of all time.

#62: Fred Neil
Fred Neil, (1966)

Listened to it before? No
Will listen again? Probably not
Favourite track:
Never heard of this guy. Feel a bit for him in this listing, surrounded as he is by giants producing absolute all-time bangers. This was an album of pleasant enough folky stylings, but didn’t set me on fire. I’d drifted off a bit by the end.

#63: Fifth Dimension
The Byrds, (1966)

Listened to it before? Yes
Will listen again? Yes
Favourite track: 5D (Fifth Dimension)
The Byrds really finding their own voice at this point, and this is all their classic psychadelic stuff. If I’m honest, I probably prefer the Dylan heavy stuff from before or the country stuff that comes later, but I’ve always been a big fan of the title track here.

#64: Blonde On Blonde
Bob Dylan, (1966)

Listened to it before? Yes
Will listen again? Yes
Favourite track: Visions of Joanna

When I was a student, we were doing a pub quiz one evening and one of the answers in the music round was Bob Dylan’s ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’. For some reason, whenever we were stuck on a music question in later quizzes we gave the answer as ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ in the hope that it would come up again. Some number of months later I was in FOPP in Cambridge and decided it was time to give this Dylan fellow a proper go, so I picked up Blood on The Tracks and this album, the apotheosis of his mid-Sixties output. Listening to them on the train home was like being hit by a thunderbolt. The lyrical genius, the thin-wild-mercury sound, and the voice. Nobody sings Dylan like Dylan. This is an album I will never get tired of.
#65: Black Monk Time
The Monks, (1966)

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#66: Face To Face
The Kinks, (1966)

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#67: if You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears
The Mama’s And The Papa’s, (1966)

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#68: Midnight Ride
Paul Revere And The Raiders, (1966)

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#69: Freak Out!
The Mothers Of Invention, (1966)

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#70: Aftermath
The Rolling Stones, (1966)

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#71: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme
Simon And Garfunkel, (1966)

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#72: The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators
The 13th Floor Elevators, (1966)

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#73: Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton
John Mayall’s Blues Breakers, (1966)

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#74: The Yardbirds
The Yardbirds, (1966)

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#75: Wild Is The Wind
Nina Simone, (1966)

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#76: Beach Samba
Astrud Gilberto, (1967)

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#77: Chelsea Girl
Nico, (1967)

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#78: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Beatles, (1967)

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#79: Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Country Joe And The Fish, (1967)

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#80: Buffalo Springfield Again
Buffalo Springfield, (1967)

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#81: Safe As Milk
Captain Beefheart, (1967)

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#82: Moby Grape
Moby Grape, (1967)

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#83: Da Capo
Love, (1967)

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#84: Triangle
The Beau Brummels, (1967)

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#85: Headquarters
The Monkees, (1967)

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#86: Goodbye And Hello
Tim Buckley, (1967)

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#87: Forever Changes
Love, (1967)

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#88: Disraeli Gears
Cream, (1967)

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#89: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Pink Flloyd, (1967)

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#90: The Who Sell Out
The Who, (1967)

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#91: The Velvet Underground And Nico
The Velvet Underground, (1967)

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#92: Francis Albert Sinatra And Antonio Carlos Jobim
Francis Albert Sinatra And Antonio Carlos Jobim, (1967)

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#93: the Doors
The Doors, (196y)

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#94: Younger Than Yesterday
The Byrds, (1967)

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#95: Groovin’
The Young Rascals, (1967)

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#96: Surrealistic Pillow
Jefferson Airplane, (1967)

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#97: Something Else By The Kinks
The Kinks, (1967)

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#98: Sunshine Superman
Donovan (1967)

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#99: I’m a Lonesome Fugitive
Merle Haggard (1967)

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#100: Are You Experienced
The Jimi Hendrix Experience (1967)

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