And so we arrive at 1968, when the West finally awakened from the infantile hippie dream of free love, eternal peace, and refusing to change your socks. The party started with a bang in January, as the Tet Offensive royally rogered the long-suffering peoples of South Vietnam and inflicted a first traumatic blow to the illusion of American military invincibility. Down-with-the-kids politicos Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy had both been murdered before the year even reached its halfway point, while across Western Europe, thousands of bored middle-class students, armed with Lacan’s Greatest Hits and a robust sense of self-importance further inflated by liberal quantities of LSD, took to the streets and paraded their revolutionary credentials, the daft twats. And for all that, 1968 ended with Tricky Dicky in the White House.
5. Music From Big Pink by the Band
I didn’t think I could hold the Counting Crows in greater contempt than I already do, but the realisation that they nicked their cringey confessional roots-rock schtick from Bob Dylan’s bitches is yet another blot on their sad-wank-stained copy book. Granted, the Band’s retreat into rustic, gospely country helped to euthanise wah-wah pedal psychedelica in general and, gloriously, Cream in particular. But it was too high a price to pay, unless you’re a fan of bluesy, biblical folk conceived in a 19th century farmstead, in which case, you’re a nobhead.
Standout track: “Tears of Rage”
4. Odessey and Oracle by the Zombies
The broader musical Zeitgeist was nonetheless slow to catch up with the Band’s beardy pastoralism, and so the remaining four records on this list are all solidly at one with the universe. But for my money, the Zombies’ “melancholy, autumnal” Odessey and Oracle is little more than an unapologetic Pet Sounds knockoff; piano-driven “studio wizardry” with lots of choral harmonising. By the way, to what extent was 60s rock rooted in a churchly tradition of choirs and hymns, and why was this influence virtually extinct by the late 70s? A poorly funded PhD thesis waiting to happen.
Standout track: “Time of the Season”
3. Electric Ladyland by the Jimi Hendrix Experience
Groan. Must I really spend another hour of my life listening to Jimi Hendrix’s guitar wankery? Yes, great, he could move his hands up and down a fret very fast indeed, but unfortunately, in the process of recording Electric Ladyland, he apparently forgot to write any actual tunes. The resulting swirly, psychedelic, bluesy hard rock miasma is, in my opinion, inferior to Are You Experienced?, with only the bleak, biblical, jarring cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” and the messianic strut of Hollywood Hulk Hogan’s entrance music cutting the mustard.
Standout track: “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”
2. Astral Weeks by Van Morrison
Despite my middle-aged malcontent, I found things to admire in all three of the previous records on this list. Astral Weeks by peat-breathed ignoramus Van Morrison is, however, authentically unlistenable, almost from start to finish. Jazzy, tuneless folk pop with “soulful, transcendent”, mostly nonsensical lyrics, ear-splittingly incanted by an intoxicated ne’er-do-well “of no fixed address” who somehow managed to get himself a record deal; it’s the stuff of nightmares, quite honestly.
Standout track: Nothing.
1. The White Album by the Beatles
In stark contrast to Electric Ladyland, I was more or less able to endure the entire interminable 90 minutes of the Beatles’ monumentally self-indulgent “magnum opus.” It’s at least relatively accessible, like a collection of simple-minded children’s nursery rhymes, even if around 40% of it sounds like half-assed studio doodling, and a further 40% comprises McCartney-essayed granny music. Annoyingly, though, the remaining 20% includes some of the Fab Four’s prime cuts – the rollicking “Back in the USSR”, the menacing “Happiness is a Warm Gun”, and above all, Harrison’s eerie, unsettling “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
Standout track: “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”