There's a new variation of "ask Scott" on the Loud Family site called "Music—What Happened?" where Scott selects and describes songs from a requested year between 1957-2006 that would constitute his time-capsule CD.The first year in the series is 1966 and I was commissioned (and by "commissioned" I mean "asked") to put together a muxtape of some of the tracks. Scott's 1966 time capsule CD has 22 tracks, ten more than muxtape allows, so my list excised the better-known B-bands (like the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Byrds, Bob Dylan, and the Bowling Stones) and focused on the lesser-known tracks that Scott selected. Here are the results.
Music What Happened? - 1966
1. "Batman Theme" - Neal Hefti
2. "Solitary Man" - Neil Diamond
3. "Big Fat Silver Aeroplane" - Roy Harper
4. "Shapes Of Things" - The Yardbirds
5. "For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her" - Simon & Garfunkel
6. "Summer In The City" - The Lovin' Spoonful
7. "Remember You" - The Zombies
8. "Georgy Girl" - The Seekers
9. "Walk Away Renee" - The Left Banke
10. "Making Time" - The Creation
11. "Season Of The Witch" - Donovan
12. "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone" - The Monkees
I think 1966 may have been the best year, not just for pop music, but for pop culture in general. The list of the top 100 hits of the year shows a few duds (like "Ballad Of The Green Berets"as the top song of the year?) but at least 70-75% of the songs are stone cold classics that still sound as great 42 years later.
On the TV, 1966 was the debut of "Batman", "Star Trek", "The Monkees", "Mission Impossible" and "How The Grinch Stole Christmas". In sports, 1966 was the year of the first Super Bowl, the year Texas Western upset Kentucky in the NCAA finals, and the year Frank Robinson won the triple crown for the Orioles, (who swept the Dodgers in the Series). At the movies, 1966 was "Farenheit 451", "Fantastic Voyage", and lots of other movies that don't start with F, but I don't know much about movies.
4 comments:
I was a little disappointed that Scott left off the Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On," which was #1 the week I was born and is still a fab song.
The Creation song is one of those I know from the opening riff but couldn't have told you who the artist was (until now, of course). Joe said I probably heard it in a Wes Anderson movie.
Thanks again for doing the muxtape!
"Making Time" was featured prominently in Rushmore..
The problem with the Batman theme is that it's never the exact recording used in the TV show: this version, for example, is heavier on the horns and lighter on guitar, and also slower. I haven't been able to find the exact version anywhere - and unfortunately, the TV series is hung up in various legal battles (or studio idiocy in thinking it won't sell) so it's not on DVD yet, either.
The Ballad of the Green Berets was #1 when Paula was born.
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