365 – New Music Daily

We’re starting this journey in 1965. I’m prefacing this to let you know, I’m going to set the scene for the year – which will become progressively personal, and will largely start not at all that way.

I’d love if you all read every word of this, but if you’re interested in jumping around, I certainly understand. Below, find the table of contents and read as your interest is piqued.

Setting the Scene

So, what was going on in 1965? Here are some key points:

• LBJ became president this year
• Massive Civil Rights movements came to a head, including the March from Selma after Bloody Sunday, Malcom X’s death, and the continuation of the fight for equal rights.
• The Vietnam War began
• The Celtics won the NBA Championship (Boom)

While these major historical events are much more important than anything that you’ll read from here on out – I do think some set an interesting scene that’s immediately reflected in both the best-selling album list and the top 200 (albums) from Billboard – albums had really yet to take hold in the popular consumption of music. While I’ll largely talk about albums later in the blog, I have to introduce this one first.

If you had the rest of your life to guess the top selling album from 1965 (today, not during the year) which is ALSO the longest charting album of that year, there’s no way that you’d land on the correct answer of: The MARY POPPINS SOUNDTRACK!

1965 would be the last year of a musical top spot, but not the last soundtrack as a best selling album of the year. I’m not sure how to weigh these metrics going forward, but in this case – Mary Poppins was the highest charting album for 14 weeks. All the Beatles albums on the charts combined would put them as the highest charting artist, but no individual album performed better than the Mary Poppins Soundtrack! I did check out a few minutes of one of the songs… not for me. It actually was pretty painful. Here you go:

Imagine driving down the road with your friends, blasting the radio and, while flipping nickles to ladies on the side of the road, hearing that new Mary Poppins come on. What a time.

Anyways, back to setting the scene. Popular music culture was quickly shifting to an ever growing phenomenon – Rock and Roll. As described in a far more eloquent way than I could ever capture in my laymen’s effort to succinctly outline the scene of 1965 (could you tell from my key points?) – this fantastic article by Carnegie Hall details: Rock and Roll. Rock and Roll had developed from its 1920’s roots in African American culture to a global phenomenon, led by 50’s and 60’s acts such as Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, and Buddy Holly, into a worldwide boom that was further elevated to the top of the popular music scene by artists that we all know and mostly love (The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Who, Dylan, amongst many others).

However, in my and many other’s estimation – Rock was certainly at its early stage of a genre that would dominate music for many decades (as we progress further, we’ll discuss if Rock has fallen off, and where it stands for many in my generation). In the general sense of popular music and compared to other genres, Rock stood atop the totem pole early in its infancy, along with the early “iterations” of Rock (quotes as many can be traced back to the actual origins of Rock – Blues especially, and folk).

Along with rock, 1965 was still dominated by the ever-influential Soul music. The era still stands highly in terms of critical acclaim and sales today, and is often looked at as a golden age of Soul music. In fact, 1965 was one of the first issuances of Billboard’s top songs (which is currently available in the form of an overall top 200 as well as by genre) – broken up by an overall top songs list, top country songs, top soul songs, and top “easy listening” songs (what does that even mean? Genres are nothing).

Editor’s (my!) note: The Meaning of Soul by Emily Jordi is a fantastic book that details much more about Soul than I ever could – including its importance in the era of (and post) Civil Rights Movement.

Editor’s note two (p.s.s): I fucking love Soul music, especially from this era.

Some of the greatest soul artists of all time arose around this time: Otis Redding, Nina Simone, Sam Cooke (predating ’65 – died in ’64), among many others. We see the prominence of Soul music in this era from not only album sales (Otis Sings Soul is the 12th best selling album from ’65 – something that would never happen in the last 15+ years) – but status of these artists. Otis Redding was racking up hits and was an overall icon, as was Sam Cooke before him. Even the (caucasian) Righteous Brothers – who I would classify as Soul – were pumping out Soul hits and #1s. Truly a golden era of Soul that would continue into the 1970’s. Not only that, but this genre was incredibly important for Black expression in a time of civil unrest, in a time where the fight for equal rights was peaking, and overall served as a means to express the difficulties of African American people in the United States to a larger audience.

Back to music. Contrasting from Rock, which (as mentioned) could be argued as, while taking a backseat in the popular music scene, much so alive and well in 2024, Soul music is certainly in the category of present roots, but not so present in terms of widespread recognition (run on sentence much?). There are certainly still Soul artists that are making music, but it’s much harder to find and it’s certainly not permeating a “hits” radio station. Again, I love Soul, and it’ll be detailed here, but you’re much more likely to find Soul roots or “Neo-Soul” music today.

Lastly – Jazz! Jazz was popular before 1965, but since we’re starting here, Jazz was up there with Soul and Rock as a top genre. Most albums regarded as the best Jazz albums of all time were coming out of this age of music. I am hot and cold on Jazz overall, but it had reached a peak in terms of popularity and, in my opinion, technical ability and quality.

Specific subgenres of music were also certainly big here – Doo-Wop and harmonic based music especially (Beach Boys, etc.). But, you probably get it, and I will spare you from further analysis here, leaving you with: This is a time of major transition in popular music and culture. The charts are shifting, and we are also starting to see a lot more music that sounds a lot less “dated”, tops critics’ “all-time” lists of many genres, and a lot less Mary Poppins musicals on top of the airways. Moving on!

Top Songs of 1965

We’ll get to albums later on, but I think an important part of capturing each year of music is to also discuss the top performing singles, and contrasting this to past years, we’re definitely starting to see A) more bands, and not such Beatles heavy charts and B) the early evolution of different genres; noted by the #1 song (based on # of weeks at #1).

FWIW, this was ranked as the third best song of 1965 by Billboard, behind:

1. Sam The Sham and The Pharaohs – Wooly Bully
2. Four Tops – I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)
3. Rolling Stones – (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
4. We Five – You Were On My Mind
5. Righteous Brothers – You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin

This piece is going to be full of tangents (and probably best consumed in bite sized pieces), but this Wooly Bully song is unbelievable for so many reasons. First, look at these dudes! These guys are from Texas.

What. The. Fuck. It’s also incredibly 60’s, and just ridiculous. Wooly Bully?? #2 and #4 on that list are pretty solid 60’s bops, first being soul and the other a bit of alt rock, the last one from the Righteous Brothers is also worth checking out. The caucus soul brothers.

(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction – by the way, what was up with the parenthesis titles?? – definitely stands the test of time above the others. What an iconic riff, still very 60’s, but still good for a song nearing 60 years old!

Second and third highest charting songs were the aforementioned Four Tops song (which is a nice soul bop) and the Righteous Brothers song, which I find outrageous.

Rounding out the top 10:

4. Herman’s Hermits – Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter: Not as bad as I thought it’d be with the band and song name, but so unbelievably dated. I do like the muted guitar riff.

5. Petula Clark – Downtown: Let the hook hit and you’ll probably recognize this one. Nice vocal harmonies – especially considering the way they were recording!

6. The Beatles – Yesterday: Still amazing! What a beautiful guitar riff.

7. The Byrds – Turn, Turn, Turn: Really nice guitar tone, and great message as well. This one feels much less dated than the others – and the Byrds are definitely a great band that I have to check out more of.

8. Wooly Bully.

9. The Beatles – Help!: Far from a top tier Beatles song in my mind, but an iconic one nonetheless.

10. The Supremes – Stop! In the Name of Love: Super dated sonically, but damn! Diana Ross kills this song.

Other notable charting songs: #11 Help me Rhonda (The Beach Boys), #14 My Girl (The Temptations), #24 I Got You (James Brown), #26 California Girls (The Beach Boys), #29 Like A Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan).

Shoutout to Ulrika Arega Nillson (a swede?) for this Spotify playlist on the Top Hits of 1965, if you want to get your 65 on.

Top Albums (Sales) of 1965

So, we’ve established the highest charting album and the best selling album of the year were both the Mary Poppins Soundtrack. Expanding that metric to what I think is a bit more valuable, best selling album of 1965 to now (as opposed to the Mary Poppins criteria, just album sales in the 1965 calendar year), we see a picture that makes a lot more sense (3):

• 1) The Beatles – Rubber Soul
• 2) Richard Rodgers – The Sound Of Music
• 3) Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited
• 4) The Beatles – Help!
• 5) Bob Dylan – Bringing It All Back Home
• 6) Disney – Mary Poppins
• 7) Herb Alpert – Whipped Cream & Other Delights
• 8) The Beatles – Beatles For Sale
• 9) The Rolling Stones – Out Of Our Heads
• 10) Original Cast – Fiddler On The Roof

Well – one that makes more sense, but also one that would really never happen today. Poppins falls back to 6, and is joined by two other musical based soundtracks. Three more of the top 10 are occupied by the Beatles, and they’re exactly how I, and I think most people would agree, would rank those albums from best to worst.

We then get 2 spots from a polarizing, but iconic man in Bob Dylan. The polarization I’m speaking of is not character based, nor is it based on dropping the n word on a song, though I’d welcome those arguments as well. It’s his singing. One of the most common tropes is that he can’t sing – and I mean, it’s true to an extent. In the realm of technical singing, Bob falls very flat. But to me, it largely works, in certain songs a lot more than others. More on Bob in a bit.

Rounding out the top 10 are two other albums that are detailed later on in the blog – Herb Alpert and the Stones. Reviews on all of these to come, but first, the critics!

Top Albums (Critics)

Let’s preface this by saying the Critics are largely just the people of the internet, and they are no more right than you or I am. Okay, maybe they know more than me. In fact they all do. But music enjoyment is entirely subjective, no one person’s taste is “better” than anyone else’s. Enjoy what you enjoy, rank albums how you rank them.

That being said, I do like using music review aggregation sites to find music that is critically acclaimed, as it’s often that for good reason. Rateyourmusic and albumoftheyear are two of the main sites, with the former being pretty large in the online internet music community, for better or for worse. Regardless, there was a consensus across these sites for many of the following albums. I’ll refer to them further on as RYM and AOTY

Here’s the top 12 based on the average scores (meaning overall rank of 1965) between the two sites:

1. John Coltrane – A Love Supreme (Avg 1)
2. Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited (Avg 2)
3. Nina Simone – Pastel Blues (Avg 3.5)
4. Bob Dylan – Bringing It All Back Home (Avg. 3.5)
5. The Beatles – Rubber Soul (Avg 5)
6. Otis Blue – Otis Sings Soul (Avg 6)
7. Jackson C. Frank – Self titled (Avg 8.5)
8. Grant Green – Idle Moments (Avg 9.5)
9. Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – Free For All (Avg 9.5)
10. Wayne Shorter – Juju (Avg 11)
11. Horace Silver Quintet – Song For My Father (Avg 13)
12. Nina Simone – I Put a Spell On You (Avg 13)

I’ll be listening to all of the above albums, both sales and critical acclaim, as well as some other stuff that intrigues (which will grow by the year 🙂 Reviews in another post – probably two more parts!

Remind me to come back here and add sources, and link the other posts.