1968 Revisited

Getting out ahead of next year’s 50th anniversary, where I’m guessing the White Album will get the most attention, but I went with a different color in the top spot.

ALBUMS

1. Music From Big Pink — The Band: These three voices together, here and on the eponymous follow-up, is one of the enduring pleasures of (North) American music, and I find the slipperiness of meaning here more attraction than hurdle. The greatest LP testament of my distant Arkansas cousin sits at #5, but I’ll confess that the Arkansan musician with whom I most identify is instead Levon Helm, product of a town in the same rural East Arkansas Delta jumble as where I’m from.
2. Astral Weeks — Van Morrison: The title song is as visionary as anything in rock. “Sweet Thing” as beautiful. “Cyprus Avenue” and “Madame George” as mysterious and unsettling. And then there are a few other songs. All but one is a keeper.
3. Beggar’s Banquet — The Rolling Stones: It’s phony (“Factory Girl”), scuzzy (“Stray Cat Blues”), corny (“Sympathy for the Devil”), unexpectedly revealing (“Salt of the Earth”) and the sound of the world’s best rock and roll band dispensing with the ill-fitting psychedelia of 1967 to assert the peak of their powers.
4. John Wesley Harding — Bob Dylan — This and Folsom Prison are companions, and related to the #1 too. “Americana” and “alt-country” start here I, but never measured up. Can’t, I guess.
5. At Folsom Prison — Johnny Cash
6. Lady Soul – Aretha Franklin: Probably not quite as strong as I Never Loved a Man … from stern to bow, but better structured. “Ain’t No Way” is as good an album-ender as there is.
7. The Beatles – The Beatles: This seems like it should be higher, but the competition is stiff and I don’t skip songs on any of those other albums. Their best late Sixties music and their worst, all in one place.
8. Greatest Hits Vol 2 – Smokey Robinson & the Miracles: Motown’s signature genius in his finest single-disc representation.
9. Golden Hits — The Drifters: Pure pop product, assembly line produced by various geniuses of composition and recording, and it instills one with as much cultural patriotism as Cash and Dylan.
10. The Immortal Otis Redding — Otis Redding
11. White Light/White Heat — The Velvet Underground
12. Aretha Now — Aretha Franklin
13. Electric Ladyland — The Jimi Hendrix Experience
14. The Notorious Byrd Brothers — The Byrds
15. Odessey and Oracle — The Zombies
16. The Dock of the Bay — Otis Redding
17. Sweetheart of the Rodeo — The Byrds
18. We’re Only In it For the Money — The Mothers of Invention
19. Life — Sly & Family Stone
20. Greatest Hits — Stevie Wonder
21. Live at the Apollo Volume 2 — James Brown
22. Cheap Thrills — Big Brother & Holding Company
23. Mama Tried — Merle Haggard
24. Dance to the Music — Sly & the Family Stone
25. Creedence Clearwater Revival – Creedence Clearwater Revival

SINGLES

1. “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” – Marvin Gaye
2. “Ain’t No Way” – Aretha Franklin
3. “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” – Otis Redding
4. “The Weight” – The Band
5. “All Along the Watchtower” – The Jimi Hendrix Experience
6. “Dance to the Music’ – Sly & the Family Stone
7. “This is My Country’ – The Impressions
8. “Think” – Aretha Franklin
9. “Love Child” – The Supremes
10. “Mama Tried” – Merle Haggard
11. “I Wish It Would Rain” – The Temptations
12. “Hey Jude”/“Revolution” — The Beatles
13. “Hard to Handle” – Otis Redding
14. “Jumping Jack Flash” – The Rolling Stones
15. “Daddy Sang Bass” – Johnny Cash
16. “Son of a Preacher Man” – Dusty Springfield
17. “My Song” — Aretha Franklin
18. “I Got the Feelin’ — James Brown
19. “I Thank You”/“Wrap it Up” – Sam and Dave
20. “People Got to Be Free” – The Rascals
21. “I’ve Got Dreams to Remember” — Otis Redding
22. “Private Number” – Judy Clay and William Bell
23. “Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” — James Brown
24. “The House That Jack Built” – Aretha Franklin
25. “What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me)” — Jerry Lee Lewis
26. “Everyday People” – Sly & the Family Stone
27. “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” – Tammy Wynette
28. “Street Fighting Man” – The Rolling Stones
29. “Fist City” – Loretta Lynn
30. “She Still Comes Around (To Love What’s Left of Me)” – Jerry Lee Lewis
31. “Who’s Making Love” – Johnnie Taylor
32. “For Once in My Life” — Stevie Wonder
33. “Ballad of Forty Dollars” – Tom T. Hall
34. “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing” – Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
35. “Alone Again Or” – Love
36. “I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am” – Merle Haggard
37. “Milwaukee Here I Come” – George Jones and Brenda Carter
38. “Magic Carpet Ride” — Steppenwolf
39. “Take Time to Know Her” – Percy Sledge
40. “Cry Like a Baby” – The Box Tops

MOVIES

1. Faces (John Cassavetes)
2. Night of the Living Dead (George Romero)
3. Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski)
4. The Producers (Mel Brooks)
5. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick)
6. Stolen Kisses (Francois Truffaut)