(Editor Note: And so the 1960s begin to drift into the rear view mirror and, as Jon Pennington astutely notes, James Taylor announced the advent of the one over the many on, of all places, the Beatles Apple Records)
81. The Temptations
Cloud Nine / Why Did She Have to Leave Me (Why Did She Have to Go) (1968) [Single]
If Shop Around was the birth of the Motown Sound and Reach Out I'll Be There was its apotheosis, then Cloud Nine was both the opening of a new chapter for Motown and a harbinger of the new musical trends that would make the label's trademark sound obsolete. Cloud Nine was the first Motown production that staff producer Norman Whitfield did in the wah-wah drenched, soul-psych style that Whitfield would create for the Temptations on songs like I Can't Get Next to You, Psychedelic Shack, and Papa Was a Rolling Stone. The wah wah and the upward vocal harmonies signaled psychedelia, but unlike typical "white" psychedelia of the time, the lyrics were relatively politicized, with a social consciousness that showed Motown had gotten back in synch culturally and politically with the urban black consumers that made the label so successful in the first place. The B-side is a downbeat ballad more consistent with old Motown styles, but the Chi-Lites, Have You Seen Her? would have more commercial success later with the same themes expressed in the B-side's title.
Chart Position: US #6, UK #15
82. Desmond Dekker & the Aces / Beverley's All StarsIsraelites / The Man (1968) [Single]
Before Bob Marley or Jimmy Cliff became crossover stars, this was the record that proved that straight-up reggae with no dilution could be a commercial smash on the pop charts, even if not many white folks could understand what Dekker was saying. Supposedly, some folks jumped to the conclusion, based solely on the title, that Dekker was laying down an anti-Semitic slur, but the lyrics are just an extended Exodus metaphor of the type African-Americans have been familiar with for over 300 years.
83. Os MutantesA Minha Menina / Adeus Maria Fulô (1968) [Single]
Os Mutantes is the founding band of the Brazilian Tropicalismo movement, a group that has attracted fans such as Kurt Cobain and Beck (who named his album Mutations after them). The A-side starts with cackling and bossa nova acoustic guitar, but then the fuzztone guitar kicks in accompanied Beatlesque harmonies, yet still retaining an authentically South American flavor. At a time when Brazil was under the control of a socially conservative right-wing junta, the Os Mutantes plugging in an electric guitar could seem like a revolutionary act, yet the A-side still sounds so buoyant and joyous. David Byrne, who experimented a lot with Brazilian pop in the 1980s, had to have been influenced by the kind of work this represents. The B-side, which crossbreeds Gregorian chanting with exotica jungle noises, is something so original that Vampire Weekend wishes they could steal it without getting caught.
84. Silver ApplesYou and I / Confusion (1968) [Single]
Silver Apples don't always get the they credit deserve for their electronic innovations, because their status as psychedelic hippies doesn't lend them the postpunk cred they deserve. The Silver Apples were two guys with one name, Taylor who played the drums and Simeon who played a homemade electronic doohickey made of oscillators and other assorted military surplus that he called a "simeon." The A-side, You and I, begins with the sound effect of a plane taking off, then continues to fill the air with electronic buzzing for over 3 minutes. Lyrics by the Silver Apples sometimes get unfairly derided as too hippy-dippy, but the A-side is all about how it would be nice if he could love you, but sometimes the machines just get in the way, man. Which is to say that the A-side is actually the kind of techno-dystopianism that was all over New Wave records in the 1970s and 1980s. In addition, Taylor's drumming is very snappy and metronomic compared to most 1960s psychedelic records, sounding more like what you'd hear on a drum 'n' bass loop than the slack percussion on, say, a Grateful Dead bootleg. Except for Machines by Lothar and the Hand People (see below), I can't think of any single from the 1960s does more to presage stuff like synth punk, minimal wave, dark wave, glitch pop, and a bunch of other niche subgenres that I'm too old and unhip to remember right now. The B-side is as similarly ahead of its time as the A-side, but it sounds more like freak folk, as if the Godz played banjo and had better drumming.
Chart Position: Did not chart in the US or UK
Machines / Milkweed Love (1968) [Single]
Lothar and the Hand People were a psychedelic band whose gimmick was a theremin (named "Lothar" naturally) that they used in practically all their songs. The Beach Boys used theremin to represent "good vibrations," but on the song Machines, Lothar and the Hand People used theremin for a much more clanking, discordant, and dystopian purpose. The B-side, Milkweed Love, has lyrics that punks could easily dismiss as hippie-dippy love pad sentimentality, but the A-side, Machines, deals with themes of technological dehumanization that prefigures Kraftwerk and mines the same thematic territory that New Wavers such as Gary Numan and early Human League would build careers on.
Chart Position: Did not chart in US or UK
86. James BrownGive It Up or Turnit a Loose / I'll Lose My Mind (1969) [Single]
If Papa's Got a Brand New Bag was Funk 1.0, then Give It Up or Turnit a Loose is Funk 2.0. Once you hear the bass kick in, you know that Give It Up or Turnit a Loose is a gauntlet thrown down to the funkiest of all dancers that they need to step up their game, son. Except for Apache by the Incredible Bongo Band, there probably isn't a 45 that's more worshipped by breakdancers or subject to more remixes and tributes. With a rhythm that could realign more vertebra than a thousand chiropractors, no other song from the 1960s implicitly dares you so much, "Can you step to this?"
Chart Position: US #15, Did not chart in UK
87. The Inner SpaceAgilok & Blubbo / Kamera Song (1969) [Single]
The Inner Space was a band created to record the title song for the 1969 West German film, Agilok and Blubbo, but they're better known today as the band that eventually became the pioneering Krautrock band, Can. Basically, Holger Czukay was a student of avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen who was inspired by the artsy background of the Velvet Underground to go off slumming to form his own experimental rock band. The A-side begins with noodly electronic noise and a singer trying to be the German Lou Reed, but later interludes in the song include fuzz guitar and some improvisation that tries to be both free jazz and jazz fusion at the same time. What's more impressive is the B-side, which has a xylophone or glockenspiel probably borrowed from the Velvet Underground's Sunday Morning and a singer who sounds like a dead ringer for Nico (as opposed to Malcolm Mooney or Damo Suzuki, the two vocalists most closely associated with Can). But instead of going for the more arch, minimalist sound that Velvet Underground did, the B-side will occasionally segue into an instrumental breakdown with what sounds like a fuzz bass. The result is a sleazy and quasi-psychedelic concoction that bands like Broadcast and Stereolab wouldn't have been embarrassed to borrow a few ideas from.
Chart Position: Did not chart in the US or UK
88. MC5Kick Out the Jams / Motor City Is Burning (1969) [Single]
Current critical consensus doesn't give the MC5 as much props as their fellow Detroit rockers, the Stooges, but if Elektra Records hadn't been distracted by the MC5's brand of white streetpunk Maoism, the Stooges wouldn't have been able to record two great albums for Elektra with minimal record company interference. Listen to this 45 and you'll see why the relatively apolitical Stooges might sound comparatively like the more conservative option, although the Stooges were more radical for aesthetic reasons.
On the A-side, the MC5 exercises the nuclear option by dropping the M-F bomb in the first five seconds, then the band proceeds to "kick out the jams" as promised by the title. "Kick out the jams" may not be the most coherent revolutionary platform, but the song impels you to action, even if you might put you more in the mood to trash a hotel room than implement the MC5-affiliated White Panther Party of dope, guns, and fucking in the street. The B-side, Motor City Is Burning, is a bluesy John Lee Hooker that's less stylistically groundbreaking, but its lyrics about beat cops and Vietnam suggest a sympathy with the Detroit race riot of 1967, similar to Frank Zappa's evocation of the Watts Riots on the Mothers of Invention, Trouble Every Day.
Chart Position: Did not chart in the US or the UK
89. James TaylorCarolina in My Mind / Taking It In (1969) [Single]
I have to include this 45, because I can't think of any single released before 1970 that epitomizes the turn away from cohesive rock bands to solipsistic singer-songwriter acts more than this one. Released on Apple Records at a time when that Beatle experiment in "Western Communism" was starting to hemorrhage money as it slowly got bled dry by hippie hucksters, James Taylor was the act, besides the Beatles themselves, most responsible for keeping the label in the black. So in a way, the Beatles sowed the seeds of their own obsolescence, releasing a pivotal 45 of the solo singer-songwriter pop that would replace them.
Similarly, I can't think of any of the 1970s singer-songwriters that (probably justifiability) attracted so much vehement antagonism as James Taylor. Since I could not phrase it better myself, I'll just turn it over to Lester Bangs and his essay, "James Taylor Marked for Death.":
"Matter of fact, if I ever get down to Carolina I’m gonna try to figure out a way to off James Taylor. Hate to come on like a Nazi, but if I hear one more Jesus-walking-the-boys-and-girls-down-a-Carolina-path-while-the-dilemma-of-existence-crashes-like-a-slab-of-hod-on-J.T.’s-shoulders song, I will drop everything (I got nothin’ to do here in California but drink beer and watch TV anyway) and hop the first Greyhound to Carolina for the signal satisfaction of breaking off a bottle of Ripple (he deserves no better, and I wish I could think of worse, but they’re all local brands) and twisting it into James Taylor’s guts until he expires in a spasm of adenoidal poesy."
Chart Position: US #67, Did not chart in the UK
90. Dick HymanTopless Dancers of Corfu / The Minotaur (1969) [Single]
Dick Hyman was a jazz guy who scored an easy listening hit in the UK back in the 1950s with The Theme from the Threepenny Opera, but by 1969, he found away to exploit technology to make himself relevant again. Taken from an album simply titled Moog, the A-side features bloopy Moog vamps, atmospheric keyboard washes, and a rudimentary electronic drum machine that may not sound like much at first, but frees up an aging white jazzer like Hyman to get down and get seriously funky. The Minotaur not only scraped the bottom of the Top Forty on the basis of radio play at college and underground stations, but also at R&B stations that were willing to take a chance on a novelty. Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer would occasionally quote from the Minotaur in some of keyboard solos, while funk keyboardists would the find the single just as influential. Topless Dancers of Corfu on the B-side had less of an impact on 1970s popular music but you certainly can't say that its Mediterranean flavored techno-bellydance sound has been overplayed to death.
Chart Position: US #38, Did not chart in the UK