My Top 50 Albums of 1969
Here's the Spotify playlist with one track from (almost) every album:
1. Neil Young with Crazy Horse – Everybody Knows
This Is Nowhere
2. The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground
3. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Willy And The
Poor Boys
4. James Brown – Say It Loud – I’m Black And I’m
Proud
5. Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin
6. Sly & The Family Stone – Stand!
7. The Beatles - Abbey Road
8. Joni Mitchell – Clouds
9. The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed
10. King Crimson – In The Court Of The Crimson King
11. The Stooges – The Stooges
12. Miles Davis – In A Silent Way
13. Crosby, Stills & Nash – Crosby, Stills & Nash
14. The Meters – The Meters
15. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Green River
16. The Kinks – Arthur (Or The Decline And Fall of
the British Empire)
17. The Who – Tommy
18. Isaac Hayes – Hot Buttered Soul
19. Dusty Springfield – Dusty In Memphis
20. Gun – Gun
21. Frank Zappa – Hot Rats
22. Grateful Dead – Live/Dead
23. MC5 – Kick Out The Jams (Live)
24. Taste – Taste
25. Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin II
27. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bayou Country
26. Herbie Hancock – The Prisoner
28. Laura Nyro – New York Tendaberry
29. Townes Van Zandt – Townes Van Zandt
30. Merle Haggard and The Strangers – Okie From Muskogee
31. Nick Drake – Five Leaves Left
32. The Band – The Band
33. Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - Trout
Mask Replica
34. The Isley Brothers – It’s Our Thing
35. Joe Cocker – With A Little Help From My Friends
36. Tim Buckley – Happy Sad
37. Os Mutantes - Mutantes
38. Shocking Blue – At Home
39. Jimmy Cliff – Jimmy Cliff
40. The Beach Boys – 20/20
41. Grateful Dead – Aoxomoxoa
42. The Doors - The Soft Parade
43. Great Speckled Bird – Great Speckled Bird
44. Stevie Wonder - My Cherie Amour
45. The Allman Brothers Band - The Allman Brothers Band
46. Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies – The American Metaphysical Circus
47. Strawbs – Strawbs
48. The Tony Williams Lifetime - Emergency!
49. Bob Dylan - Nashville Skyline
50. The Shaggs – Philosophy of the World
Last year I completed my round of lists for every year of the 1970s, and I thought about starting to tackle the 1960s more quickly, but '69 is just an incredibly packed year so I had fun taking my time going through a ton of music and finding some more obscure gems (the London proto metal trio Gun, the Irish blues rock band Taste, Canadian country rock band Great Speckled Bird, etc.). But of course it was also the year of the Woodstock and the end of an era, the last year that all of the big four British Invasion bands released albums. The further back in time I go with these lists, the more common it was for artists to release multiple albums in a single year. So increasingly a lot of my listening time goes into figuring out which of an act's albums from that year should represent them in a list, or if they deserve multiple spots, which I'm kind of loathe to do because it takes a spot away from another artist. Sometimes it's necessary, though, and this is a rare time when I had to include three albums from one artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival's incredible trio of 1969 albums. And I know rock is going to crowd out jazz in the late '60s lists but as I go toward the beginning of the decade there's going to be more and more jazz representation here. Still haven't made up my mind about doing yearly lists for the 1950s as well, but it's a more and more attractive idea to me.
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