Acclaimed Music Top 40 Songs from 1967 poll

another insane list, must have been an amazing time to be alive to have these songs come out when they were brand new.

I will go with "Penny Lane" over "Alone Again Or."

Strawberry Fields Forever narrowly over Penny Lane. I can't imagine what it would have been like to buy that single when it was new.

Sly or Love for me, probably. "Strawberry Fields" doesn't need my help, I'm sure.

'67 really is an insane year. Maybe the single most mindblowing year in the history of pop music. I've pointedly listened to a lot of stuff from that year in an obstinate effort to put paid to the ridiculous notion that Sgt. Pepper's is somehow the greatest album of all time. I suspected that it wasn't even close to being the best album of that particular year, and I suspected correctly.

That said, hardly any of my favorites are represented here.

Marvin & Tammi

ermahgerd that's quite a list

great list
forever changes is one of my top albums of all time, so had to go for 'alone again or'

The Letter

Fuck it, going Nancy & Lee.

Hm, "Strawberry Fields Forever" vs "Purple Haze" vs "A Day in the Life". This is tough.

'Some Velvet Morning'

Residing just outside the top 100: "Time Has Come Today", "Expressway To Your Heart", "Funky Broadway".

Heroes & Villains

at least in the alternate universe. In this one, Waterloo Sunset, which I never tire of.

Great list, but on which album may I hear "A wardrobe for Kathy" ?

There's very little on this list I'd say "um, no thanks", but if these were all on the jukebox and I had one 50p,

Jackie Wilson - (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher

Thanks.

The Aretha songs shouldn't be slept on. In contrast with a lot of the other waaaaay overplayed R&B songs from this era, her big ones never sound any less fresh to me.

basically everything here is good, but "see emily play."

1. "Heroin"
2. "Itchycoo Park"
3. "I Can See for Miles"
4. "Let's Spend the Night Together"
5. "Some Velvet Morning"
6. "I'm Waiting for the Man"

I tried to argue with Geir Hongro on some other Acclaimed Music poll that "Tears of a Clown" is 1970 to 99% of the listening world. I'd vote for it on a 1970 poll.

You know, clem, it never was to me because I was two in 1970 and probably only started hearing it much in the '80s with oldies radio. Only found out it wasn't released until 1970 years later.

That makes sense, sure. I was young, but I do remember it as a hit--or at the very least, as a "Solid Gold Weekend" standby in 1972. But in general, if a song appears on a 1967 album but is just a little-known album track, and then it becomes a #1 single three years later (don't know the story behind that...), it makes more sense to me to date it as 1970. The tree falling in the forest and all that.

Who

The first verse of "Alone Again Or" is such simply stated plaintiveness, managing to even touch on philosophical matters like forgiveness ("Said it's alright," even though "I won't forget") and free will in so few words.

interesting, never knew the story of "Tears of a Clown." it should be on the 1970 list, so i agree with that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tears_of_a_Clown

In 1970, to capitalize on the Miracles's success there, and due to a lack of new material from the group, Motown Britain selected "The Tears of a Clown" from the group's catalog for single release. A new mix of the song was made in February 1970 for the single release, and "The Tears of a Clown" became a #1 hit in the UK after its September release.

This newfound popularity prompted Motown to release the song as a single in the United States, where it became a #1 hit on both the pop and R&B charts within two months of its release. Despite the fact that The Miracles had been one of Motown's premier acts in the early and mid-1960s and its first successful group act, "The Tears of a Clown" was their first and only #1 hit while Smokey Robinson was lead singer.

My birth year. Much of this stuff was absorbed as a kid when my mother had top 40 playing constantly.

"Waterloo Sunset" in a heartbeat. A magnificent song that captures something indescribable but quite palpable.

"waterloo sunset" is one that didn't really affect me much when i first heard it, but has come to resonate a lot more with me as i've gotten older. same goes for most of the 67-69 kinks material.

right now i would choose either "Higher and higher" or "somebody to love".

won't go on about non-ballot stuff except for: "Jimmy Mack" by Martha & The Vandellas, that background harmony part, inexhaustible

was able to vote a second time, did ILX reset or something?

It may have. When I clicked on threads yesterday, it didn't take me to the spot where I left off reading.

My favorite Stones song just barely over my favorite Who song.

'some velvet morning' is such a masterpiece.

on a unrelated note, does anyone know what happened to the poster "balls?" sure do miss that guy and hope that he comes back someday.

sorry for asking in this thread, he just always posted on the Acclaimed and it occurred to me that he was missing this round.

He's an old-time poster. Maybe there have been periods where he hasn't posted a lot.

(filler)
some recordings from 1967 (irrespective from the then/now perspective intent of this thread)

The Bob Crewe Generation – music to watch girls by
Small Faces - tin soldier
The Brass Ring Featuring Phil Bodner - the dis advantages of you
Brian Auger And The Trinity – black cat (gatto nero) (Ricordi International)
Julie Driscoll & Brian Auger - season of the witch
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass - the lonely bull
The Lemon Pipers - green tambourine
The 5th Dimension - up, up and away
Dionne Warwick - i say a little prayer
The Turtles – happy together
Sylvie Vartan – irrésistiblement
Dusty Springfield - the look of love
Nancy Sinatra - sugar town https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpQjRi5T1-o
Nancy Sinatra - YOLT,(OST)
Antonio Carlos Jobim - wave
Lulu - to sir with love
Barry Gray - the mysterons theme,(OST)
The Kinks - death of a clown
The Primitives – yeeeeeeh!
Luiz Henrique - vivo sonhando (dreamer)
Northwest Company - get away from it all
The Spencer Davis Group – i'm a man
Ennio Morricone - a fistful of dollars,(OST)
Ennio Morricone – the good, the bad and the ugly,(OST)
The Heard - exit 9
Unrelated Segments – story of m life*
(Brigitte Bardot & Serge Gainsbourg – je t'aime moi non plus) released 1986, recorded Oct. 1967)
(Otis Redding - (sittin' on) the dock of the bay released 1968, recorded in 1967, days before his death on December 10, 1967)
* "The Unrelated Segments wrote their first original, "The Story of My Life," after just their second rehearsal session;
they soon entered the local United Sound studio to record the track, issuing it as their SVR label debut single in early 1967."

...left out some true hurters like pata pata & puppet on a string.

For me, Love narrowly pips both Jefferson Airplanes, Doors' The End, and Venus in Furs to the proverbial post. Such tragi-triumphant intricacies! So, so lovely.

Jealous of Kathy's £40 wardrobe and effortlessly creepy pose.

I went through a period a couple of years ago where I had decided that the Marvin & Tammi duets were an underrated peak in pop music.
Gonna put my money where my mouth is.

(xxpost) I would probably vote for "Sugar Town" ahead of anything on the list except "Heroin."

I never knew the delayed-reaction story of "Tears of a Clown" either, or that the familiar 1970 version is a remix (and an improvement over the original IMO).

Is it just me, or does "Waterloo Sunset" get NO airplay on American radio? It was from the period when the Kinks weren't allowed to tour in the US and their popularity temporarily dwindled in the States, and thus "Sunset" missed the charts completely. I somehow never heard it until five years ago, so it has a freshness for me that nothing else from 1967 does. And it's an awesome record. But i'll have to decide whether I can justify voting for it over "Strawberry Fields Forever".
"Somebody to Love" and "See Emily Play" also are contenders, and "Suzanne", "Heroin", and "I Can See For Miles" deserve honorable mention.

I'll save my Marvin & Tammi vote for 1968.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

the Small Faces deserve to be represented by something better than "Itchycoo Park"

ended up voting for "White Rabbit" along with "What a Wonderful World."

Not sure what that Antonio Carlos Jobim link above is supposed to be but it ain't "Wave"

These aren't his own version from 1967 either but one of these is difinitive; can't decide which one:
Sinatra/Jobim - Wave
Oscar Peterson - Wave

For me, "Itchycoo Park" captures a certain kind of late-'60s joyousness as well as anything. If I used words like "magical," I would. But I don't.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I noticed a comment from Richard Riegel (used to write for Creem) on the Marcus site a couple of days ago: "Speaking as someone who sur...er, was immersed in, the cultural orgasm of 1967 as a 20-year-old, I still recommend Love’s Forever Changes album as the closest artistic expression yet of what that moment really felt like: transcendent beauty and lurking terror inseparable."

Sorry to say, but I never really connected with Forever Changes. I've had it forever--found a copy in my parents' basement pile (never would have been played, just something my dad carted home from his milk store) when I was around 10.

i did discover because of this poll"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDHpkYI5_FY

This was a great year for music but it's also a year of overrated albums. Forever Changes and Ogden's Nut Gone Flake and Sgt. Pepper's are often held up as the crowning achievements of their respective bands but they really aren't.

The single worst album I've heard from '67 is Bowie's debut.

mm, so which albums by those three would you choose in preference? Are they all "the one before that one" ?

Pretty much, yeah. Those aren't bad albums, just not The Best.

Forever Changes is one of those albums that gradually grew on me a song at a time, I first heard it well over a decade ago but it's only really become a favourite in the last year.