#60's pop

[thegroovyarchives]

1968 Pop-Tarts/American Dairy Association Advertisement From the July 8th, 1968 issue of American Home magazine (via: archive.org)

[negativegrl]

he's lived so many lives...

[nostalgia-eh52]

1967 Jefferson Airplane at Monterey Pop Festival

[music-is-my-life-man]

Tom Jones & Janis Joplin, 1969

(Raise Your Hand)

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night

[paul-simon-juggling]

Simon & Garfunkel watercolour painting on hand-dyed paper from October 2022

[vertigoartgore]

The First Beatle Meets the First Avenger by Andrew Robinson (author of The Fifth Beatle graphic novel).

[metalcultbrigade]

Poster for the Monterey Pop Festival, 1967

[dankalbumart]

Let It Bleed by Rolling Stones Decca / London 1969 Blues-Rock / Hard Rock / Blues / Country-Blues / Rock & Roll / Pop-Rock / Country-Rock

[nocentis]

If anyone likes oldies, I have a playlist to offer you.

[theconjurervfx]

Prehistoric Women (1967) dir. Michael Carreras.

[nostalgia-eh52]

June 1967 Peter Tork backstage at the Monterey Pop Festival

[music-is-my-life-man]

The Beatles, 1968

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

The Beatles - Love Me Do

[paul-simon-juggling]

I think about this often

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

The Best of 60s Love 1987 Pop / Doo Wop / Soul / R&B / Pop-Rock / Sunshine Pop

Really dig this comp of classic love songs here from Priority Records. Tough to winnow something called The Best of 60s Love down to just 14 songs since most songs with lyrics tend to be about love anyway, but unlike this series' 50s counterpart—which relied heavily on what I would call 'Makeout Point' doo wop—this one is far more eclectic, and its selections span throughout the entirety of the decade too, which is another thing that these Priority oldies comps haven't always done 👍.

So on this release we get a few doo wop tunes, with Lenny Welch's deeply heartfelt 1963 solo rendition of "Since I Fell for You" standing out especially, along with some pop, R&B, soul, and a little bit of pop-rock too. There's classics that get plenty of spin still, like the bubblegum apotheosis that is The Turtles' "Happy Together" and the immortalized slow Philly soul tune of "La-La-Means I Love You" by The Delfonics; plus other big hits that I don't think have maintained the same amount of popularity since, like the 5th Dimension's sweetly beaming cover of Laura Nyro's "Wedding Bell Blues," which conveniently got to see lead singer Marilyn McCoo reprise Bill, a man who Nyro constantly invoked in the original, but who also just so happened to have the same name as the guy that McCoo would end up marrying the same year that the 5th Dimension's own version of the song was released too, Billy Davis, Jr., who is also one of the band's co-founders as well 🎊.

So, I mean, since love has been the dominating topic of songs every decade since humans came up with the concept of song lyrics themselves, Priority really had a lot of material to choose from here when they put this 60s-focused album together. Ultimately, they could've picked 14 completely different songs and the product could've maybe been just as good, if not better, but the thing to really appreciate here is that even though every song is about pretty much the same exact sappy thing, the selection is still varied enough to properly reflect the 60s as a whole, which the label's Best of 50s Love comp didn't end up doing nearly as much of.

So, great tunes, all stages of the decade encompassed, and multiple genres and styles represented too. At the end of the day, you really couldn't ask for anything more from a comp like this.

Highlights:

Lovin' Spoonful - "Darling Be Home Soon" Gladys Knight & The Pips - "Every Beat of My Heart" Mamas & The Papas - "Dedicated to the One I Love" Turtles - "Happy Together" Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs - "Stay" James & Bobby Purify - "I'm Your Puppet" 5th Dimension - "Wedding Bell Blues" Brooklyn Bridge - "Worst That Could Happen" Lenny Welch - "Since I Fell for You" Delfonics - "La-La-Means I Love You"