#The 5th Dimension

[music-tourney]

[forever70s]

The 5th Dimension - "Aquarius / Let the Sunshine In" (1969)

[guessimdumb]

The 5th Dimension - Don'tcha Hear Me Callin' To Ya (1969)

More b-side treasure that I recently picked up. The a-side is the Aquarius/Let the Sunshine Medley, a track I could definitely be happy to never hear again, but this infinitely more soulful track is really great.

[paymetea]

The 5th Dimension (1972)

[horror-n-m3tal]

Various Twilight Zone Publications Pt.2 1959 - 2020

[oldshowbiz]

The 5th Dimension at Magic Mountain

[lisamarie-vee]

[thecoparoom]

Ordering tickets back in the day

The Village Voice - Jun 25, 1970

[myimaginaryradio]

The Age Of Aquarius - The 5th Dimension

[citizenscreen]

Frank Sinatra and The 5th Dimension (Ron Townson, Lamonte McLemore, Billy Davis, Jr., Florence LaRue, and Marilyn McCoo) performing on his TV special ‘Francis Albert Sinatra Does His Thing’ in 1968.

[music-tourney]

[hit-song-showdown]

Year-End Poll #20: 1969

[Image description: a collage of photos of the 10 musicians and musical groups featured in this poll. In order from left to right, top to bottom: The Archies, The 5th Dimension, The Temptations, The Rolling Stones, Sly and the Family Stone (x2), Tommy Roe, Tom Jones, The Foundations, Tommy James and the Shondells. End description]

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And now we reach the end of the 1960s. In the songs listed, we can see the psychedelic label applying to several genres, such as psychedelic pop and psychedelic soul. From psychedelic soul, we can easily see how disco will start to solidify in the coming years, but that genre will also derive from a wide variety of other subgenres. We'll get to that eventually.

The addition of Sugar Sugar also gives me a chance to talk about bubblegum music (or bubblegum pop, in this case). The term is both used to describe the genre from both the musical and the business side of its formation (I suppose it's similar to the modern use of "industry plant"), but I'll focus on the former. Essentially, bubblegum was used to classify music that was sounded sweet and chipper, but didn't appear to have the artistic integrity of other styles. The bubblegum pop of the late 60's and early 70's took a lot of influence from garage rock, but it was derided for not having that genre's sense of edge or scrappiness. This isn't my opinion, I'm just stating the origins of the term and how it was talked about at the time.

The shift from the 60's to the 70's is going to be a bit more apparent than the transitional stage between other decades. And here, we can see the foundations (hah.) of sounds that will come to define the following decade.

And with that, thank you for joining me through the 1960s. I'll see you all in the 70's.

[tapiocalad]

Advertisement for “Wedding Bell Blues” by Laura Nyro - popularized by The 5th Dimension - from the September 10th, 1966 issue of Billboard

[polybbiuss]

Dimension - Elements of Design (8/10), digital collage

[horror-n-m3tal]

Various Twilight Zone Publications. 1959 - 2020