10 underrated albums from 1966 too good to be lost in time
In 1966, The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Bob Dylan were making music and completely changing the way that people viewed sound.
There are plenty of albums which were released that we now consider absolute classics, such as Revolver, frequently considered one of the greatest LPs that the Fab Four ever put out, or The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, which was one of the most heavenly collections of music ever made, while Bob Dylan continued to expand upon what was possible in the folk world with Blonde on Blonde.
Of course, while we recognise these albums as some of the very best to come out of 1966, there are a lot of other great records that don’t get anywhere near enough credit. These LPs acted as precursors for punk, prog, psych and a plethora of other musical movements which were yet to fully have their potential realised. They weren’t the best to come out of the genre, but they were still far too good to be lost to the cruel, unwavering sands of time.
So, to stop these great records from being overlooked, let’s have a look at some of the excellent albums from 1966 that are somewhat underrated.
10 albums from 1966 too good to ignore:
Love – ‘Da Capo’
This was the band’s second offering after their self-titled debut, and they certainly came a long way. There are a lot of genres at work here, as Love put together a record which dances around both jazz and rock like both sounds are one and the same. Despite its variety, it’s certainly not considered one of their most popular albums, and it deserves a lot more lovers (get it?) than it currently has.
The band’s most acclaimed album, by both fans and critics, is without a doubt Forever Changes, and while it remains their best piece of music, you can hear the early conceptions of as much on Da Capo. Songs like ‘Orange Skies’ and ‘7 And 7 Is’ are great tracks, and feel like an undeniable foreshadowing of what the band would go on to do.
The Who – ‘A Quick One’
There are different versions of The Who that different fans appreciate, where some liked them when they were churning out hits, still others leaned towards their more conceptual records. Both opinions are valid, but they also miss out on some of the band’s earlier work, such as on albums like A Quick One.
There are some songs on this album that fall by the wayside, sure, but it was early days for The Who, still working their stuff out, so we can let these tracks slide. John Entwistle put his name on some delightfully strange-sounding numbers, such as ‘Boris The Spider’ and ‘Whiskey Man’, and meanwhile, Pete Townshend did as Pete Townshend does and wrote some truly beautiful pieces of music like ‘A Quick One, While He’s Away’. If you’re a fan of The Who, this isn’t an album you should overlook.
The Rolling Stones – ‘Aftermath’
The Rolling Stones found it hard to write music at the start of their career, playing a lot of R&B covers when the band was in its infancy, and Keith Richards and Mick Jagger didn’t actually write an original song until their manager locked them in a kitchen and forced them to. The result was ‘As Tears Go By’, a good song, sure, but one that doesn’t reflect The Rolling Stones we all know and love.
Aftermath was one of the first Rolling Stones records, which really acted as a window into what the band would become. With songs like ‘Under My Thumb’ and ‘Take It or Leave It’ gracing this excellent tracklist, it’s one of the band’s greatest albums, and yet, it doesn’t get the same amount of praise that a lot of their later LPs do.
The Byrds – ‘Fifth Dimension’
Did The Byrds invent folk rock? It’s hard to answer, but they were certainly the band that inspired Bob Dylan to go down such a path. “Bob Dylan had written it in a very countrified groove, a straight 2/4 time signature, and Roger [McGuinn] takes the song home and works with it, puts it in 4/4 time, so you could dance to it,” recalled bassist Chris Hillman about cover ‘Mr Tambourine Man’, “Bob heard us do it and said, ‘Man, you could dance to this!’ It really knocked him over, and he loved it.”
Fifth Dimension isn’t talked about as much as some of The Byrds music that came prior because it was such a big deviation from the sound they originally made famous. This is fair enough, but now, with the power of hindsight, their 1966 album was one of the greatest pieces of music that the band ever put their name to. You just can’t escape the quality of a great record like this, and it’s an album that certainly should be remembered.
Nina Simone – ‘Wild Is The Wind’
If you ever want to explain to someone why Nina Simone is the greatest singer to channel her voice through a microphone, then just show them this album. Simone is the definition of romanticism, and whether she sang about anger, heartbreak, politics and everything in between, she was able to display every single facet of each emotion with her stunning vocals.
You don’t even need the full album to highlight how perfect a singer Simone was; just three songs will do it. ‘Four Women’, ‘What More Can I Say’ and ‘Lilac Wine’ are all perfect examples of what the singer could do with her dynamic range. Every song channels a different side of Simone, and you hear it perfectly throughout this album, which is way too good to be forgotten.
The Associations – ‘And Then… Along Comes the Association’
If you want to make a splash with your debut album, you should act similarly to how The Associations did on their first public offering. There really is no better way to make your stamp on the music industry, as the band didn’t hold back on their experimentation with creativity when putting together And Then… Along Comes the Association.
Despite the exciting array of sounds and styles on this album, which were very ahead of their time, when compared to other releases from 1966, it doesn’t tend to get the same amount of love. Just listen to songs like ‘Message of our Love’, ‘Blistered’ and ‘Round Again’ and tell me that this isn’t an album which should be remembered for years to come.
Cream – ‘Fresh Cream’
Simply put, Cream represented the beginning of a brand new style of music. The band were able to take rock music and seriously expand upon how it was presented, not just good at what they were doing, but were masters, and it meant that they laid the foundation that would eventually give rise to the likes of psychedelic and prog rock. Their debut, Fresh Cream, is somewhat overlooked compared to their other albums, but you can really hear the mastery of the three-piece in every second.
Don’t just take this humble writer’s word for it; Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull has previously called them a precursor to what we now know as prog. “A more progressive approach, which had been the latter part of ’66, listening to people like Graham Bond, who had at that point in his band Jack Bruce on bass and Ginger Baker on drums. In many ways, Graham Bond was kind of a precursor of that thing that became progressive rock,” he said, “And, of course, Cream, in its way, when those two guys left Graham Bond and set out as Cream, that became something that moved Eric Clapton along from just being a blues guitarist.”
The Seeds – ‘The Seeds’
Look, this isn’t the most inspired album from 1966. When you compare it to a lot of the other records that came out during this period, it’s not the one that stands out as the biggest piece of musical genius. The chord progressions are pretty bog standard, and the lyrics don’t compare to what some other songwriters were putting together at the time; however, it’s still an album which is too good to be lost in time.
The record is a bit of a hidden gem, with a great deal of beauty in the simplicity of the song. It represented a pretty good starting point for the band, who would go on to make more adventurous styles of music, but the potential they showed on this album gave them something which they were able to effectively build on.
The Blues Magoos – ‘Psychedelic Lollipop’
You have to keep in mind that in the ‘60s, while psychedelic rock was certainly a style of music that a lot of bands were playing, it was still very much finding form. Bands had yet to work out how to properly infuse mainstream rock with psychedelic elements, and it led to the creation of some pretty haphazard pieces of music.
However, there were a few bands who showed just how much could be achieved by using this genre, and one of them was The Blue Magoos. Their album Psychedelic Lollipop wasn’t just one of the earlier iterations of psychedelic rock, but it was also one of the first records that truly championed such a sound, as they included the name of the genre in their album. If you like psychedelic music, you should check out this stunning offering.
The 13th Floor Elevators – ‘The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators’
Every piece of music that you like from 1966 onwards which remotely borders on experimental owes something to this piece of music. Talk about forward thinking, 13th Floor Elevators embraced psychedelia and creative limitlessness in a way that no other band at the time was doing, and the music industry has them to thank for it.
Chances are, if you ask any psychedelic, progressive, or punk artists about albums that inspired them, this record will get a mention, and while it’s one of the more popular albums on this list, it remains a piece of music which is very insider baseball. In other words, you need to know in order to know…you know? Long story short, it deserves more ears on it, and this is an attempt at doing exactly that.
