The forgotten band that dominated 1969, spending 48 weeks on the charts
The end of the 1960s and the start of the ‘70s might have seemed like the turn of any other decade, but in terms of music and culture, it represented an unbridgeable gulf.
It seemed like many wanted to call it a day before the challenge had even begun; The Beatles had thrown in the towel, for one, and the British invasion was taking its final, gasping breaths. That may have made for sad sights in certain respects, but there also emerged just a small gap in the fray where some bands could make the leap.
One of those was The 5th Dimension, who, as fittingly as their name suggests, carved out a whole new universe for themselves in the musical landscape, blending the brightness of sunshine pop with the twistedness of psychedelic soul. For better or worse, that was the defining stall they set out, even if they were celebrated for it and ridiculed in equal measure.
In many ways, their success was a direct product of the foundations built by the pillars of Motown and the dream of Berry Gordy at the end of the ‘50s: that Black musicians could be seen as an integral part of the popular music canon, and as such, build a path between societal divides.
However honourable that might have been, though, this translated into a very basic fact for The 5th Dimension. Their music was mainstream by its very definition, and therefore ran the risk of becoming somewhat archetypal in terms of the preconceptions surrounding Black artists and their sound.
Over time, this was something that the group struggled to grapple with, but there was also no denying that at their peak, they were entirely unstoppable. Spending only four weeks out of the charts in the entirety of 1969, they were a band who undeniably dominated the pop space while also bringing on board a flair they hoped to harness.
This came as the pinnacle of a time when, between 1967 and 1973, The 5th Dimension were responsible for no less than 20 top 40 singles in the US. The crowning jewel of them all was ‘Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In’, their cover from the musical Hair, which topped the charts in 1969 and served as their most enduring psychedelic legacy.
Beyond the immediate aftermath of the bridge into the early ‘70s, the band found it harder to stay above water, with popular musical opinion shifting towards something far grittier and heavier in the rock sphere than what the ‘60s had often made way for. As such, by 1975, band members and married couple Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr had flown the nest.
The feeling that The 5th Dimension ticked so many boxes that it was almost too many was an odd one, as it marked the unique trajectory of a band that was so strongly dominant in one moment, but then forgotten in the next. New dimensions are, of course, always hard to master, but at a time when the world was completely changing track, that was more difficult than ever.
