A couple of days ago I was expressing my shock that Bringing it all Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Help! and Rubber Soul were all released in 1965.
Well, in 1966, add Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde and The Beatles’ Revolver to the mix (not to mention Simon & Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence and The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds.
I grew up in the wrong decade, man!
Revolver feels like the album where The Beatles really became The Beatles, which is odd because it was their seventh record and they released only four proper studio albums after this one.
But this album saw the band pivot from a pop band to psychedelic pioneers — tour guides on a head trip that would last for a decade.
It never ceases to amaze me that Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited was released just five months after Bringing it all Back Home. And to top that off, The Beatles released Help! and Rubber Soul in the four following months.
How amazing must it have been to be a music fan in the mid-60s? Not just every year but seemingly every month brought some new masterwork by a rotating cast of artists who were in the process of defining popular music.
Kids today get what? Justin Bieber and Katy Perry?
Some bands show all the signs of numbering among my favorites and then just stop dead in their tracks.
When I first heard Jump, Little Children, on their first studio album Magazine, it was love at first listen. The band’s sound was unique and rich — a product of their choice of instruments: guitar, upright bass, cello, accordion and drums. Lead singer Jay Clifford’s vocals sweetened every song like rough honey.
I could see loving or hating this song. In fact, I could see loving this song and hating this song depending on when you were hearing it.
It certainly has a vibe — a vibe that might make it more effective if paired with visuals. In a very dramatic and disturbing movie scene, for example.
Or if you’re 16, misunderstood, angry at life — I could see playing this through headphones while lying on the floor of your bedroom in the dark.
