Velvet Underground Sunday Morning

Throughout this blog, I’ve posted annual playlists, at first in accordance with my 100 Albums project (from 1990-on), then rather haphazardly filling in the gaps. Last year, I deleted them all; in 2024, I’ll be posting new, improved versions of them every Sunday in chronological order from my birth year (1975) until the present.

I originally intended to go all the way back to 1965 when the Beatles’ influence fully gelled and pop music evolved into something that one could easily differentiate from early rock and roll, doo-wop, and everything else that came before. Instead, I’m sticking with my own timeline, but preceding it with two playlists each covering a five-year period featuring roughly ten songs from every year (again, in chronological order.)

I’m uncertain as to how comprehensively one can sum up a single year in ten songs, so the only ground rule I implemented below was one song per artist. I’ve selected beloved tracks from all-time favorites (Dionne Warwick, Nina Simone, The Velvet Underground, Stevie Wonder), glorious one-shots (We Five, The Darlettes, Margo Guryan, Mason Williams) and songs that more or less begat seismic shifts in what pop music could be (James Brown’s rhythm-forward soul, The Mothers of Invention practically inventing psych-rock and The Beatles perfecting it, Desmond Dekker importing first-wave ska to the rest of the world.) Subsequent playlists will see examples of all three categories.

Over this particular five-year period, one can detect some evolving trends: although both were ostensibly conceived of as mood-music, there’s a world of difference between something like “Spanish Flea” and “69 année érotique”; similarly, The Miracles and The Supremes represent one golden mean of soul-pop, while Sly & The Family Stone and Dusty Springfield (in Memphis) each exemplify vastly different ones. In later years, there’s as much of a push to innovate via prog (“One Way Glass”), tropicália (“A Minha Menina”) and whatever swamp-rock “Gris Gris Gumbo Ya Ya” is as there’s one to comfort via the good ol’ bubblegum of “Sugar Sugar” and “Quick Joey Small”. Still, 1969’s “Space Oddity” is deliberately placed at the end as a bridge between explaining what the 1960s did to pop culture and anticipating what the next decade might achieve.

Check back next week for a companion playlist for 1970-74!

1965-69: Watch Out, The World’s Behind You

Marvin Gaye, “Ain’t That Peculiar”
James Brown, “Papa’s Got a Brand-New Bag”
Dionne Warwick, “Are You There (With Another Girl)”
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, “Spanish Flea”
Tom Lehrer, “The Vatican Rag”
We Five, “You Were On My Mind”
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, “The Tracks of My Tears”
The Darlettes, “Lost”
Unit 4 + 2, “Concrete & Clay”
Vince Guaraldi Trio, “Linus and Lucy”
The Mothers of Invention, “Hungry Freaks, Daddy”
The Beatles, “She Said She Said”
Lou Christie, “Trapeze”
Nancy Sinatra, “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’”
The Rolling Stones, “Under My Thumb”
Nina Simone, “Four Women”
Simon & Garfunkel, “A Hazy Shade of Winter”
The Supremes, “Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart”
The Temptations, “(I Know) I’m Losing You”
Norma Tanega, “You’re Dead”
Cat Stevens, “Matthew & Son”
The Free Design, “I Found Love”
The Kinks, “Waterloo Sunset”
The Monkees, “For Pete’s Sake”
Scott Walker, “Montague Terrace (In Blue)”
The Who, “Pictures of Lily”
Lulu, “To Sir With Love”
The Velvet Underground, “Sunday Morning”
The Zombies, “This Will Be Our Year”
Dr. John, “Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya”
Kasenetz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus, “Quick Joey Small (Run Joey Run)”
Lalo Schifrin, “Bride Of the Wind”
Laura Nyro, “Eli’s Comin’”
Leonard Cohen, “Winter Lady”
Margo Guryan, “What Can I Give You”
Bobbie Gentry, “Casket Vignette”
Os Mutantes, “A Minha Menina”
Sly & The Family Stone, “M’Lady”
The Association, “Everything That Touches You”
Van Morrison, “The Way Young Lovers Do”
Mason Williams, “Classical Gas”
Desmond Dekker, “Israelites”
The Archies, “Sugar, Sugar”
Stevie Wonder, “My Cherie Amour”
Dusty Springfield, “Don’t Forget About Me”
Manfred Mann Chapter Three, “One Way Glass”
Serge Gainsbourg, “69 année érotique”
Donovan with Jeff Beck, “Barabajagal”
Nick Drake, “Cello Song”
David Bowie, “Space Oddity”