My discoveries per year

[dihansse]

And here is another round of album comparisons with of course the two Stones albums:
- Their Satanic Majesties Request by The Rolling Stones (nr 22 on the overall BEA top chart of 1967): She's a Rainbow and 2000 Lightyears From Home are two of the best Stones songs ever compared to which the rest of the album is a bit of a letdown. Nevertheless the rest of the album is still good enough to make this a new entry in my personal top chart of the year
- Between The Buttons - UK Version by The Rolling Stones (nr 24): and that is why it sometimes is much a pity that the BEA rule is to stick with the original albums in this case the UK version. The US version contains Let's Spend The Night Together, Yesterday's Papers and Ruby Tuesday which would make it a total match with Their Satanic... But the UK version counts so this album doesn't contain no standouts at all (except for Backstreet Girl). Although still an album for my personal top chart it's clear that Satanic wins.

- Buffalo Springfield Again by Buffalo Springfield (nr 25): just a very good album especially when Neil Young takes the lead.

And another contest between two Beach Boys albums:
- Smiley Smile by The Beach Boys (nr 26): It's a bit difficult to choose between the different Smile albums and to decide which are the regular albums: certainly not the Smile Sessions and the recent Smile album is by Brian Wilson. I knew Heroes and Vilains from the latter album but the version on this one is even better because it even better emphasises on the harmonics between the different ban members. And of course there's also Good Vibrations. Otherwise I have a bit the same reaction as with the Stones albums: apart from these standouts the rest (except for Wonderful) is not really special but still good enough to be represented in my personal top chart of the year.
- Wild Honey by The Beach Boys (nr 30): and as with the Stones, this is the one without the hits apart from the minor hit Darlin' which is also the standout. So again overall good quality but nothing special and just ok to put in my personal top chart and also here the album with the hits wins.

And finally there's:
- Moby Grape by Moby Grape (nr 28 ): I must admit I expected more from this album. Overall I find the music rather flat without real highlights. Originally I wanted to include it however in my top chart but finally I decided against it.

The next album to listen to is Mr. Fantasy by Traffic

[RoundTheBend]

[dihansse]

1967 is one of the greatest and groundbreaking years in music but it also produced a lot of mud between the many gems:
- Mr. Fantasy by Traffic (nr 31 on the overall BEA top chart of 1967): again one of those albums where the hits are missing on the UK version but it does contain the great Dear Mr. Fantasy. The thing is this about the only real great track on this album and in fact is only when Steve Winwood kicks in the songs are good. So finally not good enough for my personal top chart of 1967
- Song Cycle by Van Dyke Parks (nr 32): I think this album was first in the 1968 year list because I already listened to it but I listened again and it didn't improve on that second listen: it's heavy orchestrated but that doesn't do the songs any good because I don't feel anything listening to them.
- Procol Harum by Procol Harum (nr 33) and that is completely different with this also very orchestrated album. It doesn't contain A Whiter Shade of Pale or Homburg and still it's one of the best albums of the sixties. I know most of the tracks from greatest hits or the fantastic live album with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (very much recommended) but also the tracks I didn't know are no less than great. Conquistador and Repent Walpurgis are two of my top 1000 favorite tracks ever an also Salad Days is a real highlight. I like this album more than A Salty Dog which is rated higher on this site and I must absolutely listen to Shine On Brightly which I haven't heard before.

The next two highlights are supposed to be psychedelic highlights of the year I didn't know yet but still completely feel different to me:
- Electric Music For The Mind And Body by...d The Fish (nr 34): some tracks are ok but overall this album didn't satisfy me at all: both the songs and the singing were really not my cup of tea.
- Easter Everywhere by 13th Floor Elevators (nr 35): which was completely different with this album which in itself is not so different from the former one but the general feel really gives me positive vibes: especially the two longer tracks are so easyflowing and still sufficiently complex to be completely satisfying overall. A great discovery for my personal chart of 1967.

The next album to listen to is Born Under A Bad Sign by Albert King which already sounds very good after the first two tracks.

[dihansse]

And this is my last contribution for 1967 but there's more as you will see later:
- Born Under A Bad Sign by Albert King (nr 36 in the overall BEA top chart of 1967): I like blues but sometimes it can be a bit uniform sounding but this isn't the case on this album. The collaboration on this album with Book T & The MG's really gives rise to something magical here. I like the album and the wonderful flow on it.
- Ewa Demarczyk śpiewa Piosenki Zygmunta... Demarczyk (nr 37): sometimes not bad but in general not really my cup of tea.
- Francis Albert Sinatra And Antonio Carl...rlos Jobim (nr 38 ): There is one of my favorites on this album: The Girl From Ipanema and in general the voice of Sinatra and the Brazilian sound of Jobim work well together here but overall a bit lightweight.
- Miles Smiles by Miles Davis (nr 39 and the last 1967 album with an overall rank better than 2500): I liked the first track but the other ones were not really my thing.

And this concludes this year 1967... or not...
Because I'd like to do a bit of a general overview of the sixties but there's three things:
- I started this diary with 1963, my birth year so I'm missing three years abnd I'll cover these as well
- In the meantime some other sixties albums have joined the overall top 2500 so I'll cover these as well
- And because for the sixties I'm not yet at a full 100 albums for my sixties top chart, I've picked some 40 albums from the sixties which don't appear in the overall BEA top 2500 but which I thought I would like them as well so I'm not yet sure if I will do all 40 and I'm not sure I'll do this in other decades but here's already a few 1967 albums not in the overall top 2500 I listened to:
- Butterfly by The Hollies (nr 43): as on many of these UK albums of the time there are no hits on this album and the Hollies were very good on hits not so much on general album tracks so this is a first no
- Headquarters by The Monkees (nr 45): and here an attempt of a band who also were very good at hits (although those on their first fantastic album were not theirs) but tried to scale up their sound and write songs themselves but didn't succeed (and also no hits).
- Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones...he Monkees (nr 46): and here they tried to go even further but to no avail either but there is one great track here: Pleasant Valley Sunday
- Friday On My Mind by The Easybeats (nr 59): also guys with that fantastic hit: Friday On my Mind. But again the rest of the album not very good.

There's more 1967 albums to listen to here and in other years I did find some gems but I'd like to wrap up 1967 here: a very good year and I've added many albums of this year in my personal year chart but lots of them disappointed a bit not in the least because of the fact that I had to take the UK versions albums (which usually didn't contain hits) over the US versions (which did contain the hits):

And this is the final list (so far) of 1967 with at the start the BEA overall rank and after that the BEA year rank and after that my personal year rank before and after this listening session:
BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before To My Rank after
8 The Velvet Underground And Nico By The Velvet Underground And Nico 2 - 1 To 1
5 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band By The Beatles 1 - 2 To 2
179 Songs Of Leonard Cohen By Leonard Cohen 8 - To listen To 3
79 Magical Mystery Tour By The Beatles 6 - 3 To 4
2001 Procol Harum By Procol Harum 33 - To listen To 5
26 The Doors By The Doors 3 - 4 To 6
973 Younger Than Yesterday By The Byrds 21 - To listen To 7
296 Strange Days By The Doors 11 - 5 To 8
150 The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn By Pink Floyd 7 - 6 To 9
221 Disraeli Gears By Cream 10 - 7 To 10
461 Something Else By The Kinks By The Kinks 16 - To listen To 11
2281 Easter Everywhere By 13th Floor Elevators 35 - To listen To 12
1315 Buffalo Springfield Again By Buffalo Springfield 25 - To listen To 13
335 Surrealistic Pillow By Jefferson Airplane 12 - To listen To 14
2326 Born Under A Bad Sign By Albert King 36 - To listen To 15
1431 Smiley Smile By The Beach Boys 26 - To listen To 16
1144 Their Satanic Majesties Request By The Rolling Stones 22 - To listen To 17
31 Are You Experienced By The Jimi Hendrix Experience 4 - To listen To 18
68 Forever Changes By Love 5 - To listen To 18
213 Axis: Bold As Love By The Jimi Hendrix Experience 9 - To listen To 19
423 The Who Sell Out By The Who 14 - To listen To 20
1262 Between The Buttons By The Rolling Stones 24 - To listen To 21

And I'll come back on my update for sixties albums in general...

[dihansse]

I was working at home a lot these last days so lots of time to listen to many albums: As promised I dug a bit deeper into sixties albums and I started listening to albums just outside the top 2500 I thought I might like:
I listened to two Bee Gees albums and they actually were not even a singles band in the sixties but were one of the artists who were even able to come up with a good album (even two):
- 1st by Bee Gees (rank 48 of 1967 and 3772 overall): Holiday and New York Mining Disaster 1941 are the highlights here and are even a bit Beatle-esque. The rest of the album is not bad either
- Odessa by Bee Gees (rank 62 of 1969 and 2660 overall): and this album is even better with even four highlights: Melody Fair, Sudenly, Whisper Whisper and of course First Of May which is a little gem of a song.

And I listened to 2 Deep Purple albums in which their signature sound was already showing although they reverted to covers a lot:
- Shades Of Deep Purple by Deep Purple (rank 65 of 1968 and 4888 overall): this is their first album and already a very good one: Hush is their hit single and a very good one but also And The Address Mandrake Root and even Help! and Hey Joe are very good. They have this very bluesy sound here which is really unique (at the time) because of organ of Jon Lord.
- The Book Of Taliesyn by Deep Purple (nr 104 of 1968 and 8242 overall): this is really a clunker: apart from Hard Road (Wring That Neck) which I already knew and is a fantastic long track, there is nothing worthwile here: even the covers were not good at all.
The album Deep Purple of 1969 is still on the list and I can't advise you all enough to listen to their Concerto For Group and Orchestra of the same year which is to me the best marriage between a classic piece by a real orchestra and a guitar band with great guitar solos (and yes also a drum solo) neatly fit within the classical instrumentation.

And two from the Beach Boys:
- All Summer Long by The Beach Boys (nr 22 of 1964 and 3418 overall): I Get Around is one of their best and Little Honda is also great but the rest was so bad to me that I chose not to include this album in my charts
- Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) by The Beach Boys (nr 25 of 1965 and 4029 overall): Here no real standouts but there's enough good singles collected on this album to make it a good album overall

And two albums by the Kinks:
- Kinda Kinks by The Kinks (nr 22 of 1965 and 3657 overall): Only Tired of Waiting for You is a highlight on this album; the rest is really just average
- The Kink Kontroversy by The Kinks (nr 23 of 1965 and 3933 overall): this one was a bit better because it contains two standouts: Till The End of The Day and Where Have All the Good Times Gone and also the other tracks are of better quality: overall a solid but not great album.

And also the following albums:
- More by Pink Floyd (nr 64 of 1969 and 2739 overall): for one reason or another I had never listened to this one and although the music is often very quirky I liked it.
- Shine On Brightly by Procol Harum (nr 43 of 1968 and 2778 overall): I'm more and more a fan of this band: their orchestral sound never gets in the way of a good song as many band of that band were doing. The title track is one of their best and most of the others are also very good (maybe except for the longer suite at the end).
- Happy Trails by Quicksilver Messenger Service (nr 69 of 1969 and 2922 overall): already the Who Do You Love suite is very good and adventurous and tracks like Mona and Calvary also really good.
- I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! by Janis Joplin (nr 68 of 1969 and 2909 overall): Her voice is still there and Kozmic Blues is great but the rest is dope.
- Picturesque Matchstickable Messages Fro...Status Quo (nr 130 of 1968 and 9950 overall): Not yet their boogie sound of the seventies but already a great album with a great hit single, a good cover of Green Tambourine and overall good quality of the songs.
- Joy Of A Toy by Kevin Ayers (nr 97 of 1969 and 5328 overall): Lady Rachel is a gem of a song but the rest is a bit too weird to be actually good songs.

And for the rest I'm now listening to albums of 1960 en 1961, mostly jazz and although many are classics and I appreciate them for that they're not really my thing except for:
- My Favorite Things by John Coltrane (nr 2 of 1961 and 828 overall): 4 interesting jazz interpretation of old standards and all four of them very good.

So still a bit to do: 1962 and some albums I missed.

[dihansse]

Time to wrap up the sixties.
To be clear: I haven't finished with the sixties but I did listen to all 215 albums from the sixties which are part of the overall BEA top 2500 (except 5 live albums/greatest hits) even to the jazz albums I was planning to exclude initially: I even put 4 jazz albums in my 1960's top 100:
Getz/Gilberto: just because I love that Bossanova/jazz mix
My Favorite Things from Coltrane
In A Silent Way from Miles Davis
Karma From Pharaoh Sanders
So I didn't put a lot of the real jazz classics in my top 100 not because I don't appreciate them as classics but just because it's not really my cup of tea.

Which brings me to my general conclusions:
I said somewhere that for me that albums of the Beatles is the Beatles, The Beatles, The Beatles and I have to say I stick to that in general (but of course it's still a generalisation): I've got 8 Beatles albums in my top 12 of the sixties and they all deserve to be there because the Beatles were the real album artists.

That's not to say there aren't any others: The Velvet Underground, The Doors, The Beach Boys (but not their first albums), The Kinks, CCR, The Byrds and the first Led Zep albums were good contenders. A real nice surprise of this quest were Procol Harum.

But I still have the feeling I should have added many more albums of artist which have fantastic greatest hits albums: The Animals and even The Stones which were fantastic as album artists in the seventies weren't able to produce a consistent regular album in the sixties: to be honest it's because BEA sticks to original issues which means that a lot of UK albums which excluded the hits are featured on BEA and not the US versions which did contain the hits; and that 's a bit of a pity because it would have made some consistent albums if you would have hits mixed with regular album tracks.

Of the 215 sixties albums in the BEA top 2500 there were 173 albums I hadn't listened to yet before these sessions and 61 of those became part of my sixties top 100 (in fact top 108).

You can find my overall top 100 chart on (which will remain a work in progress forever):
Top 100 Music Albums of the 1960s by dihansse

Please have a look and let me know what you think of it.

And which means that I can now concentrate on the seventies in which I still have to cover 1972.

[dihansse]

And this is the start of a journey into the albums of 1972 I haven't listened to yet (in the overall BEA top 2500).

This is the list with at the start the overall BEA rank and after that the BEA Year rank and finally my personal year rank before this new listening session (or to listen):

BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before
16 The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars By David Bowie 1 - 3
30 Exile On Main St. By The Rolling Stones 2 - 6
61 Pink Moon By Nick Drake 3 - To listen
101 Harvest By Neil Young 4 - To listen
111 Transformer By Lou Reed 5 - 7
124 Close To The Edge By Yes 6 - To listen
239 Machine Head By Deep Purple 7 - 1
261 Thick As A Brick By Jethro Tull 8 - To listen
310 Foxtrot By Genesis 9 - To listen
357 Ege Bamyasi By Can 10 - To listen
432 #1 Record By Big Star 11 - 5
578 Talking Book By Stevie Wonder 12 - To listen
587 Superfly By Curtis Mayfield 13 - To listen
620 Can't Buy A Thrill By Steely Dan 14 - To listen
629 Neu! By Neu! 15 - To listen
685 Eat A Peach By The Allman Brothers Band 16 - To listen
693 Made In Japan By Deep Purple 17 - Live Excluded
694 Roxy Music By Roxy Music 18 - 2
786 Hosianna Mantra By Popol Vuh 19 - To listen
821 Clube Da Esquina By Milton Nascimento/Lo Borges 20 - To listen
868 The Slider By T. Rex 21 - To listen
917 Acabou Chorare By Novos Baianos 22 - To listen
927 Vol 4 By Black Sabbath 23 - 10
1003 Argus By Wishbone Ash 24 - 8
1034 The Harder They Come By Various Artists 25 - To listen
1075 Something/Anything? By Todd Rundgren 26 - To listen
1085 On The Corner By Miles Davis 27 - To listen
1163 Paul Simon By Paul Simon 28 - To listen
1211 Sail Away By Randy Newman 29 - To listen
1405 Obscured By Clouds By Pink Floyd 30 - To listen
1429 Caravanserai By Santana 31 - To listen
1490 Trilogy By Emerson, Lake & Palmer 32 - To listen
1582 Transa By Caetano Veloso 33 - To listen
1594 Irrlicht By Klaus Schulze 34 - To listen
1771 Saint Dominic's Preview By Van Morrison 35 - To listen
1831 Europe '72 By Grateful Dead 36 - To listen
1864 Octopus By Gentle Giant 37 - To listen
1900 Simon And Garfunkel's Greatest Hits By Simon And Garfunkel 38 - Greatest Hits Excluded
1942 Honky Chateau By Elton John 39 - To listen
1986 Let's Stay Together By Al Green 40 - To listen
2002 Let My Children Hear Music By Charles Mingus 41 - To listen
2141 Zeit By Tangerine Dream 42 - To listen
2151 Per Un Amico By Premiata Forneria Marconi 43 - To listen
2189 Storia Di Un Minuto By Premiata Forneria Marconi 44 - To listen
2214 Live At Pompeii By Pink Floyd 45 - Live Excluded
2277 Demons & Wizards By Uriah Heep 46 - 11

And the first one to listen to is Pink Moon by Nick Drake.

[dihansse]

I've listened to the first few album of 1972:
- Pink Moon by Nick Drake (nr 3 on the overall BEA top chart of 1672): I'm not a fan of Nick Drake and this one must be one of his best albums not in the least because of the presence on it of the title song Pink Moon which is a great one. This isn't really the case of the rest of the tracks.
- Harvest by Neil Young nr 4): this is to me certainly not the best album of Neil Young as there are some mediocre tracks to be found here. But Heart Of Gold, Old Man, Alabama, Words and of course especially The Needle and the Damage Done are so good that I cannot do anything else than put this one into my 1972 top chart however.

And then there are three prog albums which are maybe not the same but to me have all the same traits written all over them: they contain a good song/theme but the rest of the albums are then noodling so much around that theme that it makes them boring for my poor ears.
- Close To The Edge by Yes (nr 6)
- Thick As A Brick by Jethro Tull (nr 8 )
- Foxtrot by Genesis (nr 9)

The next album to listen to is Ege Bamyasi by Can

[dihansse]

Two interesting comparisons here: 2 krautrock albums and two soul albums, each time with a good and a not so good one:
- Ege Bamyasi by Can (nr 10 on the overall BEA top chart of 1972): I can understand this was a groundbreaking album in 1972 but many other artists have done this and better, so finally not interesting enough (especially because there's not even a standout track) for me at this point to include it in my personal top chart of 1972; and
- Neu! by Neu! (nr 15); and this one is so much better. The two guitar pieces Hallogallo and Negativland are like Autobahn on speed and their length is not a hindrance because they remain interesting throughout their whole duration. Also Weissensee is not bad. The other three tracks are a bit too strange (the last track) or too ambient for me but overall the album is one of the best Krautrock albums to me.
- Talking Book by Stevie Wonder (nr 11): this album contains two of Stevies best: his version of You are the Sunshine Of My Life is maybe not everyone's favorite but it is certainly mine and then there's of course Superstition, one of the best funktracks ever. Also Maybe Your Baby and Big Brother are good. Maybe the instrumentation on this album is sometimes not the best and not yet as good as on their two other classics but to me this album is good enough to be part of my top chart of 1972
- Superfly by Curtis Mayfield (nr 13): this album was much less my thing.
- Can't Buy A Thrill by Steely Dan (nr 14): this is maybe not yet their brillant melting pot between rock and jazz: the first one rules, but to me this first album of theirs is as good as any of their others: the general flow of Do It Again is one of the best you can find in rock music and Reelin in the Years is overall a great rock song. Apart from maybe the last track there isn't a bad song to be found on this album so hell yeah: a great addition to my top chart of 1972.
- Eat A Peach by The Allman Brothers Band (nr 16): and of course the same goes for this album. It's a fairly strange one in the sense that it contains three live tracks from the Fillmore East sessions of which the more than half an hour Mountain Jam. Not everyone likes this long jam but I do and the same goes for all the other tracks including the two I didn't yet know: Les Brers In A Minor and Stand Back: this is one of the Allman Brother classics!

The next album to listen to is another Krautrock one: Hosianna Mantra by Popol Vuh

[dihansse]

And some more comparisons:
- Hosianna Mantra by Popol Vuh (nr 19 on the overall BEA top chart of 1972): a bit too ambient for my taste.
- Clube Da Esquina by Milton Nascimento/Lô Borges (nr 20): I fairly like these Brazilian albums which are nearly always a mixture of bossanova sounds with western influences but I wouldn't call it the Brazilian Sgt Peppers and overall it can't keep my attention.
- The Slider by T. Rex (nr 21): Overall I like glam but for one reason or another I don't like T Rex and Marc Bolan. I really have the feeling that all his songs are interchangeable and you can suffice with his one great track Get It On (not on this album).
- Acabou Chorare by Novos Baianos (nr 23): I have the same feeling with this album as with the Clube Da Esquina one: very nice but overall not completely satisfying.
- The Harder They Come by Various Artists (nr 25): this album is attributed to Jimmy Cliff on most sites although he only contributes to a few songs. Of course the title track is a classic but overall this album is a bit too mellow for my taste.

I'm looking forward to discover Something/Anything? by Todd Rundgren.