Top 38 Music Albums of 1969
by Romanelli

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Overall chart ranking: #1. Decade ranking: #1. Produced by George Martin. The last album The Beatles recorded somehow turned out to be one of their very best. The bits and pieces McCartney envisioned as song suites somehow worked, and Lennon's singular songs are among his best work. George Harrison's songs show how much he'd progressed into a rival of the band's songwriting team. Abbey Road is a miracle of 1969 modern technology: it sounds as clean as anything coming out today. One of the most entertaining albums ever made. [First added to this chart: 04/11/2012]
Year of Release:
1969
Appears in:
Rank Score:
55,832
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Average Rating:
Top rated album (92/100 - 4653 votes)  92 (4,653 votes)
Comments:
Produced by John Simon. The second album from The Band is a thing of beauty. The songwriting would begin to fall off shortly after this, but for two albums (this and Music From Big Pink), The Band could do no wrong. People talk about music being timeless...well, I think it really applies to this album. All of the talent in the world at each instrument, plus incredible writing, makes this one of the greatest of all time. Could have come from any era, which is really what makes it so special. [First added to this chart: 04/11/2012]
Year of Release:
1969
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Rank Score:
6,348
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1969 – FANTASY
Produced By JOHN FOGERTY

1. Down On The Corner
2. It Came Out Of The Sky
3. Cotton Fields
4. Poorboy Shuffle
5. Feelin’ Blue
6. Fortunate Son
7. Don’t Look Now
8. The Midnight Special
9. Side O’ The Road
10. Effigy
11. Fortunate Son (Live)
12. It Came Out Of The Sky (Live)
13. Down On The Corner (With Booker T. & The MG’s)

Any doubts as to what a great band Creedence Clearwater Revival was can be doused with the mention of a single year…1969. They had already released their second album, Bayou Country, in January, followed by the excellent Green River in August. They had also played at Woodstock that month, and were touring non-stop. Willy And The Poor Boys was the third album released by Creedence during the year, and it’s the strongest of the three. By this time, the band had built up so much momentum that they were unstoppable, and were rivalling even The Beatles as the greatest rock and roll band of the time. The band had not only solidified its swampy, deep sound, but John Fogerty had blossomed into one of rock’s greatest songwriters. Even as the cracks had already begun to show (the rest of the band was severely questioning the full throttle approach of Fogerty), they were also peaking at this point.

“Down On The Corner” and “Fortunate Son” were big hits, and remain staples of rock radio to this day. Their version of the traditional “The Midnight Special” remains one of the song’s best versions. But it’s actually the non-hits that make Willy And The Poor Boys so great. “It Came From The Sky” is probably their greatest non-hit. Side one is anchored by the bluesy “Feelin’ Blue”, while side two closes with the hugely underrated “Effigy”. The album is also notable for being not psychedelic, and for being much more politically charged than any of the other Creedence albums. They would follow this up with the even more successful Cosmo’s Factory before beginning to completely unravel…less than three years after this album, Creedence had broken up. But the music they made between 1968 and 1971…purely magical. This is a true classic.
[First added to this chart: 09/04/2012]
Year of Release:
1969
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Rank Score:
3,477
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Comments:
4. (=)
Produced by Kit Lambert. Despite the flawed storytelling (is the question to ask a deaf dumb and blind pinball wizard really "what makes you so good" rather than "Why pinball???"), Tommy is ambitious and musically amazing. Hard to believe they did this all with just bass, drums, guitar and a French horn. When taken as a whole, this is an absolute gem of an album, with all four members performing at their very best. Don't take the concept too seriously,,,just have fun with it. It's worth the ride. [First added to this chart: 04/11/2012]
Year of Release:
1969
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Rank Score:
6,665
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1969 – ATLANTIC
Produced By David Crosby, Stephen Stills & Graham Nash

1. Suite: Judy Blue Eyes
2. Marrakesh Express
3. Guinnevere
4. You Don’t Have To Cry
5. Pre-Road Downs
6. Wooden Ships
7. Lady Of The Island
8. Helplessly Hoping
9. Long Time Gone
10. 49 Bye-Byes

Maybe the supergroup to top all supergroups, Crosby, Stills & Nash were perfect for the times…and perfect for each other. Consisting of members of The Byrds (Crosby), Buffalo Springfield (Stills), and The Hollies (Nash), the musical mix of these three was something to behold. The harmonies were perfect and oh so cool, but it was the extra added bonus of the personality differences of the three that made it all the better. This, their debut album, was a monster hit in its day. Today, it’s almost forgotten, which is nothing short of a damn shame. There are tracks here that are some of the most beautiful recordings in the history of rock, and this is one of the most perfect albums for its time ever made. These three together in 1969, just getting together, showing the world what they could do and getting ready to take the stage at Woodstock is something special indeed. It’s instrumentally almost all Stills, but vocally, and the writing…nothing short of an amazing group effort.

Stills’ “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”, written about his love for Judy Collins, is the greatest Stills song of all time, and it’s a masterpiece that Lennon & McCartney would have been proud to have written. His “You Don’t Have To Cry” and the gorgeous “Helplessly Hoping” are not far behind. Crosby’s “Guinnevere” is stunning, and his “Long Time Gone”, a response to the killing of Robert Kennedy, is perfect. The three Nash tracks maybe sound the most dated, but you can’t help but love “Marrakesh Express” and “Pre-Road Downs”, which features Cass Elliot singing backups. And there’s “Wooden Ships”, a beautiful track by Crosby, Stills and Paul Kantner of the Airplane. Plenty of great moments awaited this trio (with help from future member Neil Young), but man…what an amazing debut. How amazing must it have been to have heard this for the first time in 1969? This is one hell of a great and absolutely beautiful album. Must have.
[First added to this chart: 06/12/2012]
Year of Release:
1969
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Rank Score:
4,423
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1969-POLYDOR
Produced By THE VELVET UNDERGROUND

1. Candy Says
2. What Goes On
3. Some Kinda Love
4. Pale Blue Eyes
5. Jesus
6. Beginning To See Ther Light
7. I'm Set Free
8. That's The Story Of My Life
9. The Murder Mystery
10. After Hours

After the departure of the robotic voiced Nico and the abrasive John Cale from the first two Velvet albums, it was finally Lou Reed's band. And despite the Velvet's continued complete lack of commercial success, Reed made the most of it. This is where he takes the front by himself for the first time, and where his songwriting begins to turn towards a more acoustic and melodic place where he would go many times during his solo career.

Down to a four piece band, The Velvets on this record are not quite what the masses would consume, but they were in a constant state of improvement. Reed's songs here, all of them, are stunning and deserve to be heard. Again...you may not like the Velvets...and if so, you probably never started a band. This is a great work.
[First added to this chart: 04/14/2012]
Year of Release:
1969
Appears in:
Rank Score:
12,278
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Average Rating:
Top rated album (86/100 - 1650 votes)  86 (1,650 votes)
Comments:
1969-FANTASY
Produced By JOHN FOGERTY

1. Green River
2. Commotion
3. Tombstone Shadow
4. Wrote A Song For Everyone
5. Bad Moon Rising
6. Lodi
7. Cross-Tie Walker
8. Sinister Purpose
9. The Night Time Is The Right Time

Between 1968 and 1970, no band was more successful or prolific than Creedence Clearwater Revival. And this was while The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were still very active. Green River is one of three albums released by Creedence in 1969, and it was a huge success. The album contains four hit singles: “Bad Moon Rising”, “Lodi”, “Commotion”, and the title track, and the album spent 27 days in October 1969 at number one. The sound is consistent with Bayou Country, released earlier the same year, and centered the band into a period in which they could do no wrong.

CCR albums from this period are pretty much judgeable by the non-hit material, and Green River is fairly consistent in that area. “Wrote A Song For Everyone” is the best of the lot, with “Tombstone Shadow” not far behind. “Cross Tie Walker” and “Sinister Purpose” are not as strong, and the final track is a decent cover of a 1957 hit by Nappy Brown. Overall, a pretty great album…you can’t go wrong with any CCR album from 1968-70. It all came unraveled for them by 1972, but during this time, CCR may have been the best band in the world.
[First added to this chart: 04/12/2012]
Year of Release:
1969
Appears in:
Rank Score:
4,133
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Comments:
1969-FANTASY
Produced By JOHN FOGERTY

1. Born On The Bayou
2. Bootleg
3. Graveyard Train
4. Good Golly Miss Molly
5. Penthouse Pauper
6. Proud Mary
7. Keep On Chooglin'

Hard to believe that in 1969, the four members of Creedence Clearwater Revival had been playing together for 10 years. Bayou Country is their second album, and the first of an incredible run of 3 in the same year and 5 albums between 1969-70. The band was basically over by 1971...but what a run they had.

Bayou Country is the home to "Proud Mary", a huge hit for the band, as well as one of their better songs, "Born On The Bayou". It also features 2 tracks over 7 minutes in length, "Graveyard Train", and maybe the best one chord song ever recorded, "Keep On Chooglin". The album shows considerable growth from the previous year's debut, and sparks of what was to come with their next four albums. Bayou Country is an important part of the CCR catalog, and a great example of why this band was so big...if only for a short period of time.
[First added to this chart: 04/13/2012]
Year of Release:
1969
Appears in:
Rank Score:
1,701
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1969-ATLANTIC
Produced By JIMMY PAGE

1. Good Times Bad Times
2. Babe I’m Gonna Leave You
3. You Shook Me
4. Dazed And Confused
5. Your Time Is Gonna Come
6. Black Mountain Side
7. Communication Breakdown
8. I Can’t Quit You Baby
9. How Many More Times

In 1968, this was what was left of The Yardbirds. Jimmy Page was left as the only member of the band with a Scandanavian tour commitment he had to honor. He brought together Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham to tour as The New Yardbirds, then renamed the band afterwards Led Zeppelin, and the rest is history. The band recorded their debut album in just 36 hours of actual studio time, and because they didn’t have a record deal yet, paid for it themselves. Page has since said that they did it that way to insure artistic freedom. The result is the beginning of the Led Zeppelin legacy. A stunning album with a sound that was unlike anything before it, the vision that Page had for his new band was dead on. Lead by the stinging guitar and the ability of Page to pull great licks from seemingly nowhere, and the soaring vocals of Plant (who believed, until the second album, that this was a temporary gig), Zeppelin rode this album to the top and stayed there for the next decade.

What’s not to love? “Good Times Bad Times” opens the door as a great, loud pop song…and then Zeppelin begins reconstructing the blues like no other band was doing…basically killing the British Invasion with one quick lick. Oh, to have been a kid in 1969 and hearing this for the first time…what a pleasant shock this must have been! “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You”, “You Shook Me”, “Dazed And Confused”, “I Can’t Quit You Baby”, and especially the unbridled power of “How Many More Times” took British bands playing American blues to a whole new level, and changed the sound of the electric guitar forever. Throw in the pretty acoustic instrumental “Black Mountain Side”, and you have perfection. And it stayed that way, right up until Bonham’s death in 1980. This album didn’t begin the ascent to Led Zeppelin being the biggest band in the world…it put them square at the top from the start. A must have album.
[First added to this chart: 04/13/2012]
Year of Release:
1969
Appears in:
Rank Score:
16,671
Rank in 1969:
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Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Top rated album (86/100 - 2606 votes)  86 (2,606 votes)
Comments:
1969-ATLANTIC
Produced By JIMMY PAGE

1. Whole Lotta Love
2. What Is And What Should Never Be
3. The Lemon Song
4. Thank You
5. Heartbreaker
6. Living Loving Maid (She’s Just A Woman)
7. Ramble On
8. Moby Dick
9. Bring It On Home

There’s something exciting and dangerous about that opening half minute of “Whole Lotta Love”. That guitar riff sends out a warning that this is no hippie record about wearing flowers in your hair. “Whole Lotta Love”, and the rest of Led Zeppelin II, is all about rock. The heaviest album by Zeppelin is also their most exciting work, loaded with soaring anthems and reworked blues songs and more great guitar riffs than you could shake a stick at. Following the big success of their debut (after which Robert Plant almost quit the band), Zeppelin was right back at it. Recording began almost immediately after the release of the debut album, and continued on for 8 months at many different studios…the band was on tour throughout the recording. A testament to the production abilities of Jimmy Page is that despite the many different rooms and cities and circumstances in which II was recorded, the album still manages to sound as perfect as it does.

“Whole Lotta Love” is worth having the album for alone, but Led Zeppelin II is excellence from beginning to end. “What Is And What Should Never Be” and “Ramble On” feature dramatic acoustic to heavy transitions. “Thank You” is a perfect ballad, and marked Plant’s real entrance as a Zeppelin songwriter (and Page sings backup!). “The Lemon Song”, “Bring It On Home” and “Whole Lotta Love” are older (and later properly credited) blues songs with new and exciting heavy twists. “Heartbreaker” and “Living Loving Maid” serve as a 1-2 punch to make the radio come alive. Even “Moby Dick” features another Page monster riff good enough to forgive the long drum solo by John Bonham in the middle. In all, Led Zeppelin II is rightfully one of the greatest albums of all time, and is pretty much a perfect album. It’s also ultimately the starting point for bands like Aerosmith, Van Halen, AC/DC and countless others. Truly great stuff.
[First added to this chart: 04/11/2012]
Year of Release:
1969
Appears in:
Rank Score:
20,737
Rank in 1969:
Rank in 1960s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Top rated album (87/100 - 2773 votes)  87 (2,773 votes)
Comments:
Total albums: 38. Page 1 of 4
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Top 38 Music Albums of 1969 composition

Top 38 Music Albums of 1969 chart changes

Biggest climbers
Climber Up 1 from 8th to 7thGreen River
by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Biggest fallers
Faller Down 1 from 7th to 8thBayou Country
by Creedence Clearwater Revival

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88/100 (from 6 votes)
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From 01/15/2014 19:46 | #100719
Good chart although I thin Yellow Submarine should be way lower.
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