Listed below are the best albums of 1967 as calculated from their overall rankings in over 59,000 greatest album charts. (Chart last updated: 4 hours ago).
""Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina" reviews itself. Walk Away Renee and Pretty Ballerina are absolutely fantastic tracks, and the rest, although not bad, aren't worth a mention."Reply
"The name of the band checks out. This is such a whimsical, colorful psychedelic folk record. So much going on, but it's never distracting. I don't feel overwhelmed at all. This album is a must-listen for anyone interested in the 60s psychedelic scene."Reply
"Once, coiled soundly beneath the kaleidoscopic cornucopia of musical excess that was the 1960's, a tidal wave which reached sacred heights but synchronically cannibalized itself ten times over, there was a man. A man who, fit with somber body language and European sensibilities, wore dark sunglas...""Once, coiled soundly beneath the kaleidoscopic cornucopia of musical excess that was the 1960's, a tidal wave which reached sacred heights but synchronically cannibalized itself ten times over, there was a man. A man who, fit with somber body language and European sensibilities, wore dark sunglasses indoors and crooned with regard to the fraudulent nature of suburban, posh societies and serial drinkers who typify carnal, animalistic yearnings on midnight pub parades. The man's name was Scott Walker and he's seemingly lived a thousand lifetimes, shuffling along in the footwear of names past and present, rich and poor, angelic and depraved in equal measure. Here, on 'Scott', Walker begins to chisel out his first, significant artistic personality, free from the restraints of the pop band expectations of the Walker Brothers and into a new era of thought-provoking, thematically challenging baroque pop. On his first solo record, the enigmatic songster registers a mere trio of writing credits, however, it's the ascendancy and grandeur of the LP that transfigures the collective into something wholly idiosyncratic. On 'Scott', a caged, creative genius breathed new air that billowed with currents of Belgian chanteurs and classical composers and laid the bedrock for one of the most beguiling careers of the modern era.
The album begins with 'Mathilde', an English rendition of Jacques Brel's 1964 chanson that details an abusive, romantic entanglement that forever resurrects like a pitiful, desperate phoenix. This is an opportune time to discuss Walker's admiration and veneration for Brel's work, once even calling him the "most important singer-songwriter in the world". Brel's pension to uncover and rhapsodize on all things strange and uncomfortable in society appealed to Walker, during a period where such things weren't touched or even discussed in pop music, let alone music at large. As a result, Walker christened his exodus from the mainstream by breathing life into Brel's haunting, challenging and sunless parables. At their moral best, they're hopeless, demoralizing accounts of unrequited love and at their worst, accounts of molestation, both mentally and physically at the hands of Army officers. Despite Walker's radical and firmly adult direction, his albums began to fall on a more gradually disinterested audience. Yet, it began to plot the roadmap for a rapidly escalating sonic approach that few (if any) could find parallels to. On 'Mathilde', Walker channels Brel while proclaiming, "My hands, you'll start to shake again when you remember all the pain; Mathilde's come back to me; You'll want to beat her black and blue but don't do it, I beg of you." The track is framed within an up-tempo sheen, reminiscent of a march into battle or a swaggering anthem of boisterous victory. The subject's early indecision is apparent with his mind made up by the end of the piece. Walker employed the assistance of three composers on 'Scott', perhaps most synonymously, Angela Morley (then Wally Stott), who would go on to further heights as Walker's arranger. On track two, Montague Terrace (In Blue), one of three penned by Scott himself, Morley crafts a dizzying, yet chic sheen before propelling walls of brass that instantly unionize with Walker's baritone hollers. There's an air of satire purveying here, like a thick vapor. "The girl across the hall makes love; Her thoughts lay cold like shattered stone; Her thighs are full of tales to tell of all the nights she's known," Walker details. It's unclear if the image is one of a much yearned for, idyllic, societal upgrade or a disdain for others' possessions and dispositions.
Arriving third, LP highlight 'Angelica' softly vibrates before segueing into Walker's cries for the song's titular maiden. The organ tones from the onset color the track with melancholy, conjuring images of eulogization for lost love. Walker explains, "Now in my solitude, I tend the flowers that I buy, As they slowly fade and die, watered by the tears I cry." 'Angelica' represents a landmark in the early days of Walker's solo odyssey, as an indication of his desire to routinely croon overtop pessimist anthems far before it was vogue, complete with a dim worldview that would become progressively overcast. Fourth Track, 'The Lady from Baltimore', is Walker's attempt at Tim Hardin's classic. Scott's take is fittingly folky, with the prose in lock-step with his bleak paradigm. His voice sports a twangy timbre, faintly foreshadowing his self-assessed "Wilderness Years" in the early 1970's. However, his foray into folk and flirtation with country is marvelously executed. Walker's most ardent statement on the LP is the final track, 'Amsterdam', a swooning, cinematic recoloring of Jacques Brel's famous live staple. It's through this piece that Walker proves himself to be most worthy to succeed Brel as the patron saint of fatalistic allegories. The track opens with accordion hisses that wash over the empty pockets of sonic space like a patient sunrise as eyelids softly open to greet it. Walker sets the the scene for the finale with a tale of the rawest kind of human desperation, with a pistol of willful ignorance tucked away in its holster. The tale is as much about revelry as it is despair, or maybe more astutely, how the two co-exist in the minds of the downtrodden. 'Amsterdam' steadily ascends, starting as a lone man recounting a drunken memory out loud. Soon, it seems as if others join in (characterized by the power of Walker's vocals). Finally, the collective emerges, taking the form of the swirling instrumentation that rises the tide lead by Walker's voice. It's a picture so vivid that it's hard to disassociate the visual from the track. It's a stunning statement ushered off by Walker's repeated chants. 'Amsterdam' is without question Walker's finest Brel interpretation and one of his career's most prolific efforts.
Noel Scott Engel died on March 22, 2019, but the world knew him as Scott Walker. However, few people knew that he died in 1967 as well. This death did not serve as a passageway to the afterlife, but rather, a reincarnation. An invigoration. A rebirth. 'Scott' remains the genesis of a career that words couldn't succinctly articulate. The Scott Walker of the Walker brothers walked and died, dried up in a desert of creative disillusionment and disgust so that the Scott Walker that would follow could run and consequently, swim oceans fiercely cavernous and artistically unbound. The transaction included trading in a handsome, youthful face for a stern demeanor and a military cap that slumped lower and lower throughout the years, reflecting the thematic directions his music would take while hiding the weathered, hardened features of his face. The seedlings planted within 'Scott' would grow to spawn a wonderous garden whose fruits few would taste. Walker saw very little monetary success throughout the remainder of his career and by 1978, he was a recluse. He would occasionally resurface with records that would scorch earth and send those with their ears to the ground into a frenzy. By some, he is regarded as the most unheralded genius in music history. To others, he was a passing shadow of an assembly line industry of musical malaise. In 1967, with a brilliant, stark solo debut, he began a journey of endless ambition fit with thankless repercussions. It's a journey we all should take, for it is rooted in the very soul of what music should be, endlessly imaginative and unyielding. However, few have the inclination to look at the natural world as Walker did. It's a blessing and a curse.
"In the port of Amsterdam there's a sailor who drinks
And he drinks, and he drinks, and he drinks once again,
He drinks to the health of the whores of Amsterdam
Who have promised their love to a thousand other men
They've bargained their bodies and their virtue long gone
For a few dirty coins, and when he can't go on,
He plants his nose in the sky and he wipes it up above,
And he pisses like I cry for an unfaithful love."
-Amsterdam
Standout Tracks:
1. Amsterdam
2. Angelica
3. The Lady from Baltimore
91.6"[+]Reply
"The best voice of all time singing like never, Claus Ogerman´s delicate and inspired arrangements and a first line Tom Jobim and American Standards repertoire, all in a sofisticated Bossa Nova style. Everything here is perfect."Reply
"The album begins with some great cover versions. The second part dissolves in less coherent pieces and falls apart a bit. I really like the addition of the Hammond organ on this album, as well as the drumming, which is great. Overall a 70 or 75/100."Reply
"One of the greatest soul albums ever recorded. Shame it's not held up as high as his contemporaries Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, etc."Reply
"Acclaimed by critics but strangely unknown to the general public. I think this is a great psychedelic album that deserves to be considered among the best albums of the 60's."Reply
"The people who dismiss the Monkees without ever having listened to them, and who refer to them derisively as a "band" (never without quotation marks), can never really be convinced of their merits. I don't have ill feelings toward these people because they had the whole media telling a story abou...""The people who dismiss the Monkees without ever having listened to them, and who refer to them derisively as a "band" (never without quotation marks), can never really be convinced of their merits. I don't have ill feelings toward these people because they had the whole media telling a story about the Monkees that wasn't really true.
I'm gonna skip over the music for a minute and talk about the relationship between the band and the label/company. Somebody commented on here that the Monkees represented the end of musical integrity and the triumph of the love of money. The thing is, if the Monkees are not important for their music, they are important for being a group, perhaps the first, that stood up AGAINST this paradigm. The Monkees came around in the mid-to-late 60s. What do you think was going on before this? I'll tell you-- companies were putting together groups of men or women who could sing, and then they were choosing songs written by professional songwriters under contract, and they were recording those songs in the studio with session musicians. That's just the way it was done (with a few exceptions). It was rare that any groups would play their own instruments either on record or on stage. That's how the corporations liked it--Total Control. If it sounds familiar, it's because that's how the Monkees started out. Yes, they were prefabricated. Nobody's going to deny that. But, they because an extremely important band because they broke the mold. Somehow, they and a couple of allies they had in the company, waged a war in order to control their own musical destiny. They shouldn't be denigrated for having started out just the same as so many other groups; they should be celebrated for showing the music world that artists are not puppets to be controlled by corporations. They have to have free will.
As for the album Headquarters, they played every note, and it turns out they were talented guys. Does the album stand up with the greats? Well, no, but it is one of the better albums of the year. Moreover, it is better than just about any other talented band at the time that were playing their own instruments and writing their own songs. Much of this is due to the prodigious talents of Michael Nesmith, who's song "You Just May Be the One" is an extraordinary study in pop hooks, and is the best tune on the albums. His other songs, along with Micky's "Randy Scouse Git" are the album's other best songs. The album is weakest when it is borrowing corporate tunes, written for money, like those by Boyce and Hart, and Mann and Weil. Like most of the songs on the first two Monkees albums, these songs lack heart. Nesmith's were always the best because he was an artist recording his own tunes. So many of the songs that Don Kirshner selected were so flat because they were written for a paycheck. "[+]Reply
Anti | Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
DriftingOrpheus | Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +2 votes (2 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
antiloopje | Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Jboy56 | Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +2 votes (2 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
