Best Albums of the 1960s
Explore the best albums of the 1960s, based on over 2 million album rankings across 61,000 charts
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Last updated: 5 hours ago
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"Nearly every review here has the word beautiful in it and they're all right. There's no other word to describe this album as well as the word beautiful, but I'll try. The lyrics are not as cheery and bright as one might assume, but that just adds on to the appeal of this album. This album is univ..." Reply
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Cojo7 | Helpful? (Log in to vote) · 6
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.
Year of Release:
1968
Appears in:
Rank Score:
13,167
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"The Black Saint & The Sinner Lady is a tense, passionate, fierce album that deals directly with the personal chaos Mingus found in his love life. It is a meticulously composed, multi-layered triumph that continually announces its motifs through a hefty series of deft variations, continually build..." Reply
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AfterHours | Helpful? (Log in to vote) · 16
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.
Year of Release:
1963
Appears in:
Rank Score:
12,143
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"I agree with joanna, I was pleasantly surprised by this album. I can picture an alternate universe where Velvet Underground (1969) was the band's debut record, followed by White Light/White Heat then VU Nico. In this parallel world the debut album lays down some basic though catchy tunes that hig..." Reply
Year of Release:
1969
Appears in:
Rank Score:
12,003
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"The pinnacle of Bob to me. It has it all in this one and it brings it home darn well. Whatever you want this album has it. Powerful deep lyrics and a somber tone? It's Alright Ma. Hilarious rambling and a story song? 115th Dream. Borderline folk-rap? Subterranean Homesick Blues. Classy love songs..." Reply
Year of Release:
1965
Appears in:
Rank Score:
11,225
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"Song for song this is L. Cohen's best collection of songs. At the time of it's release Cohen was already a published and widely acknowledged poet and writer. He is still the most "poetic" songwriter and at the time of this writting Cohen is 77 years old and is nearing the end of a grueling 2 year..." Reply
Year of Release:
1967
Appears in:
Rank Score:
9,459
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"This is a fun, and very British album. It’s got whimsy lyrics and a somewhat sparse but pastoral sound paired with pristine production and incredible harmonies. Picture books is masterpiece of indie rock pop songwriting and will be the one song to stay stuck in your head for days aside from every..." Reply
Year of Release:
1968
Appears in:
Rank Score:
9,115
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"To understand why alot of people (including myself) think Syd was a huge songwriting talent, you have to put things into context in 1967..first off, all the songs he ever wrote (includes Piper, Madcap, Barrett) were written in about a 6 month time frame - when his Schizophrenia began to worsen, h..." Reply
Year of Release:
1967
Appears in:
Rank Score:
8,780
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"After floundering (just a little bit) with psychedelia, this is where The Stones found and perfected their sound which they would simply tweak for the rest of their career. And that sound that they developed was just pure genius and utterly unique. Henceforth, countless bands would be complacent ..." Reply
Year of Release:
1968
Appears in:
Rank Score:
8,728
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"if only more people could have the chance to listen to nick drake. amazing music. beautiful." Reply
Year of Release:
1969
Appears in:
Rank Score:
8,552
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"This conclusion was really difficult for me to come to. I decided this past week to explore the Velvet Underground discography beyond their debut album, which I love. I read all about the record before listening to, as I typically do, to understand the context of how it was created and the increa..." Reply
Year of Release:
1968
Appears in:
Rank Score:
8,454
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Total albums: 1,000. Page 3 of 100
Best Albums of the 1960s composition
| Year | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | 57 | 6% | |
| 1961 | 66 | 7% | |
| 1962 | 50 | 5% | |
| 1963 | 49 | 5% | |
| 1964 | 71 | 7% | |
| 1965 | 90 | 9% | |
| 1966 | 99 | 10% | |
| 1967 | 139 | 14% | |
| 1968 | 184 | 18% | |
| 1969 | 195 | 20% |
| Artist | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|||
| John Coltrane | 17 | 2% | |
| The Beatles | 17 | 2% | |
| The Rolling Stones | 15 | 2% | |
| The Beach Boys | 15 | 2% | |
| Miles Davis | 15 | 2% | |
| Nina Simone | 10 | 1% | |
| Bob Dylan | 10 | 1% | |
| Show all | |||
| Country | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
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|||
| |
635 | 64% | |
 |
204 | 20% | |
 |
38 | 4% | |
 |
23 | 2% | |
 |
22 | 2% | |
 |
17 | 2% | |
 |
10 | 1% | |
| Show all | |||
Best Albums of the 1960s chart changes
| Biggest climbers Biggest climbers in top 100 since last month |
|---|
Up 4 from 100th to 96th |
Up 4 from 74th to 70th |
Up 2 from 95th to 93rd |
| Biggest fallers Biggest fallers in top 100 since last month |
|---|
Down 4 from 83rd to 87th |
Down 2 from 70th to 72nd |
Down 2 from 72nd to 74th |
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