" Pop was everything in 1966. It was a way of looking at the world, all funnelled into the single: ideas, attitudes, lyrics and experimentation that in the more indulgent years to come would be stretched out into a whole album. Condensed within the 7-inch format, the possibilities of 1966 were expressed with an extraordinary electricity and intensity – whether it be the flourishing of Holland-Dozier-Holland at Motown, the breakthrough of black American dance culture, the start of psychedelia and the beginnings of rock, or just simple mod pop.
This compilation accompanies my book 1966: The Year The Decade Exploded, which explores the various events and themes of the year in 12 essays, based around one record a month. The record is, of course, a 45 – and some of them are included here, such as ‘The Quiet Explosion’ (Chapter 1: January – CND, Protest and the Conspiracy of Silence) or ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ (Chapter 6: June – The Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol’s America).
It is also designed to stand alone – a mix of the familiar and the obscure, informed by memory. I turned 13 in late summer 1966 and spent much of the year bathed in the music I saw on television and heard on Radio Caroline South. The 45 records beamed in on that station – James Brown’s ‘I Got You (I Feel Good)’, the Association’s ‘Along Comes Mary’, ? and the Mysterians’ ‘96 Tears’, to name but three – went very deep, and that mixture of mainstream pop, mod pop, West Coast, soul and Motown has stayed with me as an ideal."
Jon Savage
First, thanks for all these Savages :) ; and second, a little trivia re: the 1966 inlay. The girl on the motorcycle on that Newsweek cover? It's pre-WKRP In Cincinnati's Jan Smithers (Bailey Quarters)! :D
ReplyDeleteYou don't believe it? Here's the proof:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.metv.com/stories/jan-smithers-skipped-school-at-16-and-got-discovered-by-posing-as-a-newsweek-cover-girl