Interactive Poll #6060: We love the Sixities

Music is a method to maintain one's mental mean.

My version of the podium:

1. Gino Paoli - Sassi

This was a big surprise. Released in a time when 2'15" songs dominated the charts, the thought occurred to me in a flash that this song was played at half speed. How wrong can I be: everything fits.

2. Gábor Szabó - Galatea's Guitar

A nice and rather jazzy piece.

3. Russell Morris - The Real Thing

A rather psychedelic piece, written by a fellow countryman who went down under.

Honourable mentions:

Love - A House is not a Motel (high level folk rock, good vocals)

Tom Dissevelt - Intersection (rather progressive for 1961 - a nice find)

Fairport Convention - Fotheringay (one cannot go wrong with Sandy Denny)

Again:

Listening to 1969 after all these psychedelic ballads is a stab in the stomach, here it's hard and raw rock, with the aggression of the acid guitar, the intrusive beat of the drums and the singing that eventually becomes hysterical. But it is above all the guitar that enhances this song, with a sound and a solo that anticipate the whole era of punk, and that Jesus and Mary Chain will also resume. Podium

Grunion Run is an instrumental piece written by Frank Zappa, very powerful and with an excellent production. Another candidate to the podium. But the places on the podium are just only three!!!

Who is Gabor Szabo? He's a jazz guitarist. I read on wikipedia that he is a guitarist who has fused jazz music with classical music and also with Hungarian ethnic music. Here, in fact, we have left rock and we move into the field of committed, cultured music, and as always I have some hesitation in voting for a piece of music of the highest class. Anyway, I thank those who posted it, making me discover this artist, who certainly writes very refined pieces. 

The same goes for the virtuoso Portuguese guitarist Carlos Paredes, who here performs a more lively piece than Szabo's. Also in this case we are very far from pop music that is from pop and rock, here we are talking about educated musicians, who play music of superior class, closer to classical music than composers like De Falla. The piece is clearly masterful, very virtuoso, and I have nothing to complain but it is difficult for me to compare it with rock songs.

PS: I am more inclined to consider cultured music as experimental, which interfaces with light music, like Tom Dissevelt than cultured music which re-proposes classical schemes, which in form is more similar to classical.

The Marvelletes? They are simply delicious, they are another universe, deriving from the vocal groups of the fifties, here it is pure fun but damn why not put them on the podium?

The Real Thing: Strange psychedelic ballad, catchy but that becomes dissonant, with the final coda halfway through the song, which becomes cacophonic. Thanks again for introducing me to this artist. Podium!

Yes it is eligible.  Frank Zappa was pretty much unknown.  This was a band (out of many) that he was with before he created the Mothers.  The band itself is not in the Archives.

1) The White Ship. Long, slow ballad, probably sung under the influence of LSD, interesting for the use of keyboards and exotic instruments. The singing, on the other hand, is affected by the beat, that is to say the previous musical season, while the rhythm of the drums at a march pace is completely distracting. A rudimentary psychedelic song that combines innovation (there is also some interlude to proto-prog keyboards) with conservative elements. Overall very pleasant, a little pachyderm. Podium?

2) A House is not a Motel. Classic rockblues song (in fact a mini jam session) with some psychedelic elements. Great performance on the electric guitar and on the drums. Podium?

3) Fotheringay. The singer's voice is always a delight. The song is a tender acoustic ballad that rests entirely on vocal modulations.

4) Intersection. This is the typical song where you ask yourself: masterpiece or pretentious academic experiment? Generally, the distinction lies in seeing if in addition to electronic noises there is music, there is composition aimed at a precise representation and not only aimed at surprising that is an end in itself. Here it seems to me that the noises are not by random, and that the composition is there even if it tends to take refuge too much in some typical genres of music. Had it been original, daring, unprecedented, it would have been a masterpiece. However it seems to me a remarkable composition for 1963. It will climb to the podium.

5) Oppe i træet. Great work on the guitar. Great psychedelic, with a very lysergic, Hendrix-style guitar wah wah sound. It might look American but it's Danish! Great composition and performance, very amazing sound. Contender to the podium.

Wonderful!

First bunch of songs [work in progress]:

Gino Paoli: Sassi (1960)

The mood is quite romantic (as in romanticism). I like the composition, and it's a possible contender for my part. However, big orchestral arrangements in a non-classical context can be a little too much.

H.P. Lovecraft: The White Ship (1967)