1967: The best ever year for rock album releases?

Hi All

It seems to me that 1967 was a particularly incredible year for rock albums:

The Doors
Between The Buttons
Are You Experienced?
Velvet Underground And Nico
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Moby Grape
The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Ten Years After
Disraeli Gears
Magical Mystery Tour
Axis: Bold As Love

And those are just the really mayor ones!

Was this the best ever year for rock releases?

 

I saw a pretty impressive list on the forum for 1971...

 

Nah, I'd have to say that would be 1971:
Black Sabbath “Paranoid” (US)
Black Sabbath “Master Of Reality”
David Bowie “The Man Who Sold The World” (UK)
David Bowie “Hunky Dory”
Leonard Cohen “Songs Of Love And Hate”
David Crosby “If I Could Only Remember My Name”
The Doors “L.A. Woman”
Emerson, Lake & Palmer “Emerson, Lake & Palmer” (US)
The Faces “Long Player”
The Faces “A Nod Is As Good As A Wink”
Marvin Gaye “What’s Going On”
Isaac Hayes “Shaft”
Jethro Tull “Aqualung”
Elton John “Tumbleweed Connection” (US)
Elton John “Madman Across The Water”
Led Zeppelin “IV”
John Lennon “Imagine”
Joni Mitchell “Blue”
Graham Nash “Songs For Beginners”
Pink Floyd “Meddle”
Rolling Stones “Sticky Fingers”
Sly & The Family Stone “There's a Riot Goin' On”
Rod Stewart “Every Picture Tells A Story”
The Who “Who’s Next”
Yes “Fragile” (UK)

 

That is an impressive list.

But it's hard to argue with debuts (and arguably best albums) from The Doors, Hendrix, VU and Floyd.

Oh, and Sergeant Pepper's...

 

Just curious - so 1967 and 71 were a time, when some great albums were released. So far - so good.
But what does that say? What information do you get from that? Cause many songs have been written already in the year(s) before. Or in case of David Bowie's "Man who sold the world" it was already released in 1970 in the US. While Europe had to wait till 71....
No doubt there are times, when more things happen, but it can't be nailed to a calendar year.

 

My thinking in posting the thread was just to celebrate what it must have been like to be around then (I was born in '73) and have all these incredible albums being released in the space of one year

When I think of the complete sh#te that's being released these days (IMO) it makes me feel better to think of what those days might have been like...

 

Missing from 1967:

The Who Sell Out
Something Else By the Kinks
Strange Days (The Doors)
Younger Than Yesterday (The Byrds)

just off the top of my head...

 

Yeah, my original list missed a lot - was hoping you good people would fill in the gaps for me

Those are all really good albums...

 

These are some impressive albums. Sadly I was born 10-20 years too late. You can always go back, but to live it is always better.

 

It's not my favorite year for music, but I wholeheartedly agree that it was the best year ever for albums. It is the year rock music completed the transition from being a singles music to being an album music.

 

I think you hit the nail on the head, OP. 1966 was the best year ever for SINGLES, 1967 was one of the best ever for LPs (and was the turning point for albums to be whole works of art and not just a collection of filler songs and a hit or two).

 

I can tell you what it was like. You had no money to buy them all, you maybe knew the record covers - if there was a shop showing them in the window. Most people I know where lucky if they could afford two or three albums a year, that goes especially for kids in Europe. In America things might have been different.

 

I think it's just pretty amazing from a 21st century perspective to imagine what it must have been like to have so many incredible albums come out in a short period of time. I assume it was just taken for granted at the time that this was just way things were, without the hindsight that in the following four decades this concentration of quality would never be repeated IMHO.

 

I'm trying to think of something clever to say but I can't.

 

Forever changes. One of the greatest masterpieces of the 60's.

 

Buffalo Springfield Again – Buffalo Springfield
Electric Music for the Mind and Body – Country Joe and the Fish
Fresh Cream – Cream (In the U.S.)
John Wesley Harding – Bob Dylan
Alice’s Restaurant – Arlo Guthrie
Surrealistic Pillow - Jefferson Airplane
Days of Future Passed – The Moody Blues

 

My feelings exactly

 

And best of all, Procol Harum's debut album.

But overall I'd give 1971 (and maybe 1968) a slight edge.

 

Can't believe I left that Buffalo Springfield off - it's a good 'un!

 

I've just turned a whiter shade of pale!

Sorry, couldn't resist...

 

Hell, even 1969 is up there...

Let it Bleed
Abbey Road
Tommy
Led Zeppelin I
Led Zeppelin II
Goodbye (Cream)
Arthur (the Kinks)
Johnny Winter
Green River
Bayou Country
Willy and the Poor Boys
The Soft Parade (hey, I like it!)
Black Sabbath
Stand Up (Jethro Tull)

and many more...

 

Yeah, a lot of people used to put out good albums in those days.

 

I think no one was aware of that, everyone was expecting this would go on forever. As it was natural in those days that every album had to be different from the last one. And the development of recording and sound equipment also made most every next album sound new and exciting.
But this was in connection with everything in life around you, technical progress was also booming, living conditions got better and better. Now we have reached a standstill in many ways and probably the music is also a reflection of that.

 

Yowsers, that is pretty killer. Three Creedence albums in one year...

 

It was different in Canada and even more different in the USA