Even with three songs missing, the U.S. Revolver was still worthy of inclusion. But still, The Beatles weren't the only act in 1966 that could have belonged on that list. Blonde On Blonde and Pet Sounds were also released that year!
It's almost as though the Academy said "Oh look, there's this new thing called pop music that a lot of the younger ones are listening to. We had better include a pop record in the list of nominees to show that we're up with the times.".
It's funny to me that you don't know Andy Williams because he's “my Sinatra”: my grandparents had a car with an 8-track and used to play him all the time. Personal associations notwithstanding, he is not an obscure performer having been retrospectively admitted into the Rat Pack during the Easy Listening revival. He only died in 2012.
A Man and His Music hasn't stood up over time either (AMG gives the album 3/5). A re-hash album of Sinatra re-recording his classic hits is a strange choice for Album of the Year.
I don't mean it like that. I just find it interesting that the Grammies were NOT a full-stop Beatles lovefest--even in years when they won awards, they still lost the Best Rock n' Roll Recording trophy. You know, why Paul would win a Best Vocal award for "Eleanor Rigby" while the recording lost out to something like "Winchester Cathedral" is a real mystery. I actually love "Downtown." But, how did The Beatles win Best New Artist and Best Performance by a Vocal Group, for "A Hard Day's Night," while "A Hard Day's Night" lost to Petula Clark? The Grammies are just funny, I guess.
I associate him with Christmas because my Dad always played his Christmas album on Christmas Day--and that is the one Andy Williams album in my collection, too. You can find his Christmas TV specials on YouTube, or on MeTV in December, as well. I can't imagine the holidays without hearing "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year."
I would have given it to the Beatles by a street, but when you look at all the great music in the last few years and how few rock and roll, or rock artists were even nominated, it's nice to see they even got nominated
I have no issue with any of the other artists, but one assumes at this stage that Frank owned the academy .... Revolver by a country mile over anything there.
After fifty years of winnowing by 20/20 hindsight I wouldn't be surprised if there were to be near-unanimous agreement on Revolver. What I find fascinating about this thread, though, is not that the winning albums offend the consensus opinion of our times but that they shed so much light on the vanished consensus of the past.
Definitely. I think of virtually all the artists up to the nomination of Help to be old school artists, or of the old school. It is like the (then) new wave of music didn't exist. I assume that is how folks from the modern era may look at the eighties and nineties, with a lot of the more recent styles being bumped or ignored for the then traditional styles. It really is intriguing and a little weird looking back at these.
At least Klaus Voorman won a Grammy for his graphic design on Revolver. (Paul also won a Best Contemporary (R&R) Solo Vocal Performance award for "Eleanor Rigby," and "Michelle" collected a Song of the Year award. I guess the Academy thought that was enough for them.) The Best Contemporary Group (R&R) Performance went to The Mamas & The Papas, for "Monday, Monday." I am a little surprised that soundtracks like Doctor Zhivago, The Sound of Music, West Side Story, and Funny Girl never did win the big Album of the Year award--not until Saturday Night Fever came along, anyway. Those '60s soundtracks were tremendously popular and had an air of urbane sophistication, a combination that Grammy generally has loved.
10th Annual Grammy Awards - February 29, 1968 The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Frank Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim, Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim Vikki Carr, It Must Be Him Ed Ames, My Cup Runneth Over Bobbie Gentry, Ode to Billie Joe We’ve reached the tenth ceremony, and we’ll be celebrating this milestone with an album that needs no introduction: the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I once met a guy who said he didn’t like Sgt. Pepper because no singles were released for it. I’m pretty sure that was the whole point, though; the Beatles wanted to emphasize the album’s identity as a self-contained work. The Academy must have appreciated this a lot because they made Sgt. Pepper the first rock album to win Album of the Year. And do you have any idea how much the Academy has to appreciate something to snub Frank Sinatra? But I digress. Even if you think Sgt. Pepper gets more praise than it deserves, it’s still a really good album that doesn’t have a single boring moment in its entire forty minute runtime. Alright, let’s start with the runner up that was hardest to research: Ed Ames’ My Cup Runneth Over. While you can find the songs on YouTube, there’s no Wikipedia page for the album, which I assume is because the title track is really creepy. It’s the album opener, so the first thing he sings on the whole record is “Sometimes in the morning when shadows are deep, I lie here beside you just watching you sleep.” This, by the way, was during the period between the seventh and twelfth ceremonies when the Academy awarded Best Comedy Album each and every time to Bill Cosby. I'm not accusing the Academy of anything here. Just saying that hindsight is 20/20, you know? However, even with that, the rest of the Ames' album is alright. Half of the songs are from either films or musicals; this includes the opener, the title track (from a musical called I Do, I Do), and the closer, Edelweiss from The Sound of Music. Ames is a good singer, but approach the title track with caution. It Must Be Him by Vicky Carr is quite good. Ode to Billie Joe by Best New Artist winner Bobbie Gentry is an album that must’ve been radical to the Academy back in the day: a woman who writes and sings her own songs. Actually, now that I think of it, it couldn't have been too radical for them because they gave her four Grammys that year. However, while there were plenty of other female singer-songwriters at the time - Buffy Sainte-Marie, Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, etc. - Gentry is the first female singer-songwriter to appear in this category. Carole King would be the first to actually win, but to Gentry's credit, she was the first female Best New Artist winner. Anyway, I would describe Ode to Billie Joe as a cross between Laura Nyro and Creedence Clearwater Revival, so if you like both of those acts, you’ll like this album too. Finally, Frank Sinatra made a bossa nova album. Like I said previously, the genre was hugely popular at the time, so he and Antonio Carlos Jobim made Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim. And what would a bossa nova album be without The Girl from Ipanema? I don’t know, but you won’t find the answer here. It’s still a good if short listen at 28 minutes. I definitely don’t have a complaint about the Academy’s choice. The other albums were varying degrees of good, but 50+ years later, Sgt. Pepper is still really damn good.
11th Annual Grammy Awards - March 12, 1969 Glen Campbell, By the Time I Get to Phoenix The Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour Simon & Garfunkel, Bookends Richard Harris, A Tramp Shining José Feliciano, Feliciano! Frank Sinatra once called the song By the Time I Get to Phoenix the greatest torch song ever written, which is high praise from a guy whose discography is fifty percent torch songs. I’m sure the Academy gave Album of the Year to Glen Campbell’s record of the same name purely for their own reasons and not just because they really, really like Frank Sinatra. But I’m only speculating. Glen Campbell’s By the Time I Get to Phoenix joins an elite group of nominees that were number one Billboard Year-End albums like West Side Story (which was number one for two years in a row), and an even more elite subgroup of winners like Music from Peter Gunn. Granted, By the Time I Get to Phoenix was number one of the Year-End Country chart, but I'll let it slide if only because it was the first country album to win Album of the Year. Not bad for an album twenty six and a half minutes long. In all seriousness, it is a pretty good album. It has all the musicianship and sincerity you want from an old school country album, if that’s your jam. There’s a cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s Homeward Bound on here, so in a way, Simon & Garfunkel also won. And that might as well be our segue into the other nominees. 1968 was a good year for Paul Simon, if his song being on Album of the Year wasn’t enough. He won Best Original Score for The Graduate and two Grammys for Mrs. Robinson, which you’ll also find on Bookends. This album is also a short offering at just under thirty minutes, but it still features some of Simon & Garfunkel’s best songs: Save the Life of My Child, America, A Hazy Shade of Winter, and of course, Mrs. Robinson. It’s a really good album that’s definitely worth your time. Now we turn to the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour. This isn’t technically a studio album, if you look into it. See, the full LP wasn’t released in the Beatles’ home country until 1976. All they got until then was a double EP containing songs that were part of the soundtrack for a film of the same name. These songs made up side A of the full LP release, while side B was comprised of singles the band had released in 1967 (presumably to make up for Sgt. Pepper not having any singles). You can already guess what I think of this album - highly recommend it, to say the least. Next up is Richard Harris’ A Tramp Shining. All of the songs on this album were written, arranged, and produced by Jimmy Webb, the same guy who wrote By the Time I Get to Phoenix. Harris’ voice kind of hampers the listening experience. Webb’s arrangements are incredibly lush, but his voice sometimes doesn’t complement it effectively. It’s still good, but oh boy, is his rendition of MacArthur Park missing something. Finally, there’s Feliciano! by Puerto Rican singer José Feliciano. You know that Christmas song Feliz Navidad? That’s him. Funny thing about this album is that when you take out everything but his guitar and voice, he sounds like a coffee shop singer. He’d be a damn great coffee shop singer, albeit an occasionally silly one, but still. He does some pretty good covers here: California Dreamin’, Just A Little Bit of Rain, a few Beatles songs, and the Doors’ Light My Fire. That last one earned him two Grammys, including Best New Artist. This album is also pretty good. Alright, so here’s the verdict. A Tramp Shining isn’t bad, but compared to the other nominees, it’s not even close. Feliciano! and By the Time I Get to Phoenix are better, but Bookends and Magical Mystery Tour were by far the most deserving of the award.
The SHF roundly approves, I'm sure. The Academy must have been pretty excited about this latest development in Beatles music, as well. Finally, a widely popular Rock album, but no mere "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" beat music for kids--this has such sophisticated production and arrangements, too! And not for just one or two songs, but for a whole album! How could they resist? Sorry, Frank. Your bossa nova came too late.
I would've picked Magical Mystery Tour, but By The Time I Get To Pheonix is a good winner. Solid album.
Oh, uh... The next one has a hot take that I'm worried some of you will find very controversial. This being the Internet, I feel the need to ask in advance: how often do flame wars happen on this website?
12th Annual Grammy Awards - March 11, 1970 Blood, Sweat & Tears, Blood, Sweat & Tears The Beatles, Abbey Road Johnny Cash, At San Quentin The 5th Dimension, The Age of Aquarius Crosby, Stills & Nash, Crosby, Stills & Nash With this ceremony, we bid farewell to the 1960s and say hello to the 1970s. Buckle up, folks - it’s starting to get interesting. First, the winner: the self-titled sophomore album of Canadian-American rock band Blood, Sweat & Tears. What kind of rock music, you ask? Well, it’s kind of hard to pin down. You know their cover of Brenda Holloway’s You Make Me So Very Happy? That’s on this record, and it was a huge hit for the band. It’s not a precise description of everything you’ll hear on the album, but it gives you the gist of it. Overall, the album is pretty good, although the band’s cover of Laura Nyro’s And When I Die isn’t quite as good as the original. Nominee time! First is The Man in Black himself, Johnny Cash with At San Quentin. This was the second of his four live prison albums, the first of course being 1968’s At Folsom Prison. The crowds must’ve loved him. The San Quentin inmates certainly loved him. Cash played a song for them called San Quentin, which contains lyrics like “San Quentin, I hate every inch of you.” On a completely unrelated note, Cash played the song twice per the inmates’ request. Good album overall, I’d say. Next is The Age of Aquarius by The 5th Dimension. Now, Laura Nyro’s 1967 debut album More Than a New Discovery is a really good album that I recommend highly, but unfortunately it was never nominated for Album of the Year. However, several songs from the album did become hits for other artists. Blood, Sweat & Tears’ cover of And When I Die hit the number two spot on Billboard. The 5th Dimension had covered her songs on the album prior to this, and this album includes two more covers: Blowin’ Away (which peaked at 21 on the charts), and Wedding Bell Blues (which was a number one hit). This might be my bias talking, but Marilyn McCoo’s singing doesn’t compare to Laura Nyro’s in my humble opinion. Same goes for the group’s cover of Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love - everything about it is great except for the singing. In short, the album is fine overall. Then there’s the self-titled debut of Best New Artist winner Crosby, Stills & Nash. I had a part-time job bussing tables at a restaurant between June 2018 and February 2019. They would mostly play classic rock and Judy Blue Eyes was one of the songs they played. ALL! THE! DAMN! TIME! Needless to say, I’m kinda sick of it now; their harmonized vocals get on my nerves. I was tempted to skip the song as soon as I recognized it, but safe in the knowledge that I no longer heard this song played to death, I pressed on. The second song, Marrakesh Express, is the best song on the album because it doesn’t sound like Crosby, Stills & Nash. It sounds like Graham Nash doing a Paul Simon impression. The rest of the album is boring. Also, for some reason, their label’s president was given a credit for “spiritual guidance.” Just thought that was worth sharing, I suppose. Finally, we have the Beatles’ Abbey Road. This one’s easy: Abbey Road should’ve won. Alright, we’re now officially done with the 1960s. Hold onto your hot pants - the 1970s are going to get interesting.
