50 Years Ago:
The Best Albums of 1968

| published October 27, 2018 |

By Thursday Review editors and staff

One of the advantages of operating a website within the vaguely defined range of “independent press,” which means basically anyone with a domain name and an opinion, is being able to assail web readers with pithy lists—in our case, “definitive” lists of any and all things of cultural importance.

Thursday Review writers and editors have done this frequently in the past, sometimes as the holidays approach and we want to offer you—the reader—our “definitive list” of books which are ideal for gift-giving, or, our frequent whimsical lists of funniest movies, scariest books, most watchable movies (this was Lori Garrett’s invention), or currently irrelevant and obsolete (“Ten Things to Do While in Tampa for the 2012 Republican National Convention”).

In that vein, Thursday Review approaches the great musical milestone that was the year 1968 with a huge embrace of its diversity and grandeur, and we offer here—for those younger readers who just want a better understanding of how rock and roll got the way that it got, and for those still completing their music collection in some digital format or on CD. If 1967 was rock’s best year, then 1968 was its second best.

Here, then, is a brief list—in no particular order of importance and value—of the 10 most important albums of 1968.

The Beatles, The White Album

Officially just titled “The Beatles,” this double-record set with its stark white cover—meant as a deliberate antidote to the baroquely ornamented and lavish cover of Sgt. Peppers’ Lonely Hearts Club Band—initially divided music critics between those who found the tone and style all over the map (suggesting the album was little more than a dumping ground for a lot of random tunes), and those who suggested that the remarkable diversity and richness reflected a desire by the Beatles, already in the early throes of breakup, to force a musical reboot—a sort of anti-concept album. Just good songs, in other words, with no agenda, no package, no frills. As time passed, of course, the latter view prevailed. The album’s best stuff became, in short order, some of the band’s biggest hits and most durable music: “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” “Birthday,” “Revolution 1,” “Rocky Raccoon,” and “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” to name but five of the best Lennon-McCartney tunes, along with “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” one of George Harrison’s most enduring. The White Album remains a landmark moment.

Big Brother and the Holding Company, Cheap Thrills

This album represents Big Brother and the Holding Company at its most impressive, with Janis Joplin’s vocals the backbone upon which this rich, raw, fleshy music is built. Songs like “Summertime” and “Piece of My Heart” remain powerful, resonant classics even to this day, and the loose production values serve to enhance—rather than detract from—the desired effect of raw emotion and high energy blues, a signature of Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the core element of Joplin’s thrashing, unbridled vocal talent. Of significance too is the album cover, drawn entirely by counter-culture underground artist R. Crumb, who famously refused payment for the work. Cheap Thrills remains an iconic moment from that decade.

Deep Purple, Shades of Deep Purple

One of the earliest and most successful examples of the development of progressive rock, art rock and psychedelic rock, Shades of Deep Purple was recorded—amazingly—in less than four days in a small British farmhouse converted into a recording studio, and where the band members also lived briefly. Widely regarded as a potent fusion of pop, hard rock and experimental rock sounds, the album notably produced the smash hit single “Hush,” (originally written by Joe South) which propelled Deep Purple upwards among rock fans, especially in the United States and Canada, where the song rocketed to numbers 4 and 2 respectively. The album also represents important personnel changes within the band, a metamorphosis which would shift the music of Deep Purple into the decidedly “heavy” category which reached its apogee with Machine Head a few years later.

Jimi Hendrix Experience, Electric Ladyland

The year 1968 produced many double albums in addition to the Beatles’ White Album. Guitar virtuoso Jimi Hendrix rolled out of the most enduring with the two-record release of Electric Ladyland, a collection of tunes which includes several of Hendrix’s best work, “Crosstown Traffic,” “Gypsy Eyes,” and “Voodoo Chile [Child].” The album also includes his iconic cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower,” arguably one of the best songs ever produced and recorded by Hendrix. The album showcases Jimi Hendrix’s remarkable gift for fusing hard rock, psychedelic rock, and blues and funk, into one complex, layered sound and a two-record set. Famously perfectionist in the studio, the guitar master chased away many of his best collaborators before all the recordings were complete, forcing Hendrix to perform and record some of the additional instruments and backing vocals himself.

Steppenwolf, Steppenwolf

Influential debut album thrust the band directly into the spotlight of both mainstream and countercultural arenas with two of the band’s most famous songs, “Born to be Wild” and “The Pusher” (originally written by Hoyt Axton), both tunes also making famous appearances in the 1969 independent film Easy Rider, which starred Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Jack Nicholson. A merger of hard-hitting hard rock and psychedelic rock at its best, the album also contains a cover of the Willie Dixon blues tune “Hoochie Coochie Man” and “A Girl I Knew,” written by Steppenwolf front man John Kay and collaborator Morgan Cavett.

Traffic, Traffic

Though titled simply Traffic, this album was not the group’s debut, but its second studio compilation in as many years, and a precursor to the group’s breakup soon afterward. Traffic was one of the first “supergroups,” a moniker meant to denote a band built largely upon the singular talents of its formidable group members, in this case Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Dave Mason, and Chris Wood—all of whom had worked in other bands prior to Traffic, and all of whom would go on to even bigger and better things later in their rock and roll careers. Album includes a powerful does of the band’s trademark blend of guitars, blues, folk, and art rock, as well as what quickly became known as “jam” rock—the largely the freeform work of Winwood and Capaldi. Includes the hits “Forty Thousand Headmen” and “Feelin’ Alright?”

Cream, Wheels of Fire

Speaking of so-called supergroups, this list would not be complete without including Wheels of Fire, surely one of Cream’s most iconic and famous collections of songs, and a double-album with the unique element of one-half being recorded in the studio in London, the other various disc live performances in San Francisco recorded at The Fillmore and Winterland. Generally regarded as a classic for the ages, the cover art and sleeve art (at that time) included silver and gold foil with positive and negative images in black (expensive and complex printing in those days), and an elaborate cover drawn by artist Martin Sharp. Band includes the famous musical collaboration of Eric Clapton (guitars and vocals), Jack Bruce (guitars, cello and vocals), and Ginger Baker (all known forms of percussion), along with Felix Pappalardi on viola, organ and trumpet. Album includes the iconic hits “White Room” and “Born Under a Bad Sign.”

Van Morrison, Astral Weeks

For some hardcore rock and roll musicologists, Astral Weeks pegs the overall album charts near the very top—often coming in on those lists of the 500 greatest rock era lists at number 3,4, or 5, tucked in between the best works of the Beatles, Dylan and the Rolling Stones. What’s shocking is how few people actually bought the album at the time. It sold so poorly for those first years that Morrison must have thought he had made a commercial misstep when he shifted from his happy-go-lucky pop sounds (“Brown Eyed Girl”) to the highly experimental and impressionistic concept package that Astral Weeks represented. In fact, the shift was transformative, and Astral Weeks remains one of the most influential recordings of all time (we will save you from boredom here, in this list, but books have been written on this topic). Recorded in New York City in late summer 1968, the album blends evocative layers of jazz, folk, soft rock, hard rock, blues, and pure poetry. Astral Weeks has influenced not only musicians, but filmmakers, choreographers, and artists as well, and performers as diverse as Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello have paid famous homage to the album. Like The Beach Boys Pet Sounds or Springsteen’s Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., Astral Weeks stands on its own as an achievement of great originality and richness.

The Rolling Stones, Beggars Banquet

Beggars Banquet, a follow-up of sorts to Their Satanic Majesties Request, would be the last complete studio album for the Stones before the death by overdose of Brian Jones, whose erratic and unreliable work in the studio had basically led the others to ask him to leave the band. Still, Jones’ performances can be heard on several tracks. Notable for being the first Stones album shorn of their previous penchant for cover tunes, all the songs in this collection (save for one) are the work of the writing collaboration of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. This remarkable album includes the songs “Sympathy for the Devil,” “No Expectations,” and “Street Fighting Man.”

Simon & Garfunkel, Bookends

One of this duo's best collections, Bookends includes several especially strong tunes, including “America” and “Mrs. Robinson,” along with “A Hazy Shade of Winter.” Widely viewed by music critics and rock historians alike as a concept album, Bookends shares this kinship with Sgt. Peppers (1967) and Morrison’s Astral Weeks. But unlike those two ornate and baroque package works, Bookends has the common theme of moody simplicity and what music writer Pete Fornatale called “black and white and gray” sounds and textures. This album represents Simon & Garfunkel at their best, and at the height of their powers of songwriting and sweet harmonies.



Related Thursday Review articles:

A Splendid Time is Guaranteed for All: Sgt Pepper at 50; Kevin Robbie and R. Alan Clanton; Thursday Review; June 14, 2017

The Cars: A Look Back at Their Debut 40 Years Later; R. Alan Clanton;Thursday Review; August 3, 2018