1966

Although also having a somewhat U.K.-oriented viewpoint (nothing wrong with that, mind you) "1966..." is much more U.K./U.S.-balanced than (for example) "Never a Dull Moment: 1971 The Year That Rock...".There are a few errors & the occasional sloppiness, such as (p. 350) calling the Knickerbockers' big hit "Liar Liar" [It was "Lies"; the Castaways did "Liar Liar"], and taking life-plus-a-day to connect the dots on Grace Slick's Great Society to Jefferson Airplane transition [pages from pages 125 & 367/'8 to page 435]. There's the mystery of talking [p. 143] about the feeling of "...down the city streets, kicking at the cobbled stones" while delving into "Walking My Cat Named Dog", yet not even mentioning "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy)", which seems to be the source for that verbiage- and that feeling. Finally, the author seems almost obsessed with Warhol & the Velvet Underground (48 pages, really?!?), but I don't recall even a mention of groups such as Gary Lewis & the Playboys.That said, this is a good book. Much of it does seem quite well-researched, and the author generally does a nice job tying world events in with the songs chosen. "1966" was, overall, quite interesting & entertaining.Please note: I would suggest also reading the reviews by 'nicjaytee' & 'DJKT'

I guess my main reason for not liking it is because it is very dry which I thought would be impossible considering the subject matter. Also didn’t realize that it takes place in 1966 England not the US. Which is not all bad just not what I was expecting

Very political view taken by this author. I wanted to know more of the songs and artist and not a social commentary of the years current affairs.

Tedious and mind numbing. The writing was akin to the worst college text you were ever forced to buy. How anyone could make an exposition of this watershed, pivotal year such a slog simply makes reason stare.

THIS IS A REVIEW OF THE HARDCOVER EDITION PRINTED IN ENGLAND IN 2015.This has been reviewed on the Kindle edition so I thought I'd say just a bit about the physical book. Included is a six page Introduction, Discography of singles inclusive to the years in the book, a very long list of Sources, and a much needed Index. There's a two page spread at the head of each chapter ("month") with b&w reproductions of record sleeves and magazine covers The main body of the book (542 pages) is dense with the author's take on various 45 RPM singles that he has chosen (one per chapter), along with some relevant period social and cultural themes/happenings that tie into the music that help make his point that 1966 was pivotal."1966 began in pop and ended with rock."After reading this book it's hard to negate the viewpoint that 1966 was indeed the year when the single had such a huge impact on music fans. The author, Jon Savage, (who also wrote among others the great book "England's Dreaming: The Sex Pistols and Punk Rock" from several years back) has collected tunes from across the pop spectrum and weaves them along with a cultural look at 1966 into something pretty persuasive."Music was no longer commenting on life but had become indivisible from life."Even if you weren't lucky enough to be around in 1966, grooving to all the great music, this book will be an eye-opener. Savage has laid everything out in an easy to follow and understand manner that touches on a lot of good (sometimes surprising) music and various cultural/social movements from that period of twelve months. This is not a critique of the music nor is it a dry history lesson. Savage has interwoven the changes happening in 1966 (and there were many) with the music and come out on the other side and given us a deeper understanding of how music became a deeper part of life.You won't read this book in just a couple of sittings--there's too much to digest and ponder--but that's the fun of it all. 1966--who knew?Also check out the 2 CD set of music (not all tracks are represented in the book) that helps make the author's point.

This is the '60s Rock revolution taking place in Britain, with hundreds of anecdotes about never-to-be-forgotten stars of the new music, & the accompanying social stances that created a world of controversy & artistic innovation with a rapidity that astonishes in retrospect,

I was born in 1966 and since I'm turning 50 this year, I thought this book would be a lot of fun. As an American, I didn't enjoy it quite as much as I thought I would because it was written by a Brit and therefore written from his viewpoint. That's why I gave it four stars instead of five. Still, it's worth every penny.This book is a interesting, yet slightly tedious read. Author, Savage, has done his research while delivering a thorough look back at the year. Please note that while the Vietnam war was ramping up that time, the author glosses over it. The UK was not involved in that war and therefore their people were apparently uninterested. Many were anti-war.I'm still reading this one, but would recommend it, especially to those of British decent. Americans, also, will find plenty to like.Jon Savage is a fine writer. Sorry this review is all over the place but it's late as I write.

Gave it as gift to musician and he says he likes it alot.

Jon Savage's selection of 1966 as a year worthy of in-depth study in terms of both the music it produced and the socio-political events that were going on at the time is clever & compelling... in both areas what happened was indeed extraordinary and makes for fascinating reading.I was there, a mid-teenager & heavily into music, and I can confirm that his analyses of the music scene is spot-on in terms of its impact on teenagers like me. For example, his description of Love's "7 & 7 Is" perfectly recreates the impact of this still quite unique track - what he writes is exactly how you heard it on the radio for the first time and how you reacted when you did. Brilliant... and there are dozens of similarly perceptive and, for me, wholly accurate insights into what was going on & why in a year of huge musical change.And, his analysis of the threat of nuclear Armageddon and its impacts on young people who, for good reason, felt that life was likely to be very short and that it was the "older generation's" fault that it was likely to be so, is equally perceptive. It was the fundamental, often ignored, reason why the younger generation readily lost themselves in drugs, explored alternative ways of living, and rejected their parents' principles, attitudes & lifestyles. Jon Savage understands all of this and then astutely explains how it impacted on both the music produced in 1966 and the young people who listened to it.But, where it gets complicated is when he tries to correlate the music scene to wider social & political issues. What he writes in well researched detail is convincing; black power, gay rights, female emancipation and the escalation of the Vietnam War were all highly relevant to the music scene in 1966. But, the problem is that trying to analyse these issues and their impacts on the younger generation is very difficult, particularly when operating within the constraints of the music released in a single year, with the result that large sections of the book take far too much time trying to explain how these changes arose and developed. And, while there's no doubt that they all impacted in various ways on the music, there's a fairly big question mark over whether those making it saw things in the cohesive ways they're presented here. 1966's music was so "explosive" precisely because its more adventurous artists - many of who form the backbone of this book - were innovating without any cohesion and without any particular understanding, or wish to understand, why they were doing what they were doing.And, on the music side, there's one fairly major and more obvious problem. "Revolver", arguably the best Beatles album and, without doubt, the most influential album of the year, gets scant mention - it really is impossible to assess 1966 objectively from a musical perspective without an in-depth analysis of this record and its impacts on other artists - omitted, I suspect, because everyone knows it rather than a number of the far more obscure tracks referenced elsewhere.Ah well, it's an excellent, highly engaging read for its copious information on mid 1960's music that, on the way, contains some quite brilliant insights into what was driving those making & receiving it. Worthy of serious respect... just be prepared to "speed read" some of the overly long sections.

Recently while wandering around an exhibition of photographs from the early 80's it occurred to me that although I had observed the passing of nearly six decades I had forgotten much of the social deprivation through my early years or so and the massive changes that had occurred, probably the most rapid period of change the world has ever seen. Where better to start then than in 1996 and hence this book.So combining my new found interest in modern social history and my life-long interest in music I wanted to get an idea of how life in the mid-sixties, the years when I first went to school, first started hearing music and England won the world cup (for the first and probably only time) shaped 1960's music. And therefore I really wanted to enjoy this book…. but I didn't.Set out as 12 essays, one per month that take a song as a loose starting point from which to focus on differing aspects of the socio-political environment of 1966, each essay paints a picture of the changes the US and UK faced as the year progressed. Whilst there is naturally some repetition between the essays it's kept to a minimum, and the image of the decade the book paints is fascinating.So why the two stars? The book is over long, the first few essays are concise but as the book progresses the essays get longer and start to ramble without a clear senses of direction. There is very little focus on the music, it's just a convenient hook on which to hang the history lesson; and annoyingly I found myself constantly using the dictionary facility on my Kindle to look up the meaning of the archaic words the author used. So to appropriate Disreali's remarks of Gladstone, in summary I found the author to be a sophistical rhetorician inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity; and that's why I didn't enjoy the book and why the two stars.

A marvellous book which explores the history of the Vietnam war, African-American politics, gay culture, nascent feminism and the genesis of psychedelia — all within the pages of Disc and Music Echo.Jon Savage moves from specific records to broader economic and social cross winds. He uses social relations between the stars of the music scene to suggest bigger issues. The book is divided into 12 chapters, one for each month. August begins with the camp experiments of Joe Meek, progresses through the chaos of The Beatles final world tour, and ends with the blackmailing of Brian Epstein. It's a beautifully concrete analysis of psychic forces destroying the cohesion of The Beatles and the positivism of pop music. But it also raises the larger issue of Brian Epstein and the place of his troubled psyche in The Beatles story.There's a convincing account of Andy Warhol and Lou Reed. Savage captures the way in which Warhol expanded his polymorphous talents into film making, Exploding Plastic Inevitable, the Velvet Underground - and the psychic price paid by his Factory workers. Savage conveys the uneasy complicity of Lou Reed and the VU in the process, never achieving stardom in their own right. He also looks at the morally dead quality of The Factory in quite a grown up way.There is no sustained analysis of Revolver or Blonde On Blonde, two of the masterpieces of 1966. But the book has a bigger ambition: to tease how three minute singles can contain the big historical issues of our time, while also delivering cheap thrills.

Enjoyed the entire book. A lot of people said it was a little strained by the end but I really didn't find that, I think every chapter was a pleasure to read and I learnt a lot about the various cultural events of the period though to be fair, it was mainly about the music but it did touch on a lot of the other events of the period. From the book you would come away with the impression that we didn't win the world cup in 1966 nor did JG Ballard produce some superb fiction (as well as many other fine authors) as well as many other historical / cultural events of the time (not much about the TV of the period such as Dr Who, etc or really about the films of the times). Guess the book would be even thicker (4000 pages or so) if it did cover all that and what it did cover was a joy to read about. I came away from the book with a better understanding of that pivotal year. Loved the references to the singles and albums of the time, some really obscure tracks were mentioned and there is a companion CD but I have found that I can find many of the songs referenced on my Amazon Music Unlimited (except Stax etc) as well as other sources, didn't realise there were so many fine songs from 1966

I was 17 in 1966 and I realise how much I missed.............This book is an outstanding piece of creative work that combines UK and US events and music spread across 12 monthly themes: civil rights, gay rights, women's struggles to succeed in a man-dominated world, the Vietnam War, the UK's and the USA's emerging pop culture, the huge impact of LSD and the way the Beatles raised the bar for all musicians in emerging pop culture— and a lot of minutiae of pop culture in London and outside it that had me reaching for Google to follow them up. Poor b/w photos mar the otherwise excellent hardback, but overall this is an outstanding piece of social history and a reference work.