'60s Rock

The beauty of '60s rock lies in the fact that it covered all points on the sonic map, an aural magic carpet ride emanating from transistor radios around world. Emerging from the rock 'n' roll era that had given us teen idols like Eddie Cochrane and Cliff Richard, a more dangerous breed of rocker began to flourish, and experimentalism was rife, so that blues rock ("House of the Rising Sun") coexisted with heavy slabs of psych ("Purple Haze," "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida") and generational anthems ("Like A Rolling Stone"). From sex to drugs to revolution, these songs mark a moment when music was both medium and message. The dreamers wake up, in our '60s rock Next Steps.

Rock 'n' roll defined the tumultuous '60s like no other music could — Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" (1967) was conceived by Stephen Stills as a direct reaction to tension between teenagers and the police, after the Pandora's Box club on L.A.'s Sunset Strip was shut down, and the MC5's "Kick Out the Jams," released in '69, would become over time a proto-punk landmark. Some bands succeeded as much out of accident as by design — the Masters Apprentices "Undecided," so named because Mick Bower and Rick Morrison wrote it in 15 minutes and couldn't decide on a title, got its unmistakable fuzz-tone from a malfunctioning amplifier valve. In Deep Cuts, we showcase the tracks that defined '60s rock innovation.

London, Los Angeles, Sydney, Melbourne . . . the entire planet generated a collective spark in the '60s, as the full potential of rock in all its fuzzed-up, amp-frazzling, tripped-out glory began to be realized. Our Deep Cuts selection offers up the kinds of sounds that set out to expand the mind and open up the world to fresh musical possibilities. Formed by a bunch of Melbourne University architecture students, the Wild Cherries ("Krome Plated Yabby") became — as described by Aussie rock connoisseur Glenn A. Baker — one of Australia's "most relentlessly experimental psychedelic bands," with roots in the Purple Hearts ("Early in the Morning").

These songs form a dot-to-dot picture that charts pop music's mutation into rock. Dylan's epic "Like a Rolling Stone" broke through radio's standard three-minute barrier, while the unexpurgated version of the Doors' "Light My Fire" helped pave the way for politically outspoken acts like Jimi Hendrix and Crosby, Stills & Nash, in the process taking us from an age of fun, innocence and idealism to the darker era of "The Weight," "Bad Moon Rising" and "Sympathy for the Devil." The world went through incredible upheaval during the '60s, and the music of the time captured every tremor of those seismic shifts, from the Easybeats and the Kinks to Love and Led Zeppelin.