A cheery bolt of daydream escapism, amongst a background of social upheaval.Following a legal battle with his label King Records, a reinvigorated James Brown re-emerged revitalized. Wilson reportedly listened to this track 100 times a day, and thanks to its irresistible charm and deceptive simplicity, it wouldn’t be much of a hardship.If there’s one year that sums up the sixties the best, it’s 1967. Its power and frankness – as well as it being a splendid song from the supreme pair of Carole King and Gerry Goffin – took it to the top in the US and kickstarted the girl group era.‘Dance To The Music’ is a day-glo riot of pulsating horns, fuzzed-up guitars and zany organ, dressing up what’s essentially an “introducing the band” mid-concert jam. Aided by a rudimentary synthesizer and a non-traditional song structure, ‘Oscillations’ appropriately enough, spoke of the beauty of the new, in an effortlessly forward- looking way.Led by Jim McGuinn’s distinctive 12-string Rickenbacker, and Gene Clark’s pitch perfect lilt, this was originally the b-side to ‘All I Really Wanna Do’. Jackie Wilson, ”(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher”,85. Those artists known specifically as vocal groups were excluded. Songwriter Rod Argent drives the song on with his electric piano while Colin Blunstone strains for the vocal as the song gives early warning of The Zombies’ accomplished pop skills, later realised on legendary album ‘Odessey And Oracle’.Laughing Len once sang in a honey-smeared pop register before trilbies and dodgy accountants had taken their toll. In reality, it was an era of complex and deep-rooted change in musical culture, with artists reshaping existing forms and mapping out entirely new ones in a sensory climate of freedom of expression. Lazy revisionist theory has tended to reduce psychedelia to a set of cosmetic symbols from the ‘60s underground - beads, bangles, acid tabs, peace signs and the rest of it. An apt follow-up No. Stills and David Crosby wrote the song with Jefferson Airplane’s Paul Kantner and both bands released the song in 1969 as the Vietnam War reached its hopeless peak.Perhaps it doesn’t quite get the props it deserves, but ‘Tin Soldier’ is a blistering shot of rock-soul that sounds meaty now – let alone in 1967. Sly & The Family Stone, “Everyday People”,38. The best psychedelic albums, both sonically and spiritually, are guaranteed to take your head to places it never went before. A stabbing at their infamous Altamont gig added an extra dimension of bitter twang as the soulful crisis of the track signaled the end of an innocent era.Taking in a timeless sense of youthful disaffection via a countercultural, Mod lens, Pete Townshend’s age-defying ditty distilled what it feels like to be young, energised and in the prime of life into 3:18 minutes of bristling hedonism. Their loss was The Supremes’ gain as the foot-stomping ‘Where Did Our Love Go’ made No.1 in America, No.3 over here and in 1981 got tacked onto Soft Cell’s Tainted Love to make a camp 12″ megamix.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izzKUoxL11E.Still a teenager, this was another 60s smash written by future 10cc-er Graham Gouldman in his downtime. 1 to the equally conjugal boundary setting “Don’t Come Home A’Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ On Your Mind),” it cemented her no-mess reputation with a song that’s been covered by Pistol Annies, Johnny Paycheck, Nanci Griffith/Eilen Jewell/Kelly Willis* and the Little Willies. Having finished an exhaustive tour of England he’d lost interest in the music game, but the creation of this track – one of his finest moments made even better with Al Kooper’s signature organ line – reinvigorated his love for music. The Velvet Underground, “Pale Blue Eyes”,70. I live in New York, which is cold and sucks, and I’d be warm in LA. Martha and the Vandellas, “Dancing in the Street”,44. Please feel free to make suggestions, but please remember to include only what you consider to be the best of the best. Marvin Gaye, “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”,6. The Righteous Brothers, “Unchained Melody”,97. One of the few tracks composed by Nanker – Phelge, which was the collective pseudonym the Stones used when all five of them – Jagger, Jones, Richards, Watts and Wyman – contributed to the writing (and more importantly shared the royalties).Is there a track in the world as gloriously filthy as this?