Adding to a Conversation

This is a sequel of sorts to Starting a Conversation, a post on the Caliboyinbrooklyn site in which I wrote about the year 1967 in movies. I'm not here to start talking about another year, but rather shift the focus laterally, to the realm of musical arts.

The year 1967 was incredible in music as well as in film. The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, Cool Hand Luke, and Le Samourai all were released, and the world that accepted them was being raised on a steady diet of groundbreaking music. So many albums considered important to today's pop-music and rock and roll music were released.

In January, the world got The Doors first album, that eponymous classic. Tracks like "Break on Through" and "Light my Fire" are hybrids of folk music and impresario keyboard that add to the foundation of the popular youth culture as we know it today. The Doors also released Strange Days later in the year.

Okay, so I'll just start naming some of the albums from here on out: Cream released their second album, the one that lived up to the hype that they were a super-group, Disraeli Gears. Jefferson Airplane released Surrealistic Pillow, the album that contains the acid-head's anthem "White Rabbit". I'm not the biggest Jefferson Airplane fan, but I recognize the position that song holds in the head history.

Sometimes considered the greatest album ever released, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band hit the shelves later in the year. Enough/too much has been written about that album, and maybe more is necessary, but not by me right here right now.

Another icon in the rock world was released, Are you Experienced? Later in the same year they released Axis: Bold as Love. Jimi and Jim and Jon and Eric, icons near the height of their skills.

Those were the monster albums most everyone in America has heard at least one song from: The Doors, Sgt. Peppers, Disraeli Gears, Are you Experienced?...those albums have shaped music ever since, and are still effecting the medium today.

But they weren't the only good albums released in 1967: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, The Who Sell Out, Their Satanic Majesties Request, Velvet Underground & Nico, and Procol Harum. I did have to look some of those up, but I had heard the music, for sure.

So there you go. I'm willing to say that while the movies from 1967 are considered classics today their influence over the content in today's films pales in comparison to the music released in 1967 and it's continuing influence.

Influence is what we're talking about, right?