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episode date - June 26, 2007
I hate to be a ‘glass-is-half-empty’ kind of guy, but reviewing the song titles from today’s show, it’s kind of hard to not feel depressed about the current state of the music industry. All songs from today’s show debuted on the pop charts during the month of June 1967. All of them came to our attention at approximately the same time, in one single month. These days, we’d have to consult Billboard’s Top 40 for two years before we could compile a comparable list of memorable songs. Even that may be a long shot, and based on what I’ve seen in the4 past decade, I would not want to take those odds.
This makes me feel that today’s pop music just isn’t living up to its potential. Hey, maybe it’s because I’m older than Methuselah. Maybe young kids think that today’s hits are far superior to the songs we feature here, and I’m open to suggestion. I still listen to an incredible amount of new music, but the fact is that it just doesn’t excite me the way that it used to. In 1967, pop music defined a way of life, and gave all of us a genuine reason to enjoy our lives. It was varied, melodic and intelligent, without resorting to formula. Even more amazingly, this list does not include any songs by the era’s biggest stars – No Beatles, no Rolling Stones, no Bob Dylan. There is a hit song by that ‘little’ Stevie Wonder kid, who (at the time) offered the promise of greater things, and a new band called the Doors, but most of the other artists are fairly ordinary people who made extraordinary music. In a nutshell, this is why the Summer of Love is remembered so fondly, and this is what pop music ought to be;
1) Ode to Billie Joe – Bobbie Gentry
2) Light My Fire – The Doors
3) Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You – Frankie Valli
4) I Was Made to Love Her – Stevie Wonder
5) Don’t Sleep in the Subway – Petula Clark
6) Let’s Live for Today – The Grass Roots
7) Sunday Will Never Be the Same - Spanky and Our Gang
8) Society’s Child – Janis Ian
And the featured album tracks’
9) Early Morning Blues and Greens – The Monkees
10) I’ll Spend My Life with You – The Monkees
11) You Just May Be the One – The Monkees
CLICK HERE to listen to the full show!
 
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