Five high-watermark albums from the pivotal year of 1966
The Beach Boys ‘Pet Sounds’
Having stepped away from live performance in 1965 to work exclusively in the recording studio, Brian Wilson teamed in ’66 with new lyricist Tony Asher for a batch of deeply autobiographical songs examining one man’s transition from adolescence to adulthood, a journey that mirrored what was going on in pop music itself.
The Beatles ‘Revolver’
After the artistic leap the act took with 1965’s “Rubber Soul,” which helped lay a foundation for the birth of the concept album, “Revolver” let the group’s passion for the avant-garde run free, with backward tape loops and other technical experiments fleshing out one of the strongest collections of songs yet from John Lennon and Paul McCartney as well as the fast-maturing efforts of George Harrison.
Bob Dylan ‘Blonde on Blonde’
Capping an astounding musical hat trick that began with 1965’s “Bringing It All Back Home” and “Highway 61 Revisited,” rock’s poet laureate kicked open the creative flood gates across four sides of this double LP. It opened with the anything-goes energy of “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35,” includes such songwriting masterpieces as “I Want You,” “Just Like a Woman” and “Visions of Johanna,” and concluded with the epic 11-minute “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.”
Arthur Lee & Love ‘Love’
Of all the soon-to-be-influential bands plying Hollywood’s vibrant Sunset Strip scene in 1966 — including the Doors, Buffalo Springfield and the Mothers of Invention — this integrated psychedelic folk-rock outfit was the hottest of all for a time. Lead singer and chief songwriter Arthur Lee weighed in early against the threat of nuclear proliferation in the song “Mushroom Clouds” and also warned against the toll he saw from rampant drug abuse in “My Flash on You” and “I’ll Be Following.”
The Mothers of Invention ‘Freak Out’
The collective formed by and around nonconformist par excellence Frank Zappa trumpeted the cultural revolution bubbling up around them in this ambitious double album that invokes and skewers already forming cliches of rock music attitude and performance. “It’s a record so rooted in a true appreciation for what ‘avantgarde’ means,” says longtime Zappa enthusiast Jason Hanley, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s vice president of education.