尼基尔·班纳吉加州录音1967 Nikhil Banerjee

The debut international long-player by the Bee Gees may shock anyone who only remembers them for their mid- to late-'70s disco mega-hits, or their quirky early-'70s romantic balladry. Up until 1966, they'd shown a penchant for melodic songs and rich, high harmonies, in the process becoming Australia's answer to the Everly Brothers…

This late 1967 album found the Hollies making some modest adjustments to the psychedelic era: occasionally trippy studio effects, a sitar on their most psychedelic track ("Maker"), songs that didn't always deal with boy-girl relationships. In fact, however, the group's focus remained where it usually was: modest but pleasing, similar-sounding catchy tunes with high harmonies and strumming guitars. It's not remarkable or essential, but it's certainly pleasant enough, and a bit better than their earlier 1967 LP, Evolution, with some of their better album-only cuts ("Postcard," "Pegasus," "Butterfly," "Away Away Away").

When the Love Generation (which, truthfully, did no better with that emotion than any other generation) got its first real glimpse of soul giant Otis Redding at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 backed by Booker T. & the MG's, a powerhouse band if there ever were one, they saw love with a capital L, because Redding sang love songs like the world was about to end, wringing the emotion out of them like a soulful, urgent hurricane. He was, simply put, an unstoppable force on-stage, taking all the energy of gospel and upping the ante until it seemed like the very sky itself was about to fly off into space from the very power of it. Redding was soul, and soul in every fiber of his being. The two sets included here, which predate the Monterey performance by a couple of months, were recorded in London (March 17) and Paris (March 21) on the Stax/Volt package tour of Europe in 1967…

By 1967, the Shadows were at the end of their hitmaking career, and very close to breaking up altogether. Before they went, however, they had one final classic to deliver, an album that arrived packaged up like a parcel, which, when unwrapped, revealed a host of solid gems, evidence that no matter how far pop music had moved from the model they helped style a decade earlier, the Shadows had no intention of being left behind…

1967. The Summer of Love. Sgt. Pepper's and Satanic Majesties, San Francisco, flowers in your hair…and the dear old Shadows, still besuited and a-twanging, a-grooving, and a-moving, and so firmly locked in a bygone age that even grandma thought they were a little square…

Dirty Blues Band (1967). While the Dirty Blues Band's self-titled debut is nothing more than an ordinary late-'60s blues-rock record, it has its value as a curiosity. That's due to the presence of a 19-year-old Rod Piazza on lead vocals and Glenn Ross Campbell, formerly of the great but obscure psychedelic group the Misunderstood, on steel guitar. Unfortunately, Campbell, who had been unleashing unearthly astral leads in the Yardbirds-like Misunderstood less than a year prior to the September 1967 recording of this LP, sounds far less imaginative and special in this context. His steel leads are decent, but nothing to make you sit up and pop your eyes…

Somewhat overshadowed by Decca's rush-released From the Beginning, appearing just weeks before this 1967 LP, and often confused with their 1966 debut by virtue of its sharing an identical title, the Small Faces' eponymous debut for Immediate Records is one of the great British pop albums of the '60s. The Small Faces were breaking away from their R&B roots, dabbling with LSD and psychedelia, and tightening up their songwriting, emphasizing pop melodies in a way they never did on their debut. Sonically, The Small Faces doesn't get as far out as the abandoned Decca cuts that surfaced on From the Beginning - there may be some harpsichords but no outright psychedelia - but it is bright, colorful, and concentrated, its very brevity playing like snappy pop art…

The Small Faces split from manager Don Arden to sign with Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate label and, in retaliation, Decca and Arden rounded up the remaining recordings the group made for the label and released them as From the Beginning. Appearing just months before their Immediate debut - entitled The Small Faces, just like their first album for Decca - From the Beginning includes early version of "My Way of Giving" and "(Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me," and it reprises songs that were on the 1966 Decca LP ("Sha La La La Lee," "What'cha Gonna Do About It"), moves that muddy an already confusing situation. And From the Beginning really doesn't play as a cohesive album by any stretch of the imagination, as it opens with a burst of burgeoning psychedelia then doubles back to the group's early R&B, flaws that matter less as years pass by because, on a track by track basis, there is a lot of wondrous material here…

Face to Face was a remarkable record, but its follow-up, Something Else, expands its accomplishments, offering 13 classic British pop songs. As Ray Davies' songwriting becomes more refined, he becomes more nostalgic and sentimental, retreating from the psychedelic and mod posturings that had dominated the rock world. Indeed, Something Else sounds like nothing else from 1967. The Kinks never rock very hard on the album, preferring acoustic ballads, music hall numbers, and tempered R&B to full-out guitar attacks. Part of the album's power lies in its calm music, since it provides an elegant support for Davies' character portraits and vignettes. From the martial stomp of "David Watts" to the lovely, shimmering "Waterloo Sunset," there's not a weak song on the record, and several - such as the allegorical "Two Sisters," the Noël Coward-esque "End of the Season," the rolling "Lazy Old Sun," and the wry "Situation Vacant" - are stunners…