60s Hits

Frank Sinatra's Greatest Hits Vol. 1 (1968). Frank Sinatra's Greatest Hits! concentrates on the Chairman of the Board's pop hits from the mid- and late '60s, several of which were single-only releases or only available on movie soundtracks. Appropriately, it begins with his biggest solo hit of the '60s, "Strangers in the Night," and then vacillates between adult contemporary pop songs and ballads. Much of the production sounds dated, with its guitars, reverb, and arrangements bearing all the hallmarks of '60s pop. While some of the songs rank among Sinatra's finest moments, particularly "Summer Wind" and "It Was a Very Good Year," most of these songs are guilty pleasures. They might not have the emotional resonance of his finest ballad and swing albums, but fluff like the Nancy Sinatra duet "Somethin' Stupid," the fuzz guitar-tinged "The World We Knew (Over and Over)" and the bluesy "This Town" are enjoyable as pop singles…

Pop music in the ’60s and ’70s was a kaleidoscope of sound – a dizzying, diverse wonderland unthinkable in these days of targeted demographics and niche marketing. Whereas Hard To Find 45s on CD Volume 11: Sugar Pop Classics focuses on a specific – if ephemeral – slice of the pop pie, Volume 12: 60s & 70s Pop Classics embraces the cacophony, culling nearly an hour’s worth of wildly divergent Top 20 Hits not commonly found on other collections.

Aretha Franklin is one of the giants of soul music, and indeed of American pop as a whole. More than any other performer, she epitomized soul at its most gospel-charged. Her astonishing run of late-'60s hits with Atlantic Records "Respect," "I Never Loved a Man," "Chain of Fools," "Baby I Love You," "I Say a Little Prayer," "Think," "The House That Jack Built," and several others earned her the title "Lady Soul," which she has worn uncontested ever since.

Few stars of the '60s reinvented themselves as successfully as Marianne Faithfull. Coaxed into a singing career by Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham in 1964, she had a big hit in both Britain and the U.S. with her debut single, the Jagger/Richards composition "As Tears Go By" (which prefaced the Stones' own version by a full year)…