Ogdon's Nut Gone Flake

The Top 100 '60s Rock Albums represent the moment when popular music came of age. In the earliest part of the decade, bands were still regularly referencing earlier sounds and themes. By the middle, something powerful and distinct was happening, which is why the latter part of the '60s weighs so heavily on our list. A number of bands evolved alongside fast-emerging trends of blues rock, folk rock, psychedelia and hard rock, adding new complexities to the music even as the songs themselves became more topical. If there's a thread running through the Top 100 '60s Rock Albums and this period of intense change, it has to do with the forward-thinking artists who managed to echo and, in some cases, advance the zeitgeist. Along the way, legends were made.

Here's the question for Small Faces fans: Is it better to own the original Immediate albums or to invest in the splendid double-disc set, The Darlings of Wapping Wharf Launderette? The question is a tricky one, since Darlings contains all of their Immediate recordings, meaning all of Autumn Stone (or There Are But Four Small Faces, as it's known in its American incarnation), plus all of the landmark Ogden's Nut Gone Flake. Granted, Ogden's is divided cleanly in half, with the first side appearing on disc one and the second on disc two, which may irritate listeners who like to hear the concept album uninterrupted…

The Small Faces were One of the Greatest English Bands of the '60s. Starting as a Tough Mod R&B Group, They Evolved Into an Inventive, Psychedelic-tinged Rock Band Before Splitting Up in 1968 When Singer Steve Marriott Left to Form Humble Pie. "The Darlings of Wapping Wharf Launderette", the First Collection Authorised by the Surviving Members of the Group, is a Long Overdue, Definitive 50-track Anthology of the Small Faces' 1966-1968 Stint with the Legendary Immediate Records Label.