billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 29, 2018 (VIDEO)

...knew I was forgetting something in my stream of updates - sorry this is out of order, folks, it's been nuts the past few weeks...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 29, 2018

So look, I didn't expect this week to be that busy. We're in the middle of the holiday season, most people are settling and relaxing, and I didn't expect much activity within the Hot 100. Hell, I didn't even expect it to drop yesterday on Tuesday because normally they skip over holidays, but not only did it come out, but it was actually a pretty busy week... in a manner of speaking, because while some of this I predicted, any changes felt kind of blocky and misshapen all over, as if they weren't really supposed to happen... but did anyway.

the top ten best hit songs of 1967 (VIDEO)

Ooh wow, this was a ton of work (and I'm a little annoyed so many of the transitions fucked up, GAH), but I'm still pretty proud of it all the same.

Okay, next up, back to something from this year - stay tuned!

the top ten best hit songs of 1967

So when I added the 'top ten' option on Patreon, I was expecting that certain years would attract more attention than others - presumably more recent, if only to flesh out other years in this decade that I've missed, or maybe years that have achieved fame or notoriety for being the best and worst in music history. And thus, I shouldn't be that surprised that a Patron chose this year of all things - after all, from about 1964 to 1969 has been considered by many music historians as a glorious age for popular music, the founding of psychedelic pop and rock, the expansion and growth of soul, the genesis of garage rock and proto-punk, and even birthing tones that would inspire funk, and 1967 was smack in the middle of it all...

And this is where I need to step in and provide some context, because for as much as all of that is true about the era, in looking at what was popular the sheen of baby boomer nostalgia begins to fade, because while 1967 was a pretty damn great year for the Hot 100 - I could easily make a top 30 of this list and still make painful cuts, I wouldn't quite qualify it as one of the all-time best - close, but not all the way there, especially if you're making a comparison to either '66 or '68. Yes, watching psychedelic rock take shape is pretty awesome and there are loads of classics here, and I was actually a little stunned how much terrific soul, jazz, and very early funk managed to slip onto the charts. But this was also the 1960s and the tropes that plagued that era - especially in its early years - are still visible. Yes, we got The Beatles and the summer of love... and all the bands jacking their sound two years late, or dumbing it down into flaccid hippie pablum. Yes, black music was producing terrific records... and white artists were nakedly ripping them off for crossover success. And of course we got the sorts of inane novelty crap and tepid pop and doo-wop leftovers that could flesh out a list of mediocre to outright awful tracks - an era where 'parody' songs or blatant throwbacks could still chart as artists fought against the rapidly changing times. Thankfully, after going through all one hundred songs that charted that year, we're focusing on the positive this time... and are subsequently facing a very new challenge. See, rock historians have been over the 1960s time and time again to canonize so many acts that if my choices buck the popular consensus - and spoilers, some of them will - or if certain songs are left off the list, there'll be folks who'll cry foul that certain 'legendary' songs are not represented. And let me make this clear: I'm not speaking for the institution of rock history, partially because I'm decades removed from ever living that history - this was music made when my parents were kids - but also because as that rock history has proven increasingly selective over the years, maybe a fresh set of eyes can recontextualize this a bit. So, as always the song has to debut on the Hot 100 in 1967, and let's get started with...