The Best 40 Pop Singles of the Year (1956 - 2010)

  In this series, you'll be going back to the sixties with someone who wasn't there (I was a seventies/eighties child). Therfore, this is a true objective list of the best singles to grace the chart in every year of the decade, starting here in   1960 . If you want to read the list of best singles for a different year (eventually, every year from 1956 to 2010), you'll find the link  here . A Spotify Playlist to Listen Along as you Read   The Exciting Wilson Pickett Apart from time-travelling through the 1960s (a decade I wasn't actually around for) to better inform my musical appreciation and knowledge of what I've been told many times is the greatest decade for popular recorded music, I had a side quest. Along with my trawl through the 70s and, at some point in the future, the 90s and 00s, I wanted to see if I could decide which decade was the best 'ever'. Having reached 1965, I've realised that it's impossible to say. Comparing the 60s with the 8...

In this series, you'll be going back to the sixties with someone who wasn't there (I was a seventies/eighties child). Therfore, this is a true objective list of the best singles to grace the chart in every year of the decade, starting here in   1960 . If you want to read the list of best singles for a different year (eventually, every year from 1956 to 2010), you'll find the link  here . A Spotify Playlist to Listen Along as you Read Ironing out some Kinks 1964 was one of the most pivotal years in pop music with the emergence of Motown and rock music in its primal form. The Beatles, The Kinks, Cilla Black and Sandie Shaw were dominating the chart but what were the best 40 singles of the year? Here it comes! On the back of pop music being firmly hammered into place on the main wall in the Music Hall of Fame, came another of the greatest (if not the best) genre of all - Motown. Although their records were not initially released on the Tamla Motown label, Mary Wells and Th...

In this series, you'll be going back to the sixties with someone who wasn't there. This is a true objective list of the best singles to grace the chart in every year of the decade, starting here in   1960 . If you want to read the list of best singles for a different year, you'll find the link here . A Spotify Playlist to Listen Along as you Read Best dressed 1963 The era of Rock & Roll was well and truly over, the age of pop music had begun and teenagers everywhere were filling their vinyl collection with records by The Beatles, Gerry & the Pacemakers, The Crystals and The Dave Clark 5. Here are the best 40 singles of the year pop took over the world. The year that many consider to be the first true year of pop music as a stand-alone genre which went on to dominate the charts for another (at least) forty years. Whilst the pop music of 1963 was still quite heavily laden with influences from previous decades, it truly began to form into something of its own with ...

In this series, you'll be going back to the sixties with someone who wasn't there. This is a true objective list of the best singles to grace the chart in every year of the decade, starting here in   1960 . A Spotify Playlist to Listen Along as you Read The Everlys, on a balcony 1962 was the calm before the storm that was the rest of the 60s music charts but it was still a fertile pop landscape featuring acts such as The Everly Brothers, Joe Brown, Elvis and The Shadows. The Beatles also had their first hit but it wasn't one of the best 40 singles of the year. Things were grinding to a halt in the pop charts in 1962. Whilst the innovations of 1961 were being copied rather than improved on, the flood of new genres, engaging new songs and a sense of real attachment to a new movement just didn't happen. Things had gone a little bit stale - that's not to say there wasn't any great music, far from it, it was just very clear that something had to happen, something...

In this series, you'll be going back to the sixties with someone who wasn't there. This is a true objective list of the best singles to grace the chart in every year of the decade, starting here in 1960 . A Spotify Playlist to Listen Along as you Read Bobby Vee was at the very vanguard of the comfy cardigan 1961's pop chart was sprinkled with some gloriously uplifting and exciting music. However, it was also home to some bizarre fare, some of which make me wonder if someone was conducting some kind of social experiment. 1961's pop chart was sprinkled with some gloriously uplifting and exciting music. However, it was also home to some bizarre fare, some of which make me wonder if someone was conducting some kind of social experiment. Firstly, there were two different versions of 'Michael Row the Boat Ashore'. A group called 'The Temperance Seven' were trying to revive the spirit of Noel Coward and Gilbert & Sullivan (not to be confused with Gilbert O...

In this series, you'll be going back to the sixties with someone who wasn't there. This is a true objective list of the best singles to grace the chart in every year of the decade, starting here in 1960. Spotify Playlist to listen along as you read! I grew up in what is widely regarded as the best decade for pop music - the 1980s. But what about that other widely regarded best decade for music, the Sixties? If you grew up in the 60s and liked pop music, you probably didn't care much for the 80s and vice versa. Well, I'm here to either agree or disagree with you. To get to my conclusion (which will eventually be 'What was the best year for pop music' and 'What was the best decade' amongst other things) I have to listen to every single record that entered the top 40 since the chart began until it stopped being relevant in 2007 when 'streams' and 'downloads' were counted towards chart positions. I've already listened to and blogged about...