Member-only story
Plethora of Pop’s Rate-A-Record
Number One Deep Cuts: 1966
Hits you might have overlooked or forgotten
Buddy Gott is forcing me to amend my regular Rate-A-Record survey of the best of the POP, R&B, and COUNTRY charts, and instead to focus on the overlooked cuts — big hits for some that might not feel so big anymore. None of us participating in this challenge so far — Paul Combs and Alex Markham — are suggesting that you have never heard these songs, or are presuming that you’ve been living in Bessemer, Alabama, and so might be focused more on recent kangaroo escapes.
Simply put, we want to see what you recognize, and if you’ve never heard these songs, then you can add them to your various playlists and hear what all the fuss was about, in this case, way back in 1966.
For this story, please rate the songs below as usual — between 35–98 — and if you have to ask why those numbers, then I will refer you to Dick Clark, who may or may not answer, and if he does, well, you’ve either got deeper issues, or you have a pipeline to “The X-Files.”
What becomes of the clairvoyant-hearted, for sure.
In 1966, when I was ten and watching Dick Clark on ABC every Saturday, the #1 songs across the charts were these: