4 Iconic Albums That Every 60s Kid Had on Vinyl

Vinyl was, and still is, one of the primary ways for music fans to enjoy their favorite hits. Especially from the 40s through the 70s, record stores were booming with business, and an artist’s success heavily depended on the number of physical records they sold. Here are four iconic albums from the 60s specifically that you likely had on vinyl if you were growing up at that time.

‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ by The Beatles

Not only did this album serve as a soundtrack for the 1967 Summer of Love, but it also debunked rumors that The Beatles had broken up that were circulating before Sgt. Pepper came out.

“After the record was finished, I thought it was great,” McCartney shared in The Beatles Anthology. “I thought it was a huge advance, and I was very pleased because a month or two earlier the press and the music papers had been saying, ‘What are The Beatles up to? Drying up, I suppose.’ So it was nice, making an album like ‘Pepper’ and thinking, ‘Yeah, drying up, I suppose. That’s right.’ It was lovely to have them on that when it came out…”

‘Pet Sounds’ by The Beach Boys

Pet Sounds is still considered one of the most influential projects in music today. This album combined rock instrumentation with incredible harmonies, producing songs like “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “God Only Knows”.

‘Highway 61 Revisited’ by Bob Dylan

With Highway 61 Revisited, Dylan continued with the approach he’d had in making his previous album. He used rock musicians for his backing band as a means of departing even further from his acclaimed folky sound. This album produced hits like “Like A Rolling Stone” and songs that broke boundaries like the 11-minute “Desolation Row”.

‘Rubber Soul’ by The Beatles

Released in 1965, The Beatles’ sixth studio album Rubber Soul marked a shift from their earlier pop hits to something a little different. It was also the first album that the group had substantial control over in the studio.

“In October 1965, we started to record the album,” McCartney told The Beatles Anthology. “Things were changing. The direction was moving away from the poppy stuff like ‘Thank You Girl’, ‘From Me To You’ and ‘She Loves You’. The early material was directly relating to our fans, saying, ‘Please buy this record,’ but now we’d come to a point where we thought, ‘We’ve done that. Now we can branch out into songs that are more surreal, a little more entertaining.’”

Photo by: Steve Morley/Redferns