The year 1969 was a delicious one for hard rock tunes, as the genre had finally come into its own and become a mainstream hit among baby boomers. The following four tracks, in particular, might just send you straight back in time to the tail end of the 1960s.
“Rock Me” by Steppenwolf from ‘At Your Birthday Party’
Steppenwolf may be best known for “Born To Be Wild”, but they really carried on with their habit of dishing out bangers when they dropped “Rock Me” the following year. This psychedelic hard rock classic is one of their finest tracks, and listeners at the time agreed. “Rock Me” made it all the way to No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song did even better in Canada, where it peaked at No. 4.
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“Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zeppelin from ‘Led Zeppelin II’
Led Zeppelin dropped one of the biggest hard rock songs of their career in 1969 with “Whole Lotta Love”. It’s a little bit hard rock, a little bit early heavy metal, and a whole lot of bluesy inspiration. When most people think of Led Zeppelin, they think of “Stairway To Heaven” and “Whole Lotta Love” in tandem.
“Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zeppelin was a Top 10 hit across the board, peaking at No. 4 on the Hot 100 chart.
“Pinball Wizard” by The Who from ‘Tommy’
The Who’s famed concept album Tommy is loaded with hard rock and power pop bangers. However, you just can’t beat the excitable “Pinball Wizard”. A standout entry from the band’s beloved rock opera, “Pinball Wizard” was actually described as “clumsy” by songwriter Pete Townshend. That didn’t stop listeners from loving it, and the song made it to No. 19 on the Hot 100 and No. 4 on the UK Singles chart.
“The Nile Song” by Pink Floyd from ‘More’
Baby boomers got treated to some excellent hard rock and acid rock goodness with this 1969 release from Pink Floyd. It’s perfectly psychedelic with a touch of that early heavy metal sound that was everywhere in 1969. “The Nile Song”, off the band’s underrated album More, was surprisingly not successful on the charts. Few of the band’s singles took off around that time, at least until The Dark Side Of The Moon’s “Money” made it to the Top 20 in 1973.
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