Spotify Playlist: 1960s Music

I’m not sure if people still do Spotify playlists any more. Maybe it’s passe. In any case, I maintain several. Today, I’m sharing my 1960s playlist, consisting of close to 1,000 songs with a release date between Jan. 1, 1960 and Dec. 31, 1969 (determining a release date can be murky–let me know if you think I made any mistakes). The playlist is mostly rock, with a heavy emphasis on psychedelia and a good shot of R&B. It includes many classic bands, including the Beach Boys, Beatles, Doors, Hendrix, Zeppelin, Monkees, Pink Floyd, Stones, and Simon & Garfunkel, all of which have 10+ songs in the playlist. Despite the presence of the big names and hits you’ve heard many times, you should also find many less familiar songs. This project has taken me 6 years and included listening to hundreds of hours of derivative and downright awful songs so you don’t have to.

You can find the playlist at:

* Playlist web page
* Spotify URI

If you’re having trouble accessing it, try my public profile in the app and follow the links from there.

I intended the list to be organized alphabetically by band name, but Spotify won’t let me set that as a default for you, so I encourage you to reorder the playlist before you dig in.

An annoying quirk of Spotify: The web page for the playlist is out-of-date. It shows songs that no longer exist in Spotify’s catalog, and it does not properly represent the songs I deleted from the playlist (I relistened to and edited the playlist several times). As a result, to get my current master playlist, you should listen to the playlist in the Spotify app.

Another annoying quirk: Spotify removed songs that dropped out of its catalog without telling me, even when Spotify has the identical song from another source. As a result, dozens of songs exited my playlist over the six years. This is an unsurprising hazard of digging deep into Spotify’s long tail, where licensing seems more chaotic. I resurrected some songs by finding an alternative version in the database. However, many songs are out of the Spotify database; and I have no idea if Spotify made other deletions that I didn’t discover.

Enough Spotify-bashing. We live in a golden era of online music. What a treat it has been to explore Spotify’s long tail and find forgotten and obscure gems. It’s so much better than the old days where comprehensive exposure to recorded music’s long tail would be extremely expensive and time-consuming.

As always, a list like this constantly evolves, so I’d be grateful for your suggestions. I have other playlists I’ll announce in due course. However, I think the 1960s playlist coheres the best. I hope you enjoy it.