If You Like X, Then You'll Like Y: The '60s
Revisiting last year's "If You Like The Sixties" post with refreshed new music recs in every category: motown, girl groups, surf rock, space age pop, and yé-yé. Plus, a full playlist!
Below you’ll find a spruced-up, dusted-off version of last year’s mega-recommendation post of new music that sounds like the ‘60s. I’ve added at least one new highlight track to each category, plus a bunch more to the playlist (which is unpaywalled for a short time!)
Get it while it’s hot, and skip around if you feel like it:
MOTOWN
GIRL GROUPS
SPACE AGE POP
SURF ROCK
YÉ-YÉ
THE PLAYLIST
New Bands for Old(er) Heads
Previously on “If You Like…”, I served up a themeless charcuterie board of frequent requests. That means while there was no unifying genre, the left side of the equation was filled with artists who were popular amongst ‘90s-era youths.
This time, we’re going a little bit sideways and a whole lot backwards.
FIRST, I’m focusing on (sub)genres, rather than specific bands.
SECOND, I am briefly ditching the decades of (most of) our teenage years and going fully rogue into the 1960s.
THIRD, since I’ve already made an offering to the gatekeepers of Classic Rock with an entire playlist of new music influenced by bands like the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Rolling Stones, I wanted to poke at a few genres that too often get a bad rep as kitschy or even costumey1 instead: motown, girl groups, surf rock, yé-yé, and yes, martini lounge music.
This isn’t a music history lesson, and I can’t promise that sharing the new music you find here will charm dinner party hosts into handing you the aux (though that’s always at least partially my intent). But I do promise if you take the time to listen, you won’t just get a better appreciation for how these new bands have built off their predecessors, but also how all of the musical genres feed into each other.
Isn’t music discovery fun?
If you like Motown
Motown is a genre of Detroit soul music from the ‘50s and ‘60s, but it technically refers to a record label, and people get pretty snippy if you miscategorize. That is, it’s all well and good if you call real Motown by its name (think the Temptations, the Four Tops, Jackson 5), but God help you if you accidentally say Al Green was Motown.
try:
Thee Sacred Souls: Coming in hot right away with an off-brand recommendation, because Thee Sacred Souls aren’t strictly Motown: they blend it with Chicano soul, doo-wop, and R&B.
