Book Description
Ranking the '60s: A Comprehensive Listing of the Top Songs and Acts from Pop's Golden Decade is the most complete and systematic ranking of the music that affected an entire generation in a time of political and social upheaval, free love, space exploration, Vietnam and the rise and fall of American giants like JFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. Ranking the '60s is the ultimate 1960s music countdown with more than 6,800 songs and over 1,800 acts ranked for popularity based upon national weekly chart performance. They're all here: The Beatles, Elvis, the Supremes, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Ray Charles, the 4 Seasons, James Brown and hundreds more, all part of the greatest decade of popular music the world has ever known. The songs and acts are ranked in the first two sections, respectively, each preceded by an explanation of how they found their positions. Two indexes, one for the acts and one for the song titles, comprise the second two sections. The acts are categorically indexed according to their configuration as either soloists, duos, groups or orchestral leaders and include the number of hits each placed on the charts during the decade along with a cross-reference to their decade ranking. The song title index is also cross-referenced by showing each song's decade rank. Special features of the index highlight titles with multiple versions of the same song. In addition to the rankings and the indexes, Ranking the '60s lists the top 200 acts for each year, a year-by-year comparison of each act's chart popularity relative to both itself as well as to its contemporaries, and the top 200 chart performances by acts within any calendar year, 1960 to 1969.