(Credits: Far Out / NASA / Uwe Conrad)
Sat 17 January 2026 21:00, UK
There are many people out there who believe that the 1960s were one of the best decades for music, and when you look at the likes of The Beatles, The Byrds and The Rolling Stones, it’s hard to disagree.
Everywhere you turned in that decade, there was some band laying the foundation for what would become a huge musical movement. Firstly, you had Beatlemania, which was astronomical in how it put a British band on the map in the States and paved the way for other musical outfits to do the same. A lot of the British rock groups you know and love likely wouldn’t have made a name for themselves were it not for The Beatles.
Then, of course, you had The Byrds, who knocked The Beatles from the top of the charts with their interpretation of folk rock. They covered Bob Dylan’s ‘Mr Tambourine Man’, but changed the time signature so that people could dance and move to it. It was innovative minds like the band’s Roger McGuinn who made this decade what it was.
“Kudos to Roger McGuinn for taking on ‘Tambourine Man,’ which didn’t knock us out when we first heard it,” said the band’s bass player Chris Hillman, “Bob Dylan had written it in a very countrified groove, a straight 2/4 time signature, and Roger takes the song home and works with it, puts it in 4/4 time, so you could dance to it.”
While the decade was huge for a number of reasons, it wasn’t the most experimental of times. Granted, you had bands like the Beatles who were willing to push the boat out, but a lot of the styles of music we see as groundbreaking were only finding their feet in the ‘60s. When the ‘70s came around, this is when artists well and truly took the roots of what had been planted the decade prior and grew them into trees. Psychedelic rock, heavy metal, funk and soul, all of these styles found form in the ten years that came afterwards.
The point is, after a great year for music, as the decade came to a close, it felt as though the creative doors were wide open. The more experimental and boundaryless genres of music had their foundations set, and it was time for people to well and truly capitalise on the broad spectrum of sound which had been laid before them.
The final year of the decade was 1969, and the excitement in their air as far as music was concerned was clear. There was some truly great music released, and the range on show was a precursor of things to come. However, in the midst of all this great music, there were also some pretty bad songs put out, and it’s time they were acknowledged. As a great decade for music concluded, we were reminded that awful tracks can still creep out of the woodwork.
So, what was the worst number one in 1969?
Looking through the array of number one songs from 1969 is pretty astonishing. The Beatles released ‘The Ballad Of John and Yoko’, Marvin Gaye put out ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’, and Fleetwood Mac topped the charts with ‘Albatross’. There’s such an exciting array of musical talent, and yet, mixed in with that greatness is a song both annoying in its execution and also in the fact that it exists in the first place: ‘Sugar, Sugar’ by The Archies.
I’m not saying the tune is bad to listen to, but no repetitive melody needs to be played as much as that one was. The tune was belted out so relentlessly that it essentially became the ‘60s equivalent of ‘Baby Shark’. Not to mention, the creation of the song was hardly an exercise in musical ingenuity, as it was the by-product of a group that performed on the cartoon Archie.
I don’t hate this song, but it just feels like during a period of musical excellency, the fact that so many great number ones are joined by this one comes across as somewhat lacklustre. This wasn’t just at the top of the charts for a short period either, it stayed there for eight weeks. The whole thing feels like a musical footnote we can Tipp-Ex over.
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