Everything Is Everything

Pop art. Plastic go-go boots. Diversifying radio formats, including the emergence of "underground" FM. Electric guitars and other instruments, distortion pedals, synthesizers, and tape effects. Mind-altering drugs. Immersive lightshows and high-volume performances. The multiplication of musical genres. A transformation in pop music came to a head during the pivotal year 1966. So did the fervent pursuit of authentic expression. Indeed, the idea of authenticity mattered more than ever in the year dominated by Batman, Andy Warhol, and The Monkees. In this energetic work of music history and criticism, Steven E. Jones examines a diverse group of albums released in 1966 from the influential Black producer, Tom Wilson, by artists from the Blues Project to Sun Ra, the Velvet Underground to Frank Zappa, Hugh Masekela to The Animals. Wilson's genre eclecticism was a response to the times, as was his engagement with the music industry as a whole and with the low and the high in pop culture. It was all part of making pop music in what he called "an era of complex mixed media," and what he meant by his often-repeated catchphrase, "everything is everything."