January 8 – Shindig! is broadcast for the last time on ABC, with musical guests the Kinks and the Who; 2 days earlier, the birthday of Elvis Presley is celebrated in the final Thursday episode of the series.
February 2 – The first edition of Go-Set magazine is published in Melbourne, Australia. Founded by former Monash University students Phillip Frazer and Tony Schauble, the new weekly is the first independent periodical in Australia devoted entirely to popular music and youth culture. The inaugural 24-page issue has a cover feature on Tom Jones, stories on The Groop, singer Pat Carroll and DJ Ken Sparkes and a feature on mod fashion by designer Prue Acton.
February 25 – The Yardbirds release the single "Shapes of Things"/"Mister, You're a Better Man Than I", heralding the dawn of the psychedelic era in British rock. "Shapes" will peak at No. 3 in the UK and No. 10 in Canada and the US, where it remains on the charts throughout the spring of 1966, making its final Hot 100 appearance mid-June.
March 14 – The Byrds release the psychedelic single "Eight Miles High" in the US. It is banned in several states due to allegations that the lyrics advocate drug use, yet reaches No.14 on the Billboard 100 charts.
April – Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass set a world record by placing five albums simultaneously on Billboard's Pop Album Chart, with four of them the Top 10. Their music outsells The Beatles by a margin of two-to-one – over 13 million recordings. They win 4 Grammys this year.
April 12 – In Los Angeles, California, Jan Berry, of Jan and Dean, crashes his Corvette into a truck that is parked on Whittier Boulevard. Berry slips into a two-month-long coma and suffers total physical paralysis for over a year as well as extensive brain damage.
April 23 – For the first time since its January 18, 1964, issue, the BillboardHot 100 chart fails to have an artist from the UK with a Top 10 single, ending a streak of 117 consecutive weeks.
May 1 – The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who perform at the NME's poll winners' show at the Empire Pool (Wembley) in London. This will be The Beatles' last conventional live concert in Britain. The show is videotaped for later broadcast but The Beatles' and The Stones' segments are omitted because of union conflicts.
May 6 – The first issue of Džuboks, the first Yugoslav magazine dedicated to rock music and the first rock magazine in a socialist country, is released.
May 7 – The Rolling Stones release "Paint It, Black" in the US (May 13 in the UK); this becomes the first number one hit single in the US and UK to feature a sitar (played by Brian Jones).
May 17 – Bob Dylan and the Hawks (later The Band) perform at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, England. Dylan is booed by the audience because of his decision to tour with an electric band, the boos culminating in the famous "Judas" shout.
May 30 – Them, fronted by Van Morrison, begin a three-week stint as the headliner act at the Whisky a Go Go in Hollywood. On the last night June 18, they are joined on stage by that week's opening act The Doors. Van and Jim Morrison sing "Gloria" together.
June 6 – 25-year-old Claudette Frady-Orbison, while motorcycle riding with her husband Roy Orbison, is killed when her motorcycle is struck by a pickup truck in Gallatin, Tennessee.
July 2 – The Beatles become the first musical group to perform at the Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo. The performance ignites protests from local citizens who feel that it is inappropriate for a rock and roll band to play at Budokan.
July 31 – The "supergroup" Cream, a trio featuring Eric Clapton (guitar), Ginger Baker (drums) and Jack Bruce (bass guitar, lead vocals) performs its first official concert at the Windsor (UK) Jazz & Blues Festival.
August 1 – "Midsummer Serenades: A Mozart Festival" is held – the first Mostly Mozart Festival.
August 11 – John Lennon holds a press conference in Chicago, Illinois, to apologize for his remarks the previous March. "I suppose if I had said television was more popular than Jesus, I would have gotten away with it. I'm sorry I opened my mouth. I'm not anti-God, anti-Christ, or anti-religion. I was not knocking it. I was not saying we are greater or better."
December 6 – A Smile vocal overdub session by The Beach Boys for the song "Cabin Essence" becomes the scene of a climactic argument between member Mike Love and third-party lyricist Van Dyke Parks, causing him to gradually distance away from the project.
December 17 – David Oppenheim films Brian Wilson at his home performing his composition "Surf's Up". The footage will later be used for CBS's Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution to be aired the next April.
December 23–30 – The UFO Club opens in London, featuring psychedelic bands Pink Floyd and Soft Machine; and the films of Andy Warhol and Kenneth Anger.
1966 dates unknown
Dalida receives, for a second time, the Music Hall Bravos.
Pungmul music is recognized as an important Intangible Cultural Property in South Korea, under the title nongak sipicha (농악십이차, "twelve movements of farmers' music").
Billboard's year-end list for 1966 included Hot 100 data from January to December 10, 1966, and used an early formula of awarding 100 points to the number one record, then ninety-nine points for number two, ninety-eight points for number three, and so on. The total points a record earned determined its year-end rank. Billboard soon realized the increase to 100 positions per week greatly diluted the accuracy of its chart, as opposed to twenty years ago, when charts had 10-30 positions. The impact of a no. 1 song scoring 20 points for no. 1 and 10 points for no. 10 (20 position chart) is huge compared to 100 points for no. 1 and 90 points for no. 10. A record with 8 weeks at no. 1 could have its advantage wiped out by the no. 10 record if it spent one additional week on the Hot 100, which is exactly what happened to the hottest artists, like the Beatles, Elvis, and others, whose records debuted at very high positions, quickly shot to the top, sold hundreds of thousands of records each week at no. 1, and then quiuckly dropped off the chart. An example is "We Can Work it Out", no. 49 on the 1966 year-end chart, despite three weeks at no. 1. However, it lost 155 points because its debut at no. 36 and second week at no. 11 fell on the last two weeks of December 1965, and Billboard did not count them. Three weeks at no.1 and seven weeks in the top 5 were of little ad vantage. However, by 1970, huge bonuses were being awarded to the no. 1 record each week, as Billboard searched for a better formula.
With 20-20 hindsight, the Billboard year-end chart for 1966 can be completed with archived issues of Billboard for November-December 1965 and November 1966-March 1967, and Joel Whitburn's Records Research books other Hot 100 Year-End formulas were used to complete the 1966 year-end chart. The completed chart is composed of records that entered the Billboard Hot 100 between November 1965 and December 1966. Records with chart runs that started in 1965 and ended in 1966, or started in 1966 and ended in 1967, made this chart if the majority of their chart weeks were in 1966. If not, they were ranked in the year-end charts for 1965 or 1967. If their weeks were equal, they were listed in the year they first entered. Appearing in multiple years is not permitted. Each week thirty points were awarded to the number one record, then nineteen points for number two, eighteen points for number three, and so on down to number twenty. The total points a record earned determined its year-end rank. The complete chart life of each record is represented, with number of points accrued. There are no ties, even when multiple records have the same number of points. The next ranking category is peak chart position, then weeks at peak chart position, weeks in top ten, weeks in top forty, and finally weeks on Hot 100 chart.
The chart can be sorted by Artist, Song title, Recording and Release dates, Cashbox year-end ranking (CB) or units sold (sales) by clicking on the column header. Additional details for each record can be accessed by clicking on the song title, and referring to the Infobox in the right column of the song page. Billboard also has chart summaries on its website. Cashbox rankings were derived by same process as the Billboard rankings. Sales information was derived from the RIAA's Gold and Platinum database, the BRIT Certified database and The Book of Golden Discs,[3] but numbers listed should be regarded as estimates. Grammy Hall of Fame and National Recording Registry information with sources can be found on Wikipedia.
^Murrells, Joseph (1978). The book of golden discs. Internet Archive. London : Barrie & Jenkins. ISBN 978-0-214-20512-5.
^Murrells, Joseph (1978). The Book of Golden Discs (2nd ed.). London: Barrie and Jenkins Ltd. pp. 211–212. ISBN 978-0-2142-0512-5.
^"We Can Work It Out". The Beatles Bible. March 16, 2008. Retrieved January 27, 2023.
^The Association; Bijou; Russ Giguere; The Association & Larry Ramos (2002), Just The Right Sound: The Association Anthology [Disc 1], Internet Archive, Warner Brothers, retrieved January 27, 2023
^ a b"The Complete Works of the Rolling Stones - Database". www.nzentgraf.de. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
^"Paperback Writer". The Beatles Bible. March 16, 2008. Retrieved January 27, 2023.
^Sullivan, Steve (2013). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings, Volume 2. pp. 109–110.
^"Nessuno Mi Puo Giudicare And Other Hit Songs In Italian | Discografia de Gene Pitney". Letras.mus.br (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved January 25, 2023.
^Karlheinz Stockhausen, "Solo für Melodie-Instrument mit Rückkopplung (1966)", in his Texte zur Musik 3, edited by Dieter Schnebel, 85–91 (DuMont Dokumente. Cologne: Verlag M. DuMont Schauberg, 1971), 85, + captions to plates 18 and 19, between pages 80 and 81. ISBN 3-7701-0493-5.
^Michael Kurtz, Stockhausen: A Biography, translated by Richard Toop (London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1992), 144. ISBN 0-571-14323-7 (cloth) ISBN 0-571-17146-X (pbk).
^"World and U.A. Premieres by the Philadelphia Orchestra" (PDF). NewMusicBox. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 31, 2015. Retrieved May 31, 2015.
^Villa-Lobos, sua obra, second edition ([Rio de Janeiro]: MEC/DAC/Museu Villa-Lobos, 1972): 171.
^Rose-Marie Janzen, "A Biographical Chronology of Jean Barraqué", translated by Adrian Jack, Perspectives of New Music 27, no. 1 (Winter 1989): 234–245. Citation on 241. JSTOR 833269 doi:10.2307/833269
^Universia Chile (August 14, 2004). "En la Universidad de Chile estrenan documental 'Jorge Peña Hen: su música y los niños'"[permanent dead link](in Spanish)
^Jerry Osborne (November 2002). Movie/TV Soundtracks and Original Cast Recordings Price and Reference Guide. Jerry Osborne Enterprises. p. 1982. ISBN 978-0-932117-37-3.
^María Luisa Amador; Jorge Ayala Blanco (1986). Cartelera cinematográfica, 1960–1969. Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográficos, Coordinación General de Difusión Cultural, Dirección de Literatura/UNAM. p. 287. ISBN 978-968-837-945-5.
Further reading
Whitburn, Joel. Billboard Top 10 Singles Charts 1955–2000 (2001)
