1967

1967 opened with tragedy and ended up crowded with firsts. Three American astronauts died in a fire during a launch pad test of Apollo 1 in January, and in March the supertanker Torrey Canyon ran aground off Cornwall, causing the worst oil spill on record at that point, before bombers sank the wreck. Britain also founded a new town called Milton Keynes, and Sandie Shaw won Eurovision with a song about a puppet on a string.

For rock, this was the year of psychedelia, with San Francisco's Summer of Love as its backdrop. The Beatles, Cream, the Rolling Stones, the Who and Jefferson Airplane all released major work, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Doors, the Velvet Underground and Procol Harum arrived as debut acts. Metal had not yet been named, but the heavier, louder, stranger end of the spectrum was clearly being tuned up. The vault's pick is The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Pink Floyd's debut, released on 4 August. It leans into space rock, and it set the band's course from the start.

The drama came with handcuffs and heartbreak. In February, police raided Keith Richards's Sussex home, Redlands, after a tip-off to the News of the World. Nobody was arrested that night, but Richards, Mick Jagger and the art dealer Robert Fraser were later charged with drug possession. That same month, the producer Joe Meek killed his landlady and then himself in north London. The Summer of Love had a darker undertow.