This Ain't the Summer of Love

This Ain't the Summer of Love by Blue Oyster Cult rocks me to my soul, and has never been more appropriate than it is right now.
Just sayin' . . .

Blue Oyster Cult is one of a very few bands I saw in concert, back in The Day (and when I want to feel geologically ancient, I remind myself this was in THE LAST CENTURY!), that I would go see again. Or could, for that matter.
There's been sooooo much written and said about 1967 and that year's music, I couldn't help thinking how much popular music has stagnated since then.
For an idea of how monumental and pivotal 1967 was, in pop music alone, take a look at the Summer of Love issue of Rolling Stone and its list of "40 Essential Albums" from that year.
Debuts from Procol Harum, Moby Grape, and the Doors (who managed two album releases that year). The best studio albums by Cream and the Who; some of the best music produced by Buffalo Springfield, the Kinks, the Moody Blues, and Pink Floyd. The Byrds album from that year is not their finest--they were without Gene Clark, the best singer and songwriter ever in the band. But it's the Byrds! How inferior can it be?
Definitive soul music from James Brown, Otis Redding and Carla Thomas, and the under-appreciated Howard Tate. Six sides--that is, the majority--of the essential Jimi Hendrix studio recordings.
An album by Love that belongs up with the best of the decade. Two U.S. albums from the Stones, a couple (of highly variable quality) from the Beach Boys, two of Jefferson Airplane's best.
And 1967 was the last year the Beatles released more than one album. Just think about Sgt. Pepper's and Magical Mystery Tour both issued, fresh and new, within one year.

The stars have not aligned such since, and likely never will. I realize any comparison of ANY year since, with the unique circumstances of the mid-60s that led to the singular achievements in rock and pop, would be ludicrous.
And it would just sound reverse-ageist for me to try to make a case for that 40-year-old music being better than what's new today, not that those arguments ever convince anyone, anyway.

Not only does new popular music suffer by comparison, as I indicated above, not many acts I'm interested in are touring. Or can.
I don't have to go further that the B's to list a lot of bands I'd love to see (or see again) in concert, for whom reunions are just not gonna happen: Badfinger, The Band, Beach Boys, Beatles, Big Star, Byrds . . .

Well, this started out being some of my "thoughts" about Monterey and the Beach Boys. A few hundred words later, and I've meandered totally off point.
So, moron this later.