Was 1968 the Grammys’ Best Year Ever?

Dear listeners,

The 66th annual Grammy Awards take place on Sunday, and this year’s lineup of performers is pretty exceptional. I mean, Joni Mitchell is performing! For the first time ever at the Grammys! I could really just stop there, but Billy Joel, Billie Eilish, SZA, U2, Olivia Rodrigo, Burna Boy, Luke Combs, Dua Lipa, Travis Scott and more are scheduled to grace the stage. Will Joel and Eilish take this opportunity to start a supergroup called the Billies? Will SZA and U2 start an all-caps collaborative side project called SUZA2? Will Travis Scott meet Joni Mitchell, and if so, what will they talk about? The possibilities of this year’s ceremony are endless, and a little weird.

To kick off Grammy week, I thought it would be fun to take a look back at another exceptional-if-slightly-odd year in Grammy history: the 10th annual ceremony, which took place on Feb. 29, 1968 and honored the music of 1967.

The Grammys, infamously, do not always get it right. Sometimes their slights are laughably egregious (like when Metallica lost the 1989 award for best hard rock/heavy metal recording to … Jethro Tull); other times, they play things annoyingly safe (see: Beyoncé’s last three losses for album of the year). But just as a broken clock is right twice a day, sometimes justice actually is served at the Grammys. And 1968 was one of those years.

Consider that album of the year went to a release that pushed the format forward into the future, and one that’s still often (and rightly) mentioned in lists of the greatest albums of all time. Some incredibly worthy artists won their first-ever Grammys that year: Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin and Tammy Wynette. Many of the songs and artists awarded have — gasp — actually stood the test of time.

Today’s playlist is culled entirely from the winners of the 10th annual Grammys. Feed your meter, inflate that beautiful balloon and prepare to hop in a time machine ready to take you up, up and away.