With The Year Was, Annett takes you on a journey through time. In each show we travel back to one year ago. What did it sound like – around the world, in different genres, scenes and areas of pop culture?


This time we turn back the clock to a year of upheaval and protest: 1968 was the height of the student and civil rights movements around the world: The anti-Vietnam War marches and riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King in the U.S., the May riots in France, the Praque Spring, student protests in Germany and Mexico, where two black American Olympic athletes staged their own iconic protest by raising their fists on the podium. 


While the world burned outside the recording studios, musicians tried to capture the spirit of what was happening. The late-'60s soul of Aretha Franklin, James Brown, and Otis Redding offered everything from empowerment to a little comfort to a way to express grief. Out of San Francisco, the bands of the hippie movement tried to change the world through positivity. Jimi Hendrix took on a Dylan song. The Beatles seemed to be in the midst of an existential crisis. In Brazil, Tropicália artists rebelled against the dictatorial grip of the government. While Stanley Kubrick stunned the world with "2001: A Space Odyssey" – eerily mirroring the iconic "Earthrise" image captured by the Apollo 8 astronauts. 


1968 was a cultural atom bomb. Let's listen back!