Retroverse Year

1962

Beach Boys harmonies and surf instrumentals turn California into a sound you can buy on 45 — sun-bleached, reverb-drenched, impossibly optimistic. Motown's assembly line hits full stride while folk revivalists whisper that something bigger is coming. The charts still love a love song, but the production is getting bolder and the audiences are getting younger. The beat underneath every love song is getting harder to ignore, and the audiences are getting younger.