Books and other culture-products geared to anniversaries tend to overstate their case (“1383: Turning Point of Human Hist’rah!”), but when it comes to the world of music, the new book 1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music by Andrew Grant Jackson makes a powerful case. For one year to produce “Satisfaction,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Yesterday,” “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” the Byrds’ version of “Turn! Turn! Turn!,” Rubber Soul, Help!, A Love Supreme, and even Vince Guaraldi’s magnificent Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack is, shall we say, statistically improbable.

The author locates this musical efflorescence in the context of the social and political turbulence of the time: There are chapters about, e.g., the Watts riots, the Pill, and the Vietnam War. I understand the desire to evoke the period, but I think it actually does the music a disservice. It’s something I’ve noticed in a lot of cultural celebration of the Sixties: One receives the underlying impression that the music is basically the soundtrack for a particular political point of view. But my own opinions on the Watts riots (anti), the Pill (pro), and the Vietnam War (pro) developed independently of the musical achievements of the period, and I trust that someone who disagreed with me on all three could join me in recognizing the value of this music. (Indeed, if we wanted to create a conservative counternarrative, we could say that this music served as the soundtrack of the impending dawn of the Reagan Era. But we conservatives pride ourselves on the fact that we resist the politicization of everything, so let’s not do that.)

This book is a welcome reminder of some truly great music. Recommended.