| and the Prague Spring, the seminal rock acts of the decade gave birth to their defining statements and, consequently, to some of the most exuberant, passionate, and successfully experimental music ever produced. Larger in scope, with a more far-reaching musical palette than rock music before it, these albums forced radio to reconceptualize their formats beyond the single play. The list of albums produced and released during 1968-1969 include: The Beatles' Abbey Road and The White Album; The Rolling Stone's return to roots with Beggar's Banquet and Let it Bleed; Traffic's eponymous album;The Who's bold and thematically complex rock opera, Tommy; the vast majority of Credence Clearwater Revival's output; Van Morrison's critically adored mystic confessional, Astral Weeks; Crosby, Stills, and Nash debut album; Simon and Garfunkel's Bookends; Frank Zappa's outrageous We're Only in it for the Money; Led Zeppelin's eponymous album and Led Zeppelin II; Blind Faith's eponymous album; The Band's eponymous album; King Crimson's theatrical and progressive In the Court of the Crimson King; David Bowie's timeless Space Oddity; and Velvet Underground's highly influential eponymous album.
  Wendy Carlos's Switched on Bach is released in 1969. For many a first introduction to synthesized sound, Carlos gave Bach sonatas, fugues and tocattas the electronic treatment with a Moog synthesizer. The album became an instant hit with the record buying public and would eventually become the first classical album to achieve platinum status.
The biggest-selling single by the most popular band in pop music history—"Hey Jude" by the Beatles—is released in 1968. '"Hey Jude" was one of the first rock singles to smash the standard running time of three minutes, with a running time well over seven. Currently, "Hey Jude" is the second all-time biggest seller, behind Elton John's "Candle in the Wind."
  Wild, raw, unabandonded, Miles Davis's Bitch's Brew charts unfamilar musical territory and stakes claim to being the first fusion recording. Combining elements of jazz, world rhythms, rock, and funk, Bitch's Brew's solos and arrangements still sizzle with passionate energy and eroticism. Arguably no recording more captures the essence of the late sixties while simultaneously being years ahead of its time.
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