1978 by moonra

1978

lp’s

1.  Devo – Q: Are We Not Men? Answer: We Are Devo!  listen
2.  Wire – Chair Missing listen
3.  Blondie – Parallel Lines  listen
4.  Television – Adventure listen
5.  Bob Dylan – Street Legal listen
6.  Cecil Taylor – Cecil Taylor Unit listen
7.  The Clash – Give “em Enough Rope  listen
8.  Lou Reed – Street Hassle listen
9.  Dead Boys – We Have Come For Your Children listen
10.  The Saints – Eternally Yours listen
* The Cars – The Cars (honorable mention)

songs

1.  Who Says A Funk Band Can’t Play Rock? – Funkadelic
2.  You Can’t Put Your Arm Around A Memory – Johnny Thunders
3.  Before They Make Me Run – Rolling Stones
4.  Radio, Radio – Elvis Costello
5.  What’s Next to the Moon? – AC DC
6.  One Hundred Punks – Generation X
7.  Take Me I’m Yours – Squeeze
8.  Sister Disco – The Who
9.  The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down – The Band
10.  New Precision – Be Bop Deluxe

Mike’s 1978

Albums:

1. Pere Ubu—The Modern Dance. (“Non-Alignment Pact“)  Took my head off.

2. Talking Heads—More Songs about Buildings and Food.  (“Warning Sign“) This too is among my favorite albums of all time.

3. Rush—Hemispheres. I’m not a big Rush fan and this is the only album I ever play of theirs any more. They finally put it all together here. As melodic as anything they’d ever do and unapologetically prog. This grabs you by the throat and never lets go. Fun stuff.

4. Dire Straits—Dire Straits. (“Water of Love“) This deserves so much more love than it generally receives. Yes, Mark wears his influences on his sleeve (the recently departed JJ Cale mostly) and this is somewhat derivative, but it is just so well done. The songs are gorgeous and sometimes haunting and the playing throughout is both solid (that rhythm section) and spectacular (Mark). The perfect album for a hot summer night, under the stars, on the back porch.

5. Captain Beefheart—Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller). (“When I See Mommy I Feel Like a Mummy“) It’s a tough call whether this or Doc at the Radar Station is the greatest Beefheart. I grew up with the two on either side of a beloved dubbed cassette and while they are both strong start to finish, I adore every note on Shiny Beast. Love his painting on the cover too.

6. Elvis Costello—This Year’s Model. (“Pump It Up“) I listened to a lot of the stuff on this list when it came out. Yes, I’m that old. I’m also nostalgic. If I loved something once, doesn’t matter when, I love it forever. The Dire Straits, Rush and Tull picks apply here. The Styx “Pieces of Eight” and Genesis “And Then There Were Three…” albums would too if I had the balls to include them. I missed out on punk/new wave when it first arrived. It wasn’t until the following year, 1979, that Elvis Costello gave me my first glimpse, in 8^th grade, with the release of “Armed Forces”, the 8-track purchased or possibly stolen from the Van Leunen’s department store. I came to TYM much later and now hold it above everything else he ever did…except for Armed Forces that is.

7. The Stranglers—Black and White.  (“Outside Tokyo“) Another old fave. Brent, is there another album you and I listened to more often when I was in high school?

8. Pere Ubu—Dub Housing. (“Navvy“)

9. Blondie—Parallel Lines. (“Hanging on the Telephone“) Tim is so right. Hanging on the Telephone is amber perfection.

10. Genesis—…And Then There Were Three… (“Deep in the Motherlode“) Oh what the hell, I can’t deny it.

There are a ton of good/not great 1978 albums that contain great songs and so many great singles, making this year’s selection of ten songs just impossible. Here’s an attempt, but wishing I could list another 100 or so:

Songs:

1. Buzzcocks—I Don’t Mind. Right on Tim. Impossible for me to pick between this and “What Do I Get” and  “Ever Fallen in Love…” but this one has always pushed me over the edge.

2. The Albion Band—Poor Old Horse

3. Stiff Little Fingers—Suspect Device

4. The Police—So Lonely

5. Bruce Cockburn—Laughter

6. Robert Gordon—I Want To Be Free. Can’t play this without heartily singing along. Just can’t be done. The whole album is a delight (check also the lovely album closer “Blue Eyes”)

7. Todd Rundgren—Bag Lady

8.Kate Bush—Wuthering Heights

9. X—We’re Desperate

10. The Cars—All Mixed Up

Tim’s 1978 Top Tens

1978 turned out to be a good year! This probably my favourite top ten to date.

Songs:

1. Hanging On The Telephone (Blondie) – In my opinion this is the best single of all time. Debbie Harry’s voice at its best, killer guitar licks and drum fills, amazing verses, brilliant choruses, a killer bridge and huge ending – all in 2:22. Incredible song.
2. Theme From Monkey Magic (Godiego) – Godiego are a Japanese band that have released 55 albums (!) In 1978 they recorded the theme tune to a comedic chop-socky TV show called ‘Monkey Magic’. Based on the 19th Century novel by Wu Cheng’en, the show was dubbed into English and became an instant success. Godiego’s theme tune is the toughest funkiest space-rock jam ever – though some of the lyrics didn’t scan so well after translation! Email me if you want to hear the full lenghth version – Youtube took my video down 😦
3. This Perfect Day (The Saints) – Chris Bailey is probably the best rock vocalist ever. As remote and obscure as this Australian band was in 1978 – they nailed the Detroit punk sound better than most. A very intense and strange song.
4. I Don’t Mind (Buzzcocks) – One of Pete Shelley’s masterpieces. Like ‘Hanging On The Telephone’ this is an almost perfect pop song/single – tight, hooky, modern and heavy-on-the-heart. No-one writes a love song like Pete Shelley, and this is one of his best. It just beat ‘Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldnt’ve?)’ onto my top ten list because it has such ingenious chords changes and a killer bridge.
5. The Artilleryman And The Fighting Machine (Jeff Wayne) – This is my favourite track from Jeff Wayne’s epic disco-funk-rock concept album ‘War Of The Worlds’. This track features voice-overs from Sir Richard Burton and David Essex (!) – I chose it because it includes some of the best themes on the album, and some sublime orchestration, production and mixing.
6. Safe European Home (The Clash) – Surely one of the best rock songs of all time – a brilliant sound and a hugely professional shift for the Clash. For those who are interested some discreet mixes turned up on Youtube recently. Being able to hear Mick’s backing vocal at 2:12 were a revelation to this Clash fan!
7. Carry Me Home (Dennis Wilson) – This track was issued a few years back packaged with the re-release of ‘Pacific Ocean Blue’. One of the darkest, most moving of Dennis’ typically dark moving songs!
8. Outdoor Miner (Wire) – What a strange band Wire are – the taught art-punks surprise everyone with a melodic second album. Sublime tune.
9. The Electrician (The Walker Brothers) – After a comeback hit in ’75, the Walker Brothers found themselves in a 3 album deal with GTO records. By this point, Scott Walker had already recorded too many terrible pop albums (all deleted now!) so steered the Brothers into making a more experimental album. ‘The Electrician’ is the best track on ‘Nite Flights’, and probably the most accessible of Scott Walker’s avant-garde songs. This is a great place to start, if you’ve ever been interested in what all the fuss is about.
10. Wuthering Heights (Kate Bush) – Kate’s a bit hit-and-miss in my opinion, but her first hit is an astounding piece of songwriting. Check out the ‘Red Dress’ video – oh Kate!

(11.) Kangaroo (Big Star) – ‘Third/Sister Lovers’ didn’t make my top ten albums list – but ‘Kangaroo’ is a brilliantly spooky song! This is what happens when you let the engineer loose on your demo!

Albums:

1. War Of The Worlds (Jeff Wayne) – as a child this disco-prog concept album used to simultaneous fascinate and terrify me. It still has the same effect! Wayne’s orchestration and production are pretty seminal in this genre – pretty much all disco albums sounded like this in 1979! Richard Burton is phoning in his voice-over, but all the other contributors give it their all (especially Phil Lynott as the priest!) 
2. Another Music In A Different Kitchen (Buzzcocks) – Its legend that everyone in attendance at The Sex Pistols show at Manchester Free Trade Hell in 1976 started a successful band – but The Buzzcocks were definitely there – they organized the show. After shedding vocalist Howard Devoto and swapping instruments and members, they came up with this incredible first album, packed tight with angsty love songs and futuristic art-rock-inspired pop songs. A unique and underrated band regardless of the ‘punk’ tag. Pete Shelley pretty much invented the gender-unspecific love song (though it was pretty obvious he was gay!), paving the way for the likes of Morrissey and Husker Du. Musically a huge influence on Nirvana. Also released in 1978 is their second album ‘Love Bites’ with the classic track ‘Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldnt’ve?)’.
3. Parallel Lines (Blondie) – I’m not the biggest Blondie fan – but this album is just a classic from start to finish! Sunday Girl, Heart Of Glass, One Way Or Another…
4. Eternally Yous (The Saints) – Who the hell are The Saints? Well it seems there was an awesome punk scene in Australia in the late 70s and this album is a gem!
5. Ambient 1: Music for Airports (Brian Eno) – I’m also not a huge Eno fan, but there’s no denying this a seminal and gorgeous album. Far out,
6. Road To Ruin (Ramones) – Perhaps not the originators of punk, but the band that unified the movement across the planet. Ramones 4th album hammered home their bubblegum cartoon-rock ethic.
7. Give Em Enough Rope (The Clash) – As a Clash nerd I couldn’t leave their 2nd album off the list. Essentially its a problematic album, chiefly because it was produced by American rock producer Sandy Pearlman (Blue Oyster Cult et al) and was duly damned by the music press and punks alike as a sell-out. However, its actually a very robust rock album, the Clash show their lighter side with tracks like ‘Julies Been Working for the Drug Squad’ and ‘Drug Stabbing Time‘ (a close second to ‘Safe European Home’ on my top 10 song list!) 
8. Outlandos d’Amour (The Police) – I fucking hate Sting, and pretty much everything The Police did after this was meh – but I can’t deny everything on this album is brilliant.
9. The Man Machine (Kraftwerk) – The band’s 7th album wasn’t much of a departure, but had a perfect balance of pop, humor and minimalism. ‘The Robots’ and ‘Man Machine’ are particular highlights.
10. Bambu (Dennis Wilson) – “Gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh.”