This week’s Top-10 from Chris C. Davis (in no particular order).
It turns out that a boatload of classic albums came into existence the same year as I did, 1979. Here are 10 of my favorites from that year.
Wire – 154 (4 Men With Beards)
This is the the third album in one of the most unique and impressive one-two-three punches in music history, along with its predecessors Pink Flag and Chairs Missing. Keyboards and more moody experimental soundscapes take the front seat here, but there are also a handful of more traditionally structured songs that just kill. I wanted to write more about this album, but then I found this amazing video on YouTube of Wire performing my favorite song off of 154, “The 15th”, and figured that just watching this video would give anybody better reason to listen to Wire than anything more that I could ever write about them. This version is a little rawer than the album cut:
Talking Heads – Fear of Music (Sire)
Fear of Music was the third long-player from Talking Heads and their second album in collaboration with Brian Eno. The album finds the band at a very experimental and transitional stage, as is made starkly evident from the first note of “I Zimbra” and its use of African rhythms and dadaist nonsense lyrics from Hugo Ball. There is more funk and keyboard to be found here than in the past and heavier lyrics on some tracks such as the plaintive “Heaven”. Here is a live performance of “I Zimbra” from 1980:
Stiff Little Fingers – Inflammable Material (Restless)
This is one of my favorite punk albums of all time. It has everything that you could want out of great punk rock; youthful exuberance, anger, politics, killer hooks, anthemic scream-along choruses, it’s all here. Most notable to me are the politics. Politics were a part of many a punk album, but listening to those albums at 31 years old, it is often easy to laugh at the simplicity/naivety of so many of the lyrics. That’s not the case here though, much as it is not the case with their British contemporaries The Clash, as the two best songs, “Suspect Device” and “Alternative Ulster”, both deal with the violent conflicts that were splitting Ireland in half at the time, and do so without making one cringe. Those two tracks are not the only reason to listen though. There isn’t a dud in the bunch. Here is a video of SLF doing “Alternative Ulster” in 1979:
Lou Reed – The Bells (Buddha Records)
While The Bells does get more credit now than I’ve read that it got when it was released, it still doesn’t seem to be spoken of with the same reverence as other Reed classics such as Transformer, Coney Island Baby, and New York. I think that is a mistake. Even the most frequently derided track, “Disco Mystic”, sounds pretty good to these ears. What I like most about The Bells is that it seems to lack some of the pretension that can occasionally weight down Reed’s music. This is the horn-heavy, piano-fueled, bar rock type of album I want to come on the jukebox when I’m belly up and drinking cheap, watery, domestic. Here’s the first track, “Stupid Man”:
Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures (Qwest)
This would be in contention for my favorite album ever. And judging by the number of bands that have launched careers with this band and this album serving as a blueprint, and the amount of ink that has already been spilled about it, I am clearly not alone. These songs are dark yet uplifting and danceable, distant yet punchy, every single one of them absolutely thrilling. Martin Hannett’s production is like nothing heard before or since. To top it all off, the album art is nearly untouchable as well. Here is Joy Division doing “Shadowplay” in 1978:
Iggy Pop – New Values (Arista)
I don’t believe that this is top-tier Iggy, like everything he did with The Stooges as well as his first two solo offerings, Lust For Life and The Idiot. For me, it lacks the teeth of the aforementioned and at times sounds dated. But, with tracks like “New Values”, “Girls”, “Five Foot One”, and “Billy Is A Runaway” it’s still a pretty damn good album and merits mention here. Here’s the “Five Foot One” video, featuring Iggy being very Iggy (and looking like he borrowed Shane Macgowan’s teeth):
The Germs – (GI) (Slash)
A classic album, featuring “Lexicon Devil”, one of the best LA punk songs ever recorded (and I’m willing to argue with anybody who doesn’t like the way that it is produced):
The Cure – Three Imaginary Boys (Fiction)
I’d never heard this album, The Cure’s first, until a few years ago, and that was after having listened to them for more than a decade. This makes this album all the weirder to me, as it sounds very little like anything else that they’d do later. There is much more of an art-punk influence here than would be found on later releases, placing this iteration of the band much more in line with contemporaries like Wire and Joy Division than they would ever sound again. Having come to Three Imaginary Boys so late and already being intimately familiar with almost their entire catalog, hearing this was a shock, but a welcome one. I can only imagine what it felt like though to be a big fan of this and then follow the band onward into their career. Anybody out there seasoned enough to share their feelings/recollections? (also, I can’t believe that this is actually Robert Smith!):
The Clash – London Calling (Epic)
Here is another bonafide classic. It saw The Clash really spreading their wings, exploring new sounds, lyrical content and themes in a way that was (and is) totally arresting and has rarely been matched. I could go on, but you already know. “Rudie Can’t Fail”:
Buzzcocks – Singles Going Steady (Capitol)
This collection of early Buzzcocks singles, A-sides and B-sides, is yet another must have for any serious rock fan (damn, ’79 was a pretty amazing year, huh?). “What Do I Get?”, “Ever Fallen In Love?”, “Promises”, “Harmony In My Head”, and so on, and so on. This thing is so good that I could just type out the entire tracklist. But, I’ll spare you that and get to this. “Harmony In My Head”:
