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Favorite 1978 LPs, part 1
I plan to spend the next few weeks – until it’s best-of-2008 list time – ranking the rock/pop/soul albums of 30 years ago: 1978, when I was in high school. In retrospect it seems quite the golden era, though music formative to one’s development always carries special personal significance. However, I didn’t catch up with most of the albums on these lists the year they were released. I was not hip to punk yet; when I went to college in ‘79 I finally “got it” – and much more. Only two list-worthy LPs were post-college discoveries (Art Bears, This Heat). Although it would be more dramatic to build up to #1 in a few weeks, the template only works in descending order, so I start at #1 and work down.
My favorite Wire album, and one of the top 20 rock albums ever. “Outdoor Miner” is practically pop, but almost everything else is grating, unsettling, or disturbing as Wire moves from punk to post-punk.
When this came out, my friends and I were astonished by how dark it was. Despite that, it’s still thrilling and inspiring, as well as Bruce’s peak as guitarist.
One of the most interesting things about this Brian Eno-produced No Wave manifesto, listened to with 30 years of context, is how different the bands all sound now that we’ve learned to absorb this confrontational, challenging music. This LP is long out of print aside from an also OP Japanese CD issue and a Russian bootleg CD, but its contents are spread across compilations of the four contributing bands.
This was started as a Henry Cow LP, but finished when they split and singer Dagmar Krause, multi-instrumentalist (but especially guitarist) Fred Frith, and drummer Chris Cutler kept going as Art Bears. The lyrics – starting with a Brecht/Weill cover, “On Suicide” – are often politically leftist, but profound and poetic. The music is prog in derivation but scratchy rather than slick, often with a harsh edge and arguably something of a punk (or, already, post-punk) attitude.
The first Clash album released in the U.S. The production by Sandy Pearlman (Blue Oyster Cult) offended punks but gave the band the sonic oomph befitting their status as “The Only Band That Matters” (promo slogan coined by Gary Lucas).
Elvis’s debut had certainly impressed, but adding the Attractions to the equation elevated his music to a much higher level. I spent several years copying Steve Nieve’s organ style in my college band.
Unabashedly leftist political lyrics delivered with righteous intensity but also compassion. The music may basically be amped-up pub rock (with organ often as crucial to the texture as guitar), but it hits harder than most and can stand alongside nearly any punk band for sheer power. Early buyers of the LP also got an indispensable seven-song bonus EP featuring “Sing If You’re Glad to Be Gay” and the British hit “2-4-6-8 Motorway.” All of this and more is now on the CD.
The title track is a funk touchstone and much sampled by hip-hoppers. It was important to buy this album soon enough to get the version that included a bonus 7-inch, which has a fine concert version of “Maggot Brain” displaying young guitarist Michael Hampton in what had become his specialty.
Produced by Robert Fripp, which makes the music even more texturally fascinating than on his debut. Some have complained its program lacks focus, but with songs as good as “Mother of Violence,” “White Shadow,” “Perspective,” and the immortal “D.I.Y.” I don’t care.
Yes, this has “Because the Night,” but it’s so much more than that, not least the epochal title track.
