The year 1977 feels like a slow year in major news events, but it’s a big year for music. Newly inaugurated President Jimmy Carter pardons Vietnam draft dodgers. The Trans Alaskan oil pipeline begins operation, and the United States agrees to return control of the Panama Canal to Panama. A 25-hour blackout in New York City leads to looting and general chaos.
Around the world, Spain holds its first democratic elections since the death of Franco two years earlier, and France carries out its final execution by guillotine. In South Africa, anti-Apartheid activist Steve Biko dies in custody, beaten while naked and in shackles, succumbing to brain injury. Over 20,000 people attend his funeral, and his death raises global awareness of the racial oppression in South Africa.
The Apple II home computer is released, as is the Commodore PET, each with a whopping 4K of working memory. The Atari 2600 makes its debut.
Cinemas see the release of George Lucas’ Star Wars, a well-constructed piece of sci-fi entertainment filled with memorable characters and spectacular effects that has now of course become a cultural reference point. Never again would shoddy sci-fi be the norm. As if to solidify that fact, Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind is released later in the year.
Please note that as a genuine bitter old fart, I refuse to refer to Star Wars as Episode IV or A New Hope or any such nonsense, and I would suggest that the film is better seen in its original form, not in the newer special editions. (Perhaps my memory of the original film is flawed, but it seemed to me when I tried to watch it recently with my kids that the introductory crawl went on far longer, almost interminably. And the movie itself seemed to be slower paced than what I remembered, as if expository scenes had been added in. But perhaps I’ve just grown accustomed to today’s frantically paced movies, so it just seemed slower. I can’t find anything online that confirms that the movie is actually longer in the newer releases.)
The film industry seems to be trending toward big-screen blockbusters and away from the brilliant, artful films that have risen to prominence over the previous decade. Call it the film industry’s version of arena rock.
Television viewers tune in for the miniseries Roots, based on Alex Haley’s novel, which chronicles the life of Kunta Kinte, an African boy captured and sold into slavery, following his descendants through generations.
Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll, is found dead on the bathroom floor of his mansion, at age 42. Years of drug use, a bad ticker, and possibly the intense strain of defecation while suffering from extreme constipation (through drug use) may have caused his death. Chinatown director Roman Polanski, meanwhile, finds himself in jail, charged with the sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl.
In both cinemas and on pop radio, disco hits the mainstream with Saturday Night Fever, as John Travolta and the Bee Gees show us all how to dance. But the big story for a music hound like myself is the antithesis of disco: 1977 is the year that punk breaks into the mainstream—in England, at least. (It won’t become mainstream in the U.S. until the early ‘90s, after it has morphed and been re-branded as alternative rock.) The Sex Pistols, the Clash, and a host of other punk acts burst into the musical consciousness with the subtlety of a missile strike.
I haven’t quite worked up my final decade rankings for the 1970s just yet, but currently all 6 of my top 6 from 1977 are penciled in for my decade’s top 20. It’s a powerhouse year for music. I believe I discovered five of these top six (all except the Fleetwood Mac, which I already had) from the 1987 Rolling Stone magazine list of the best 100 albums of the previous 20 years.
My Top 6 Albums of 1977
As always, you can jump to the playlist at the bottom of each post to listen while you read.
Within each tier (Top 6, Next 6, etc.), all albums are listed roughly chronologically (all release dates from Wikipedia, unless otherwise noted).
David Bowie
Low
David BowieReleased 1977/01/14
In 1977, David Bowie retreated from the limelight (and a severe drug problem) to live in West Berlin, and there he created three albums, now commonly known as the Berlin Trilogy, which more thoroughly incorporated the musical ideas of electronic music and Krautrock that he had begun experimenting with on Station to Station.
These three albums recorded toward the end of the ‘70s —Low, “Heroes,” and Lodger—all bore the influence of Brian Eno, who played on all three albums. (All three albums were produced not by Eno, as many assume, but by longtime collaborator Tony Visconti.)
To my ears, the best of these albums by a wide margin is the first—Low. I must have listened to side one of Low hundreds of times back in the day, returning to it periodically in the years since to let it possess me all over again. It has a certain resonance.
The instrumentals that open and close side one nicely frame the masterpiece within—a set of songs that feel interconnected, almost like a song cycle, which seem to describe the drug-addled madness of Bowie’s past few years and the period of seclusion he was able to discover in Berlin that eventually saved him.
“Breaking Glass” features Bowie singing in an almost robotic monotone, over fragmented, disjointed music. The scant lyrics speak of a life spiraling out of control. “Baby, I’ve been / Breaking glass in your room again,” he chants. “Don’t look at the carpet / I drew something awful on it.” “What in the World” continues with a stuttering, jittery percussive sound that puts the listener on edge, and verses that seem to lurch forward as if to collapse upon themselves. The lyrics speak of alienation and introspection: “What you going to say / To the real me?” he asks, as if wishing to peel back the facades of the various personas he’s invented for himself.
After such dissonance, “Sound and Vision” feels like a warm bath, with a pleasing semi-funky groove and shimmering synths. One hardly notices that the singing doesn’t start until half-way through the song; when he finally enters, it’s a relief to hear Bowie crooning rather than the mostly monotone delivery of the two previous songs. The lyrics speak of a blue-saturated retreat, with the music giving a touch of hope. He’s waiting for the inspiration of sound and artistic vision to come to him.
“Always Crashing in the Same Car” shows the regret of repeating the same mistakes over and over again (in an apparently true incident). The side comes to an insistent climax with the guitar- and piano-fueled rush of “Be My Wife,” which feels like a final attempt at establishing meaningful connection.
Way back when I first fell for Low, the ambient pieces of side two felt like something of an afterthought for me, to be honest, but I listened to them occasionally. Ambient music almost by definition is something that affects you more subtly, not something that possesses you and makes you need to hear it repeatedly.
Listening to side two now, though, I feel I never quite did it justice. Not only are its ambient pieces quite good— as good as the similar things Eno was doing at the time, I’d say—but in the context of the album, the pieces suggest an uneasy calm after the turbulence of the mad life captured on side one, a fitting resolution to a fascinating album.
Notable Critical Mentions:
- Acclaimed Music top albums of the ’70s, No. 39
- Pitchfork: The 100 Best Albums of the 1970s, No. 1
- Rolling Stone: 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2003), No. 249
- Rolling Stone 200: The Essential Rock Collection
- The NME Greatest Albums of the 70’s, No. 24
- NME Writers All-Time 100 Albums (1985), No. 15
- Paste: The 70 Best Albums of the 1970s, No. 34
- Uncut: 200 Greatest Albums of All Time (2016), No. 19
Fleetwood Mac
Rumours
Fleetwood MacReleased 1977/02/04
For many, Rumours is the ultimate breakup album. It was recorded as Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were splitting up, just after John and Christine McVie’s divorce, and during Mick Fleetwood’s falling out and back into marriage with Jenny Boyd. But it seems they played best when they were at their worst. The band hides Rumours’ dark subject matter of betrayal and loss behind sunny melodies and immaculate production. The end result is an unassailable classic, which rewards repeated listening.
As on their self-titled pop breakthrough from 1975, Lindsay Buckingham once again leads off with one of the album’s best (but lesser-known tracks), “Second Hand News,” both a kiss-off to an ex (in this case, Stevie Nicks) and a tribute to rebound relations. Buckingham reflects further on lost love on “Never Going Back Again,” accompanied by his terrific acoustic guitar playing. The rocking “Go Your Own Way” is essentially a good-riddance, get-lost diatribe. Not your typical Top-40 fodder.
Stevie Nicks’ “Dreams” can be seen as a metaphorical response to the more straightforward “Go Your Own Way,” as Nicks sings of letting the rain wash away the residues of a broken relationship. The haunting delivery further cultivates the gypsy mystique Nicks began wrapping herself with on the equally spellbinding “Rhiannon.” The lively “I Don’t Want to Know” speaks of a cheating lover, and the chilling album closer “Gold Dust Woman” encompasses drug abuse, fawning groupies, and jealous confrontation.
Christine McVie contributes the more upbeat and optimistic “Don’t Stop,” about leaving the past behind, and “You Make Loving Fun,” about the joys of finding a new relationship. The group effort “The Chain” brings the conflict to the forefront once more, unleashing one accusation after another.
If mainstream pop is your thing, then there may be no better ‘70s album for your ears than Rumours. When I was a kid, late ‘70s, I loved this stuff, before I truly understood the romantic conflicts it describes. Later, in my angry-young-twenties (not that angry, truth be told), I had to at least pretend not to like it much. Now, I can appreciate Rumours for the terrific album it is.
Notable Critical Mentions:
- Acclaimed Music top albums of the ’70s, No. 18
- Pitchfork: The 100 Best Albums of the 1970s, No. 41
- Rolling Stone: 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2003), No. 25
- Rolling Stone: 100 Best Albums of the Past 20 Years (1987), No. 72
- Paste: The 70 Best Albums of the 1970s, No. 15
- Uncut: 200 Greatest Albums of All Time (2016), No. 63
Television
Marquee Moon
TelevisionReleased 1977/02/08
Even as punk rock was developing, post-punk was brewing. I don’t know how most folks classify Television, actually, but to me they feel post-punk almost before punk even happened. They take some of punk’s energy and irreverence and push forward the music in intriguing directions. And nowhere are they better heard than on their debut, Marquee Moon, one of the great classics to emerge from the New York punk and new wave scene.
In an abrasively nasal voice, Tom Verlaine sings of urban paranoia and bad acid trips in surreal, impressionistic lyrics. How does one fall into the arms of the Venus de Milo, exactly? Meanwhile, guitarist Richard Lloyd’s guitar lines bend and veer off in unusual directions, with ascending and descending scales and arpeggios, and odd little flourishes that bounce off the lyrics.
The song “Friction,” musically at least, feels to me almost like the quintessential Television song, with the guitar perfectly introducing the song, and commenting on each of Verlaine’s lines. And the title track’s guitar solo builds slowly, with a Neil Young-esque simplicity, only weirder (in a good way, of course). I imagine a strictly trained blues guitarist might call Lloyd’s playing borderline non-musical, or at the very least highly confused. But I find it utter entrancing, some of the most off-puttingly beautiful guitar playing I’ve ever heard.
Side one of Marquee Moon is an absolute masterpiece, and most of side two is just as good. Even today, it feels utterly fresh, unlike anything else I’ve heard.
Notable Critical Mentions:
- Acclaimed Music top albums of the ’70s, No. 10
- SPIN: The Top 100 Alternative Albums (SPIN Alternative Record Guide, 1995), No. 28
- Pitchfork: The 100 Best Albums of the 1970s, No. 3
- Rolling Stone: 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2003), No. 128
- Rolling Stone: 100 Best Albums of the Past 20 Years (1987), No. 38
- The NME Greatest Albums of the 70’s, No. 10
- NME Writers All-Time 100 Albums (1985), No. 5
- MOJO: The 100 Greatest Albums Ever Made (1995), No. 17
- Paste: The 70 Best Albums of the 1970s, No. 9
- Paste: The 50 Best Post-Punk Albums, No. 1
- Uncut: 200 Greatest Albums of All Time (2016), No. 10
The Clash
The Clash
The ClashReleased 1977/04/08 (UK), 1979/07/26 (U.S., with different tracks and sequence)
The Clash were undeniably one of the greats of the UK punk rock movement—many might say the greatest of them all. Me, I prefer Johnny Rotten’s snide snarling bite to the earnest anger of the Clash. (I’d rank the Clash below the bubblegum punk of the Ramones, too.) But I’ve known plenty of folks I respect who prefer the Clash, including a couple guys who ranked the Clash as the greatest band of all time. Their visceral punk rock attack was practically the epitome of “serious” British punk, and they skillfully incorporated reggae and ska influences into their sound.
Plus, their debut album is an absolute classic. Like most Americans, I first came to know The Clash through its US edition, released two years after the fact in 1979 with a different track listing and sequence. And the American version is actually far better, with four lesser tracks being replaced by five top-notch singles released after the album’s original UK release. (That’s right folks, “I Fought the Law”—probably the song for which this album is most known among casual American fans—was in fact not on the original album at all.)
The original UK release had plenty going for it. Album opener “Janie Jones” tells of a rock and roll aficionado and his Ford Cortina, to a stuttering drum beat and charged guitar chords. “I’m So Bored with the U.S.A.” uses a churning guitar riff and a great singalong chorus to launch a critique of all things American. “White Riot,” with another great rousing chorus, seeks inspiration in the previous year’s race riots in Notting Hill, West London—but declares that all the working classes, whites included, should be in on the action.
“Career Opportunities” is a catchy rant against the unwholesome drudgery of most regular employment, and “Garageland” puts forth a defiant rebuttal of commercialism and the commodification of the punk rock ethic. Top it off with a fantastic cover of Junior Murvin’s reggae piece “Police & Thieves” and you’ve got a punk classic.
Toss in some great singles, and the U.S. version is an absolute killer: “Clash City Rockers” / “Jail Guitar Doors” (single a- and b-side, 1978/02), (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais (single, 1978/06), the classic cover “I Fought the Law (from The Cost of Living EP, 1979/05), and more.
Notable Critical Mentions:
- Acclaimed Music top albums of the ’70s, No. 21
- SPIN: The Top 100 Alternative Albums (SPIN Alternative Record Guide, 1995), No. 26
- Pitchfork: The 100 Best Albums of the 1970s, No. 44
- Rolling Stone: 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2003), No. 77
- Rolling Stone: 100 Best Albums of the Past 20 Years (1987), No. 27
- The NME Greatest Albums of the 70’s, No. 3
- NME Writers Top 100 Albums (1993), No. 13
- MOJO: The 100 Greatest Albums Ever Made (1995), No. 58
- Paste: The 70 Best Albums of the 1970s, No. 22
- Uncut: 200 Greatest Albums of All Time (2016), No. 26
Elvis Costello
My Aim Is True
Elvis CostelloReleased 1977/07/22 (UK), 1977/12 (US)
One of my least favorite songs from Elvis Costello’s phenomenal debut album My Aim is True is its most iconic—”Allison,” inspired by a gorgeous supermarket checkout clerk, for whom Costello rather savagely imagines a commonplace, dreary future. (Costello has denied that the song is told from the point of view of a murderous stalker, but there’s certainly enough vehemence to the song to warrant that interpretation. Some listeners feel that the line “My aim is true” suggests both the purity of his intention and his skill with a firearm.)
In truth, “Allison” is an excellent song—I think I’m just tired of hearing it. You know how it is when a single song seems to represent a particular album or artist in the mind of the common listener—a song which may be quite good, but is certainly not even close to everything the artist has to offer.
And there is far more on offer here than just “Allison.” Not only is My Aim is True rife with pop hooks and catchy melodies, but the lyrics are razor-sharp, flecked with little barbs and clever turns of phrase. Costello dissects relationships like a vengeful surgeon, knowing just where probe with the blade to cause the most anguish. And he’s more than willing to utilize religious references to dissect earthly concerns.
Sexual frustration fuels much of Costello’s bitterness. “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes” tells of a guy who’s crafty enough to trade his shoes to the angels in exchange for immortality, but can’t manage to hold onto a girlfriend. Case in point: “I said, ‘I’m so happy I could die.’ / She said, ‘Drop dead,’ then left with another guy.” The shoes can’t help him here on Earth. His bad luck continues with “Sneaky Feelings,” a song about infidelity, in which he doubts his lover’s sincerity: “We could sit like lovers, staring in each other’s eyes / But the magic of the moment might become too much for you.” And in “I’m Not Angry” an envious dumped guy listens as a new guy beds his ex; he harbors not a little resentment, despite his claims to the contrary. “There’s no such thing as an original sin,” he says, bemoaning the banality of sexual affairs. “No Dancing,” on the other hand, explains why someone’s not getting any. And on a lighter note, “Mystery Dance” gives an amusing account of the perils and confusions of losing one’s virginity.
The bitterness isn’t confined to the bedroom, however. “Welcome to the Working Week” begins with a working stiff’s lofty dreams of success only to burst the bubble. “Less Than Zero” seems a critique of fascism in Britain, now and in the past (most notably some guy named Oswald Mosley, an old pal of the Nazis). And Costello tries to throw everyone else but him under the bus with “Blame it on Cain.” “It’s nobody’s fault,” sings Costello, “But it just seems to be his turn.”
“Waiting for the End of the World” has some of the sensibility of Bob Dylan’s allegorical epics, with an apocalypse set on a subway train rather than out on Highway 61. And on “Watching the Detectives” (a later single added to the U.S. release) cinematic terminology and detective show tropes are used as a means to play out the singer’s frustrated fantasies.
Costello in many ways seems to have absorbed and synthesized so much of rock history that his influences are hard to pin down. He clearly has a pop craftsmanship comparable to Lennon and McCartney, plus a bevy of ‘50s rock and pop songwriting teams; he can pen lyrics with the bite and complexity of Dylan; and he easily channels a hint of punk rock’s fury into the energy of his performance and the edge of his lyrical delivery.
Of all the artists to emerge from the British pub rock scene, none could match up with Elvis Costello. In one short album, he outpaced the entire crowd. And he was just getting started.
Notable Critical Mentions:
- Acclaimed Music top albums of the ’70s, No. 41
- Pitchfork: The 100 Best Albums of the 1970s, No. 37
- Rolling Stone: 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2003), No. 168
- Rolling Stone: 100 Best Albums of the Past 20 Years (1987), No. 29
- NME Writers All-Time 100 Albums (1985), No. 93
- Paste: The 70 Best Albums of the 1970s, No. 20
- Paste: The 50 Best New Wave Albums, No. 1
- Uncut: 200 Greatest Albums of All Time (2016), No. 125
Sex Pistols
Never Mind the Bollocks – Here’s the Sex Pistols
Sex PistolsReleased 1977/10/28
Depending on your point of view, probably either the Sex Pistols album or the Clash debut is the definitive punk rock album of all time (at least from the UK punk scene—we’ll leave out the Ramones, for now). The Clash represented the earnest, political faction of angry young Brits. They were serious and direct in their criticisms of the world. The Pistols were political, too, of course, but they spoke with a savage, bitter irony, laced with contempt and braced with a snarl. The Clash were there to argue; the Pistols were there to shock their listeners out of complacency.
Indeed, three highly politicized songs from Never Mind the Bollocks—Here’s the Sex Pistols get the most attention. In album opener “Holidays in the Sun,” Rotten turns down a stereotypical seaside vacation to visit Berlin—which in his savage irreverence he refers to as Belsen, a concentration camp—and decides, in the end, to climb over the wall into the communist bloc. “God Save the Queen ” treats the royal monarch as a puppet paraded in the effort to dumb down the masses of a borderline fascist regime that reminisces about its glorious past rather than providing for its future. “No future!”? Never has a such a rallying cry felt so defiantly pessimistic, yet cleansing. And then there’s “Anarchy in the UK,” in which Rotten declares himself both an anarchist and the Antichrist and voices his urge to destroy the status quo. Elsewhere, the Pistols fittingly describe the mental state of the British populace, especially the young, as ”Pretty Vacant,” living in a state of dazed malaise.
Those songs are terrific, of course, but some of the more personally focused songs hit me just as powerfully: “No Feelings,” about a self-centered narcissist (who may or may not be Rotten himself); “Liar” about, well, a liar; and “Problems,” possibly Rotten taking the point of view of the elites and their disdain for punks, or possibly just a rant at someone who complains too much. And in “Bodies,” Rotten takes the defiant point of view of an aborted fetus, in one of the most visceral songs about abortion ever recorded.
Sometimes it’s hard for me to tell exactly whose voice Rotten embodies, and who he is criticizing, the supposed recipient of a diatribe or the speaker himself. But in the end, it’s the raw outpouring of unfiltered bile that gives these songs their power. I’m not living a particularly counterculture life myself, but I get a subversive, irrelevant thrill from this music almost unequalled in rock. Even well past middle age, I’m not immune to its riotous charm.
Notable Critical Mentions:
- Acclaimed Music top albums of the ’70s, No. 4
- SPIN: The Top 100 Alternative Albums (SPIN Alternative Record Guide, 1995), No. 100
- Pitchfork: The 100 Best Albums of the 1970s, No. 51
- Rolling Stone: 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2003), No. 41
- Rolling Stone: 100 Best Albums of the Past 20 Years (1987), No. 2
- The NME Greatest Albums of the 70’s, No. 2
- NME Writers Top 100 Albums (1993), No. 3
- MOJO: The 100 Greatest Albums Ever Made (1995), No. 22
- Paste: The 70 Best Albums of the 1970s, No. 10
- Uncut: 200 Greatest Albums of All Time (2016), No. 55
Here’s the 1977: The Year in Review playlist for you—three tracks per album.
I’ll be building the playlist as I go, adding to it as I complete different tiers of commentary. By the time I finish all Year in Review posts for 1977, the playlist will be complete!
Enjoy!
More 1977, The Year in Review
More Years in Review of the 1970s…
Art Citations:
- Low: By May be found at the following website: https://www.amazon.com, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1551042
- Rumours: By Album Art Exchange, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25656916
- Marquee Moon: By The cover art can be obtained from Elektra Records., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16123845
- The Clash: Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20132947
- My Aim Is True: By The cover art can be obtained from Stiff / Columbia / Demon/Rykodisc / Rhino / Hip-O., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=435582
- Never Mind the Bollocks – Here’s the Sex Pistols: By The cover art can be obtained from Virgin., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43739283
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