1978, the year after punk broke—yet there’s no punk in this post. Instead, it’s half new wave, with some funk, some rock, and 56 minutes of contemporary classical minimalism.
Six more albums
for My Top 12 Albums of 1978
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).
Note: Several entries for this post were written alongside the recently published Artist Spotlight posts for the respective artists and therefore contain some similar material.
Steve Reich
Music for 18 Musicians
Steve ReichReleased 1978/04; world premier 1976/04/24 at The Town Hall, New York City
Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians isn’t exactly the kind of thing you’d put on in public to show off your favorite moves in your best dancing shoes. (For party music, skip to my final entry of this post.) No, Music for 18 Musicians feels like something to listen to alone, in a quiet moment, where its warmth and beauty can wash over you gradually.
I would be a fool to suggest I was an expert (or even more than moderately knowledgeable) in contemporary classical music. But I have the general impression that Music for 18 Musicians is probably the most significant contemporary classical piece of the past few decades, and a landmark in the history of minimalist music. Of all the recommended minimalist pieces I’ve checked out, it feels the most essential. (The most moving minimalist piece I’ve heard—Different Trains—is also by Reich. I’ve also found plenty to recommend from Morton Feldman and Philip Glass and more.)
And listening to Music for 18 Musicians is a unique experience. I feel I will inevitably fail to describe it adequately. There’s something to the piece that’s about pulse and momentum—sounds repeated over an extended period of time with subtle variations and interlocking lines and rhythms—which is a key element in many forms of music from this point forward. It’s an influence on contemporary classical, to be sure, but more important (for this website), on today’s electronic music, which owes an enormous debt to Reich. (Rap DJs dig him, too.)
Instruments float in and out of the mix, coming to the surface for brief moments before gradually submerging, making way for other voices and sounds. Female voices, violin and cello, clarinet and bass clarinet, piano, marimba and xylophone, maracas—all have their moments of prominence, all contribute to the pulse and flow of the music. Something about the piece feels entirely resonant, harmonious, and ultimately soothing.
In a way, there’s an air of the religious chants of the Middle Ages here, and many listeners have compared it to Balinese gamelan music. But it’s also very here and now. Music for 18 Musicians is certainly not for all tastes. But those who are entranced by it, will be so, utterly.
Playlist Note: The full 56-minute version is the way to experience Music for 18 Musicians, of course, but for my own personal 1978 playlist, I originally included an 18-minute edited version to allow room for more artists. Here, I include the longer version. I’ll let my 1978 playlist go a little longer than normal (more than the usual length of 8 or so hours of music, the amount I used to fit on an MP3 CD in the old days).
Warren Zevon
Excitable Boy
Warren ZevonReleased 1978/01/18
Although he had released one late-‘60s album under the moniker Zevon, singer-songwriter Warren Zevon spent the first half of the ‘70s out of the limelight, touring with the Everly Brothers and working as a session musician. After a brief retreat to Spain, he re-emerged in L.A. to record a second “debut” album and an excellent follow-up, Excitable Boy—for my money, his best album.
Malcontent, misanthropic, and occasionally macabre, Warren Zevon wraps his twisted sense of humor in back-to-basics, crafted rock and roll. But what matters most is the lyrics. The album’s most known track, “Werewolves of London,” is a satirical take on well-dressed, well-coifed, well-to-do dandies roaming the streets of late-night London—perhaps a perverse revision of the Kinks’ “Dedicated Follower of Fashion.” “Lawyers, Guns and Money” is told by a man who can’t help but get himself entangled in various shady international capers and intrigues, and is now phoning home from exile in Honduras, begging for rescue. “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner,” a modern-day “Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” is about the ghost of a Norwegian mercenary, assassinated while operating as a gun-for-hire in assorted African conflicts, who takes revenge on his killer and continues to haunt war-ravaged zones around the world.
Elsewhere, there’s a tributes to Johnny Carson and The Tonight Show, a tune about a falied romance, and a wonderfully absurd disco track that compares heroin use to the rush of a train. And just how excitable is the titular “Excitable Boy”? Well, he rapes and kills his prom date, then digs her up years later when he’s released. Nothing but good, clean fun is a Warren Zevon song, folks.
Sadly, after two celebrated, promising albums, Zevon’s career seemed to stall. He would rarely reach the form he found for his two mid-to-late-‘70s gems. Nowadays, I don’t thnk he’s so well-known. Several of his songs were made more famous by other singers, most notably “Poor, Poor Pitiful Me,” covered by Linda Ronstadt.
The Cars
The Cars
The CarsReleased 1978/06/06
The Cars drove out from Boston with one of America’s most appealing, radio-ready, new wave sounds. They played back-to-basics rock with a touch of power pop craftsmanship, and selective use (at first) of synthesized drones and rhythms that were more mainstream but similar in approach to those of contemporaries Gary Numan and Suicide.
Their self-titled debut album finds the Cars at their most rock-sounding—very AOR-radio-friendly stuff here. And the album produced plenty of hits: album opener “(Let the) Good Times Roll,” the ubiquitous “My Best Friend’s Girl,” and (perhaps best of the three) the charged “Just What I Needed.”
Some of the album’s finest moments come from deeper album cuts. Take the opening guitar fanfare of “Bye Bye Love,” for example, which quickly shifts to a back-and-forth between circus keyboards and an ultra-catchy bass lick, only to be interrupted by Benjamin Orr’s premature vocals. To me, the arrangement and progression of that song feel like mainstream New Wave perfection. “Moving in Stereo,” also sung by Orr, rides a slick, eerie, slowly oscillating, airy drone into a blissful ocean of cool. (Everyone thinks of Ric Ocasek as the Cars’ lead singer, myself included. I was surprised to discover how many of my favorites were actually sung by Orr.) And “All Mixed Up” ends the album with just the right amount of emotional uncertainty, the keyboards and synths adding subtle touches to enhance the effect.
The Cars would have more innovative albums in the future, particularly in their further exploration of synthesizers in a rock context, but they would never have a better album.
Talking Heads
More Songs About Buildings and Food
Talking HeadsReleased 1978/07/14
The dreaded sophomore album has proven many a promising band’s downfall. But not all bands. The Talking Heads’ sophomore effort, the amusingly titled More Songs About Buildings and Food, may even be better than their debut. Among non-Heads fans, the album is probably best known (if it’s known at all) for the hit cover of Al Green’s “Take Me to the River,” but there are many other great songs to be heard here.
I couldn’t tell you what “Warning Sign” is about, exactly—something about red flags in a relationship, maybe?, and there’s an all-important snazzy hairdo and some inconsequential memory loss involved—but the crisp drumming and catchy, lively bass line are just killer. The band was already showing signs that it could be its own unique brand of funky.
Indeed, the band gets more adept with each album, and More Songs… shows them in great form, from the charged opening of “Thank You For Sending Me An Angel” to the angular guitar and galloping beat of “With Our Love” and the agitated funk rhythm guitar of “Found a Job.”
An amusing jingle-bells vibe kickstarts “The Girls Want To Be With The Girls,” in which all the girls abandon their befuddled men for the tranquil, reasonable joys of the company of other females. And “Found a Job” begins with what must be one of the most absurdly mundane openings in pop history: “Damn that television! What a bad picture!” Surprisingly, a description of a bored couple bickering over TV shifts gears to become a DIY television show. The message is clear; if you don’t like the offerings, create your own.
And I love the album title. More Songs About Buildings and Food feels like a gentle dig at critical reactions to the mundane subject-matter of so many of the Talking Heads’ songs. They would, of course, continue writing songs about buildings—two of their biggest subsequent hits, ”Once in a Lifetime” (with the line, “This is not my beautiful house”) and “Burning Down the House” would explore buildings further. But first, they would write songs about paper and cities, animals and air.
Devo
Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!
DevoReleased 1978/08/28
Devo’s debut album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, shows them as a jarring, confrontational art-punk act with angular, herky-jerky music, satirical lyrics, and an eccentric public image, appearing in matching sci-fi-kitsch costumes on stage.
Devo was formed from a group of artists and musicians from Akron, Ohio, who had transformed overnight from hippies to disillusioned pessimists after seeing friends murdered by the Ohio National Guard in the 1970 Kent State massacre. What started as a cynical joke, a theory that mankind in modern society had begun to de-evolve (or devo, for short), would eventually form the basis of one of the key acts of American new wave.
The song from which the title Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! comes, “Jocko Homo” has an awkward, robotic feel, complete with mechanical guitar rhythms, artificial-sounding keyboards, and monotone-manic vocal eccentricities. They give the Stones the robot treatment, too, and “Mongoloid” rocks to a stuttering, machine-llke beat. (It’s not the most PC song, to be sure, but at least the mongoloid seems happy.)
Elsewhere, the music has a less futuristic feel, with a sound that would fit nicely alongside other good new wave bands of the period. “Uncontrollable Urge” is an excellent rocker, and “Sloppy (I Saw My Baby Gettin’)” even better, with terrific shifts in dynamics and tempo.
As with many bands of the era, their use of synths would grow as they entered the ‘80s. With Devo, that would be a pretty good thing, actually, as their use of synths suited their off-kilter, robotic image. But nowhere were they more essential for an entire album as on their debut.
Funkadelic
One Nation Under a Groove
FunkadelicReleased 1978/09/11
I came late to the P-Funk party, not picking up any of their music until the early 21st Century. But after years of listening to the people they influenced, their music was plenty familiar. George Clinton’s Parliament and Funkadelic collective pretty much wrote the playbook on ‘70s funk, and in doing so laid the foundations for not only the Prince I devoured in the ‘80s but also every fun-lovin’ rapper under the sun.
The standard critical opinion says that the best places to begin your P-Funk experience would have to be Parliament’s Mothership Connection (1975) and Funkadelic’s One Nation Under a Groove, and I would have no qualms with this at all. Those seem their two best albums. (I wouldn’t stop at just two, though—I’m always hungry for a little funk. How about a generous helping of Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome or a taste of Maggot Brain for dessert? And there are plenty of other tasty treats on the menu.)
“One Nation Under a Groove” usurps the good ol’ U.S. of A., to repurpose our great land as a funk paradise. The title track’s title clearly references the pledge of allegiance, adding some courtroom swearing in for good measure: “Do you promise the funk / The whole funk, nothin’ but the funk.” The soulful “Groovallegiance” continues along similar Funktriotic lines.
Elsewhere, the slow-burning, “Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad (The Doo Doo Chasers)” offers a musical cure for your shitty life in this shitty world. A scattered chorus of voices drifts in and out of the mix like partygoers from room to room, as a plaintive guitar wails in the background—the song’s a hazy, scatological masterpiece.
And “Who Says a Funk Band Can’t Play Rock?!” affirms their pledge to defy genre restrictions, and their delivery proves them right. On One Nation Under a Groove, they rock, they funk, they jazz, they soul, they do what they want, masterfully.
Playlist Note: For some reason Spotify does not have any of the Funkadelic albums released after they jumped to a major label, Warner Bros. Records—that’s their last four albums, including their best, One Nation Under a Groove (1978). My selections were “Who Says A Funk Band Can’t Play Rock?” and the title track. I was able to find the title track on a compilation.
Here’s the 1978: 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 1978, the playlist will be complete!
Enjoy!
Playlist Note: Funkadelic’s One Nation Under a Groove does not appear to be available in Spotify. My selections were “Who Says A Funk Band Can’t Play Rock?” and the title track. I was able to find the title track on a compilation.
More 1978, The Year in Review
More Years in Review of the 1970s…
Art Citations:
- Music for 18 Musicians: By The cover art can be obtained from ECM., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1002382
- Excitable Boy: By The cover art can be obtained from Asylum/Rhino (reissue)., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14081077
- The Cars: By Anaheim Events, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66761286
- More Songs About Buildings and Food: Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14884863
- Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!: By http://blogs.denverpost.com/reverb/files/2009/11/Devo_Q-Are-We-Not-Men_-A-We-Are-Devo.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26401222
- One Nation Under a Groove: By The cover art can be obtained from Warner Bros.., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=142085
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