1978, The Year in Review, P3

In 1978, the year after punk broke, punk was already flaming out, and post-punk was still simmering, waiting to rise from the ashes.  So 1978 is a bit of a intermediary point, a year of uncertainty, but with quite some musical variety—as shown by my selections below. So here are…

Eight more albums for
My Top 20 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.

Van Halen
Van Halen

Released 1978/02/10

I’ve had a difficult time approaching Van Halen’s debut album, avoiding it for a while. Of course, growing up a teenage boy in the ‘80s, I was deeply steeped in Van Halen. But that was part of the problem; back then, I liked Van Halen, but it seemed like I knew a lot of guys who absolutely worshipped them. When I think of Van Halen, my thoughts inevitably leap to my idea of the stereotypical Van Halen fan—some 14-year-old boy, alone in his room, furiously playing air guitar at masturbatory speeds, or in public expressing amazement at how fast Eddie Van Halen can play guitar.

It’s not the most flattering of impressions.

But listening to Van Halen now, damned if I don’t still like this music, quite a bit—it’s great for what it is.

And what is it? you ask.

This is cock-rock at its finest, ladies and gentlemen. Think I’m exaggerating? Just look at how and where frontman David Lee Roth holds his microphone on the front cover, and what part of his body he leads with on the back. Many men think exclusively with it, so why not let its aura fill your ears as well?

Half the recipe for success here (not that any self-respecting macho type would resort to a cooking metaphor) lies in Eddie Van Halen’s fiery hard rock guitar. Check out that guitar squall of “Running With the Devil”! And the grind and strut of “Jamie’s Cryin’” is without equal in classic rock. With all that genuine fire, I can excuse the virtuoso excess of “Eruption.” (I suppose I’ll let you decide whether you think it’s about a volcano, or not.)

The other half of the recipe would have to be the flamboyant vocals of frontman David Lee Roth. Obnoxious? Sure. But he’s got a certain charm. And, oh, those squeals, those yelps, those shrieks!

The combination works well. Together, they do right by the Kinks, and “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” just plain rocks (even if its title suffers from overuse of apostrophes to sound cool). “Ice Cream Man” plays with none-too-subtle innuendo. But no one would ever accuse Van Halen of subtlety. For them, it’s all about getting up in your face, loud and brash. And they do it best on their debut.

Listen to more Van Halen.

And here’s the antidote for that Van Halen testosterone-OD, folks—released just a week later, in the nick of time.

Kate Bush
The Kick Inside

Released 1978/02/17

A friend of mine once told me that she tended to group people into two categories, Jane Eyre people and Wuthering Heights people. My response to her approach was, What was that breakdown again, Anna Karenina vs. Crime and Punishment? (As far as the 19^th century goes, I was always a little averse to reading British literature—I think I felt it was being crammed down our throats all the time at school. But those 19^th century Russians, on the other hand….)

Regardless, one must assume that Kate Bush was a Wuthering Heights person, as she took the novel as the inspiration for the lead single off her first album, The Kick Inside. British record-buyers, literature lovers that they are, made it the number one single for four consecutive weeks. (For comparison’s sake, during the same stretch the American public’s vast intellect was being overstimulated by Andy Gibb’s “(Love Is) Thicker than Water” and the Bee Gees’ “Night Fever.”)

“Wuthering Heights” marks quite an auspicious beginning to an impressive career—it’s all lush romanticism, capped off by Bush’s distinctive, high-pitched voice. And I’m not much for slow, drippy love songs, but “The Man with the Child in His Eyes” absolutely slays me. “Them Heavy People” feels like pop operetta with bass guitar imitating an oom-pah tuba. “James and the Cold Gun” almost rocks.

And for the record, I like all four of those novels mentioned, but the one that captivated me the most was by Dostoevsky. Likewise, most days I’d rather listen to “Psycho Killer” than “Wuthering Heights.” But a little Kate Bush every now and then is a real treat. The best of her albums would come in 1985, with The Hounds of Love, but of her early albums, The Kick Inside might be the place to start.

Listen to more Kate Bush.

Buzzcocks
Another Music in a Different Kitchen

Released 1978/03/10

The Buzzcocks were masters of short, sharp punk-pop songs sporting catchy melodies and lyrics that explored modern romance and identity in ways most punk bands wouldn’t touch. They made ample use of punk’s energy and pace, without all that unfocused anger.

Their debut album, Another Music in a Different Kitchen, shows them in peak form. Lead singer Pete Shelley’s voice comes across like a kinder, gentler Johnny Rotten; and the guitar interplay between Shelley and Steve Diggle is nothing short of fascinating, some of the most thrilling musicianship of the entire punk movement. “Sixteen” and “Autonomy” ought to be required listening for aspiring punk guitarists.

A clear album (and career) highlight, “I Don’t Mind” is addictive as hell, and boasts a lyric of confused uncertainty that would make any self-proclaimed alt rocker proud: “Reality’s a dream / A game in which I seem to never find out just what I am / I don’t know if I’m an actor or ham, a shaman or sham.” But it’s a love song, too: “But if you don’t mind, I don’t mind.”

The songs fly by quickly, with six of the eleven tracks ending in less than two and a half minutes, and only two tracks surpassing the four-minute mark. By contrast, the seven-minute album closer “Moving Away from the Pulsebeat” builds towards a thunderous finale.

Across three albums and a series of singles in the late ‘70s, the Buzzcocks created one of the greatest expressions of the punk rock movement. Many American listeners know them only from their classic compilation Singles Going Steady. But as is often the case, there’s more to Buzzcocks than their singles. For punk fans, Another Music in a Different Kitchen is a must-own.

Listen to more Buzzcocks.

Kraftwerk
Die Mensch Maschine/The Man Machine

Released 1978/05

As much as they may have felt they were forging a meaningful connection with the world writing about freeways and train lines, Kraftwerk didn’t truly achieve greatness until they began using their electronic music to probe the existential gulf between humanity and the technology it relies on every day, closer to home. In that richer vein, songs like “Showroom Dummies” and “The Hall of Mirrors” from Trans-Europe Express paved the way toward such albums as The Man-Machine and 1981’s Computer World.

On “The Robots,” their voices modified to sound artificial, Kraftwerk presents themselves as a collective of servile machines. The narrator of “The Model” is obsessed with a fashion model, who almost seems to exist in his mind only as a commercial construct; the synthetic music lends a detached artificiality to the song, even in its expression of lust and desire. The brief lyric of “Neon Lights” celebrates the illuminated modern city, lit up like a switchboard or circuit; the quietly hypnotic music drifts and shimmers through the listener’s consciousness. The album-closing title track seems to pose the question: Are we man, machine, or both? Today, when so much of our interaction is mediated by the computerized devices held in the palms of our hands, the question seems more apt than ever.

Listen to more Kraftwerk.

Bruce Springsteen
Darkness on the Edge of Town

Released 1978/06/02

How do you follow up an album like Born to Run (1975), one of the unquestioned classics of its time? Well, that’s a tough one. You can’t beat it at its own game, that’s for sure.

Some of Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town seeks to inhabit the same artistic space. The excellent “Candy’s Room,” for example, has some of the urgency and propulsion of the best of Born to Run, starting quietly with simple, skittery snare and piano—with barely restrained nervous energy—before erupting in desperation on its way to the song’s thunderous finale.

But most of the rest of the album starts to strip away the flowing romanticism of Born to Run, heading towards the more direct music of The River (1980). So Darkness on the Edge of Town is a transitional album. And it’s a very good one, although perhaps a little overrated in some circles.

The hushed “Racing In the Street” conveys a haunting desperation in ways he would later perfect on The River and Nebraska. “Badlands” is a straight-up rocker with a rousing, barely restrained chorus. The fiery, defiant “Adam Raised a Cain” and anthemic “The Promised Land” are other clear highlights.

Less essential that the albums on either side of it in Springsteen’s impressive discography—Born to Run and The River—Darkness on the Edge of Town nevertheless has plenty to offer for even the most casual Springsteen fan.

Listen to more Bruce Springsteen.

Magazine
Real Life

Released 1978/06

Dissatisfied with the new conformity of England’s once-nonconformist punk scene, Howard Devoto left Buzzcocks, the band he founded with Pete Shelley, after their first EP. He was determined to move past the simplicity of punk into more adventurous musical worlds, while harnessing its energy.

And to do this he formed Magazine, one of the first post-punk bands. Little-known in America, they are a band that deserves to be heard, and their debut album Real Life might the best place to get to know them. (Actually, maybe my Artist Spotlight is better, but that’s not an officially sanctioned release.)

“Definitive Gaze” opens with a churning addictive urgency, before a guitar fanfare leads toward synthesized tunefulness. With Devoto’s sneering vocals, it opens the door for punk’s entry into synth-pop, a lead so many artists would follow (not always with such urgency, sadly). “Shot by Both Sides” glowers with menace, and “The Light Pours Out of Me” pulses with brooding intensity, synths again entering to up the atmospheric angst level.

I didn’t know Magaine at all back in my big post-punk listening days, but I wish I had. (That said, it’s also nice to have bands still to discover.) Their first three albums remain some of the most remarkable of the post-punk era.

Listen to more Magazine.

Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band
Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)

Released 1978/08

And now for something completely different… Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Piuller).

Captain Beefheart was always different, of course, no matter when he was recording. But leave it to Beefheart to come up with perhaps his sunniest, most charming work during the midst of an angry punk and post-punk creative outburst.

Album opener “The Floppy Boot Stomp” presents Beefheart’s rambling-poetry-backed-by-music at its most charming. “Tropical Hot Dog Night” is about… well, you might easily guess what it’s about, it’s not particularly subtle—it’s nice to know the old man still has some fire in his loins. Musically, it’s an unexpected treat, all slide trombone riding an ocean of marimbas. A delight. The instrumental “Ice Rose” functions as a coda of sorts to “Tropical Hot Dog Night,” a smorgasbord of sound. “Love Lies” sounds almost like late-‘80s Tom Waits, ten years ahead of the game.

Captain Beefheart had something of a late-career resurgence before he left the music business entirely, and Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) shows him in rare, ripe form.

Listen to more Captain Beefheart.

Dire Straits
Dire Straits

Released 1978/10/07

Dire Straits would have more success later in their career, but sometimes I feel their best album is their self-titled debut—it’s a more bare-bones effort, with none of the flourish and melodrama of their later work, which could raise their music to brilliant heights but just as often bog it down in sentimentality.

Sure, “Sultans of Swing” is a deserved guitar rock classic—it’s where all that flourish came from. But here it’s more contained and doesn’t push the song towards lush, flowing romanticism. It works perfectly, in fact. Album opener “Down to the Waterline” operates in similar territory.

What makes the album worthwhile past “Sultans” are deep albums cuts like “Six Blade Knife” that simmer with a quiet intensity; the song describes a lover’s a Swiss-army-knife set of manipulative tools—and everyone’s need for someone or something to prick at our souls. The rumbling drums of “Water of Love” buoy Mark Knopfler’s vocals and guitar as he sings not of love but of drought; the plinking raindrop-like percussion that opens the song almost feels like a taunt. The jittery, herky-jerky rhythm of “In the Gallery” gives the song more edge than its mellow volume would suggest. “Wild West End” strolls gruffly by, a perfect musical representation of a casual night on the town.

Dire Straits’ early work feels a lot like the relaxed, easygoing work of JJ Cale, only better—more emotionally urgent and compelling. And the guitar throughout is just spot-on. Knopfler plays with a light touch, peppering the songs with unobtrusive guitar licks here and there, subtly coloring the songs rather than taking them over. Case in point: “In the Gallery.” Rarely have I heard a more subdued guitar virtuosity. Knopfler pops and twangs and bends the guitar lines with abandon, yet the overall effect never feels too big for the moment; he’s simply playing accompaniment.

Call it the anti-Van Halen, where the guitar takes you by storm; on Dire Straits, it’s more like a pleasantly tickling breeze.

Listen to more Dire Straits.

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:

• Van Halen: By The cover art can be obtained from Warner Records., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1753739
• The Kick Inside: By The cover art can be obtained from EMI / Harvest., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44600512
• Another Music in a Different Kitchen: By The cover art can be obtained from United Artists., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2030361
• The Man Machine: By The cover art can be obtained from Kling Klang and EMI Electrola., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42344922
• Darkness on the Edge of Town: By Apple Music, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=196818
• Real Life: By http://cdn.7static.com/static/img/sleeveart/00/000/631/0000063193_350.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23559777
• Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller): Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9345331
• Dire Straits: By The cover art can be obtained from Phonogram Records (1978)Vertigo (1996)Warner Bros. (US, 2000)., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=439819