Music Gourmets Presents 60 Years of Great Music - 1978

[Zeeba Neighba]

Buenos tardes, amigos! It is indeed time for the next year in the MG's "60 Years of Great Music" series.
And here we are already at 1978

Here's the rules:

Each Friday, I'll introduce a new year from 1957 through 2016. Each member selects an album released in that year with a few lines (or more) on why you picked it/enjoy it. Your selection does not have to be the most important release or the most admired release of that year (though it certainly can be), simply an album that grabs you and that you really love.

However, once an album is selected by a member, you must choose a different album.

Together we will compile quite the canon of "Great Music" and, who knows, maybe inspire each other to check out some new artists (or to revisit old forgotten classics).

This week - the albums of 1978

 

[Unsomnambulist]

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



Experimental music that broadly expanded my musical palette when I first heard it as an adolescent. I think it does take some repeated exposure until it "clicks", but if/when it does, you really appreciate a unique voice and talent embodied in this art.

 

[axolotl]

Nunquam non paratus.

https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/1978

 

[JazzyRandy]

Bar-Kays - Light Of Life

 

[patrikc325]

Waiting for Columbus - Little Feat

 

[Mattafett]

Lots of good, nothing striking me as great this year.

 

[LeslieC]

Lots of good, nothing striking me as great this year.

Feel the same way,
But here is my pick:

Elvis Costello - This Year's Model

 

[Worm]

ETA: I saw them play at the Providence Civic Center in 78 or 79 for $1.07. A Boston radio station (WAAF 107 FM) had them on heavy rotation, announced this deal and the tickets sold pretty quick, lol.

 

[Postalboy]

Warren Zevon- Excitable Boy

 

[patrikc325]

Warren Zevon- Excitable Boy

 

[Old Uncle Toe]

The end of the '70's marks the end of the motherlode of good music for me too. However, there will usually be one gem or two. This year, it's

Albert Collins - Ice Pickin'

Albert Collins is one of the kings of blues guitar, although those outside the genre probably don't know much about him. He has a fierce style. There's not a lot of smooth in it, but tons of finger picking and lead riffs. Ice Pickin' was his first release with Alligator Records and the high point of his recording career. Honey Hush was the single from this album and a good example of his style.

 

[Mattafett]

Gonna go with a curveball here. It's plenty good, totally listenable, And enjoyable to listen to.
Cheap Trick - Heaven Tonight

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

Thanks to Rick for posting the '79 thread
Have been away this week but gotta get my '78 pick in tonight before the honorable mentions come rolling in tomorrow

 

[patrikc325]

HM's

Bruce Springsteen - Darkness on The Edge of Town

The Rolling Stones - Some Girls

Bob Marley and The Wailers - Kaya

The Police - Outlandos D' Amour

Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band - Stranger in Town

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

Let's delay honorable mentions another day - with the holidays, I'm not the only late person (Axo, Sam still with picks too)

My pick is pretty obvious:

Bruce Springsteen - Darkness on the Edge of Town


After putting his all into a big, Spectoresque album to try to make a rock and roll statement, Springsteen was embroiled in legal battles with his manager that prevented him from recording. Touring ceaselessly, his attitude towards songwriting changed becoming leaner, grittier, tighter. His lyrics became less idealized, more focused on disillusioned individuals trappped in lives they never envisioned themselves leading. While Born to Run is often listed as Bruce's greatest album filled with anthems that have stood the time on the radio, Darkness is my favorite Bruce albums (and I'm not alone among Bruce's big fans). So many songs have found a lasting place in his live shows. Wonderful stuff!

 

[axolotl]

Keith Jarrett ~ Sun Bear Concerts



So, so good.... If I had words, I would use them. So I'll use another's words:

This gargantuan package -- a ten-LP set now compressed into a chunky six-CD box -- once was derided as the ultimate ego trip, probably by many who didn't take the time to hear it all. You have to go back to Art Tatum's solo records for Norman Granz in the '50s to find another large single outpouring of solo jazz piano like this, all of it improvised on the wing before five Japanese audiences in Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya, Tokyo, and Sapporo. Yet the miracle is how consistently good much of this giant box is. In the opening Kyoto concert, Jarrett's gospel-driven muse is in full play, up to the level of his peak solo performances in Bremen and Koln, and the Osaka and Nagoya concerts have pockets of first-rate, often folk-like, even profound, lyrical ideas. The Tokyo concert takes a while to get in gear, but when Jarrett finally locks into one of his grooving vamps, he carries us along, and there is a memorably melodic encore. In Sapporo, Jarrett breaks from a nicely flowing pattern into a jumpy rhythm that reminds one of C&W guitar fingerpicking, and there's some exuberant barrelhouse stuff and outbreaks of dissonance in part two. Each concert is placed on a single CD, while the much briefer sixth disc is reserved for the encores from Nagoya, Tokyo, and Sapporo. While Sun Bear breaks little ground that his earlier solo piano albums had not already covered, it is nevertheless richly inventive within Jarrett's personal parameter of idioms. If price is not a barrier, the Jarrett devotee need not hesitate

(All Music Guide Review)


Even picking late, nobody pees in my Cheerios.

 

[Markonomicon]

AC/DC 'Powerage' all the way!