Music Gourmets Presents 60 Years Of Great Music: 1979

[Unsomnambulist]

Howdy boys and girls! It is time for the next year in the MG's "60 Years of Great Music" series.

Here's the rules:

Each Friday, we'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 1979.

 

[Unsomnambulist]

Pink Floyd - The Wall

 

[axolotl]

For those in ill-fitting jeans and other apparel:

https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/1979

 

[patrikc325]

The Clash - London Calling

 

[Worm]

Tubeway Army - Replicas

 

[Mattafett]

Supertramp - Breakfast in America

I listen to this all the time. It's just awesome.

 

[LeslieC]

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - Damn the Torpedoes

R.I.P. Tom, you are missed!

 

[lpfreak1170]

The Jam - Setting Sons

 

[Postalboy]

Nick Lowe- Labour of Lust

 

[axolotl]

^ Postalboy's personal pick, pictorialized:

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

Graham Parker & The Rumour - Squeezing Out Sparks

In a really good years filled with personal faves (my fave Police album, Joe Jackson, Tusk, Specials not to mention others mentioned above), once London Calling was chosen, this one became my clear choice. It's an album criminally underappreciated/underplayed these days. I discovered it (as so many of my early greats) through Rolling Stone's Top 100 albums of First 20 Years (1967-87). Oddly on recent ranking lists, it's dropped substantially. It's an energetic rock album filled with Parker's sarcastic lyrical expertise. Not a perfect album - "Waiting for the UFOs" is just goofy but the rest are fantastic. It led me to an appreciation and acquisition of many of Parker's other albums (though he would never again achieve this level of greatness). The Rumour, his backing band with his early albums, is a wonderfully tight pub rock band.

 

[Old Uncle Toe]

Tough year. This era began my period of disillusion for popular music. There are obvious choices in the top 10, but I went with...

Joe Jackson - Look Sharp!

As everyone says -- Jackson was part of the angry, disillusioned punk kid movement for which Elvis Costello seemed to be the leader. However in my opinion, where Costello was after the 'Recorded this in my lonely angry teen bedroom' sound and the Ramones were after the 'We can play this so d*** fast you won't believe it' sound and The Clash were after the 'London bar scene with a heavy reggae influence' sound, Jackson's band was after the 'We may be aimed at the punk audience, but we want to sound an organized band that actually rehearses' sound. Where fast and loose and grungy was the hallmark for punk, I always appreciated that Jackson and co. chose a tight sound instead. I also think Jackson did a nice job of bridging the gaps. I think he hit a good middle ground between punk and new wave, but also kept an eye on radio-friendliness and not getting stuck in the punk niche.

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

^
Awesome pick - after The Clash and Graham Parker, that would have been my next choice

 

[Old Uncle Toe]

Graham Parker & The Rumour - Squeezing Out Sparks

In a really good years filled with personal faves... (One man's ceiling...)

It's an album criminally underappreciated/underplayed these days...

I've never listened to it. In the middle of the first track as we speak.

 

[JazzyRandy]

Michael Jackson - Off The Wall



I hoped someone else would choose this and I could go with one of three other deserving albums that I so wanted to select. Ultimately, there's no way I can not choose this as long as it remains. It's as close to pop perfection as any album can get without actually attaining perfection. In a year where no album received 5 stars from me, this is the clear (by a whisker) winner.

 

[captwhiffle]

Gang of Four - Entertainment!



Am I too late to post? I've been slacking off on these threads.

I'm sure I've blathered on about this album many times in the previous iteration of this online community, but Entertainment! has remained in my top ten ever since I discovered it—maybe in the late '80s? In the late '70s, punk and post-punk musical artists were some of the most compelling voices critiquing late capitalism in all its many insidious forms, and Gang of Four's critique of consumerism and its harmful effects on human interactions remains poignant now that the Internet affords an infinitude of means/barriers for interpersonal relationships.

But really it was the dance-punk aesthetic to got me hooked on Gang of Four. I'd been a fan of Talking Heads, but I'd never thought to consider them as bridging a gap between (post)punk and dance. They just made cool catchy music. The dance-punk experiment really stood out to me as such with this album, and I still love music that melds dance and punk today (LCD Soundsystem, !!!, etc.). Give this a listen if you have never done so, but be prepared to twitch and flail at Studio Angst, if you do.

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

^
You are NOT too late to post
We'd even allow you to post on some of the past threads, Whiff?
Good pick btw - I did remember how you love Enterainment! but I for one enjoy hearing it again

 

[axolotl]

[Content deleted for new internet superhighway arriving soon]

 

[axolotl]

Bruce Cockburn ~ Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws



I could try to be cool and go with Shoes' Present Tense, but instead I'll go full-on dork and go with this classic from the other Bruce ...you know, the Canadian one most of you don't know anything about.

Man if I had a rocket launcher, there'd be hell to pay.

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

^
The album so nice, you chose it twice