MALLINation

1979 was one of those amazing years in music that just makes the jaw hit the floor. When it comes to albums the year was chock full of stone cold classics. At the end of the seventies music was perched on the edge of the great fragmentation that would take hold in the eighties and especially the nineties – punk, funk, disco, pop all rubbed shoulders along with the first stirrings of hip-hop (see my 1979 songs playlist for the full melange).

This is not to mention the themes that cut across the songs in a year that saw the a rising conservative movement regain power in Britain and begin to assert itself against the doomed Carter administration in the United States. Underneath was the roiling racism and anti-immigration of a resurgent fascist National Front in the UK and an America that wanted to put Watergate and all of the conflicts of the 60s behind them, as they would in 1980 by electing Ronald Reagan president.

Musically punk was becoming post-punk, reggae, dub, krautrock and even disco were becoming influences across the spectrum and even if rap was yet to make itself known on the album charts – it was out there being formed. These are my favorites – what are yours?

1. Talking Heads – Fear of Music

Talking Heads were in the midst of an amazingly fertile creative period which Fear of Music sits smack in the middle of. This was their third LP and their second with Brian Eno as co-Producer. Opener “I Zimbra” is a glorious red herring, a slice of afro-funk that marches on in like a refugee from the next album they’d do, Remain in Light, which was suffused with African rhythms from stem to stern. Fear of Music was a whole other bag – like a lot of 1979s best, the re-heating of the cold war brings a dread and an exploration of themes of totalitarianism on tracks like “Life During Wartime” and “Electric Guitar”. As usual though David Byrne’s lyrics bring a distinct New York art fried sensibility whether trying to decide what city to live in: “…how about Memphis, home of Elvis and the ancient Greeks?” or railing against the smugness of animals: “..they don’t even know what a joke is!” All of this is brought to jumping, nervy life by one of the all-time great rhythm sections, Tina Weymouth on bass and Chris Frantz on the drum kit and some of Eno’s most spectacular soundscapes. One of the best albums from one of America’s best ever bands.

2. The Clash – London Calling

I mean, duh. I did my college history thesis on this album’s distinct confluence of musical influences that include (as Robert Christgau and others have pointed out) various permutations of the 100-year old myth of Staggerlee, a black man who shot a white man just because he could. The Clash find the resonance of this in Jamaican rude boys, Rastafarians, working class Brits and losers of all stripes who try to break their losing streaks – all to often with violence. Punk wasn’t supposed to last past album one and the Sex Pistols had the good grace to implode in a blaze of bad karma. The Clash followed up their classic debut with a solid but unsurprising second record and by all rights should have been looking for a way out. They found one by expanding their musical palette and worldview, creating a rare double-album where every single song is spectacular including the unlisted bonus “Train in Vain”, which yielded their first US hit. The dumb asses at Sony music think that exposing people to great music for free is bad for sales so I have no official video to embed. Thus, Sony continues to demonstrate the marketing acumen that has led their entire industry into the crapper.

2.Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures

Joy Division was a band that marked the place where punk became post-punk – aggression curdled into depression and introspection and rhythm sections began to incorporate the mechanisms of krautrock and even the elongated bounce of Jamaican dub. You can still hear echoes of The Stooges and New York band Suicide in there too – like Suicide the synthesizer tones give the barest hint of new wave and alternative music to come – much of which would be pioneered by Ian Curtis band mates after he killed himself and they formed New Order.  In the Nazi sourced band name there is also the fascination with totalitarianism that was rampant at the time and found it’s counterpart in the revival of the National Front in Britain.

3.Neil Young and Crazy Horse -  Rust Never Sleeps

Rust Never Sleeps is the blueprint for a classic album by Neil Young and Crazy Horse, one half acoustic laments and the other half blazing rock anthems, with much of the record recorded live and sounding it. It helps that this might be his strongest set of songs on any single album, from the acoustic and electric “Hey, Hey, My, My” and “My, My, Hey, Hey” later infamously quoted in Kurt Cobain’s suicide note to the fantasia of “Pocahontas” where Neil imagines hanging out with the titular native American princess and Marlon Brando, the heartbreaking “Powderfinger” which feels like a scene out of a Herzog film, the outrageous randy boast of “Welfare Mothers” and on.  “The king is dead but he’s not forgotten, is this the story of Johnny Rotten?” Young wonders, neatly conflating the 1977 death of Elvis and rise of the Sex Pistols in one verse. Utter genius.

5. Gang of Four – Entertainment!

Gang of Four’s debut LP took the politics and punk snarl of The Clash and married them to scouring brush guitars that were close cousins the scratchy style found on old 60s soul records, plus a pinch of reggae styled deep bass. Among the many highlights is “I Found That Essence Rare” a slice of deconstructionist Marxism that you can shake your ass to:

“Aim for the body rare, you’ll see it on TV
The worst thing in 1954 was the Bikini
See the girl on the TV dressed in a Bikini
She doesn’t think so but she’s dressed for the H-Bomb”

6.Wire - 154

Wire’s third album in under two years put a definite exclamation mark on their first incarnation, giving the impression that the band was striving for this mixture of electronics and melody even from the short sharp guitar based songs they had started with. 154 can be uneven but it contains thrilling melodies and surprising soundscapes, plus the band’s typical disdain for ceremony typified by singing the word “Chorus” with an audible smirk just before the, you guessed it, chorus of the indelible “Map. Ref. 41 N. 93 W.”

7.Elvis Costello and the Attractions – Armed Forces

Armed Forces sometimes gets short shrift but to me it’s the Costello record par excellance – his best set of songs and lyrics and some of the Attractions most inventive arrangements. Costello wittily and perhaps too-blithely sends up the resurgence of National Front activity in Britain by making a theme record about “emotional fascism” where lovers are really “Two Little Hitlers.” Nick Lowe lends a dynamic production palette and the gem “What’s so Funny About Peace Love and Understanding” which would forever be associated with Costello afterward. Lyrical gems like “I’m in a chemistry class/I want a piece of your mind/You don’t know what you started/When you mixed it up with mine/Are you ready for the final solution?” are backed up by muscular playing and witty touches like the faux-fouled up vocal dub in “Accidents Will Happen”.

8.Public Image Ltd. – Metal Box/ Second Edition

Neil Young may have sang “The king is gone but he’s not forgotten/Is this the story of Johnny Rotten?” on Rust Never Sleeps but for some observers Rotten’s new band PIL was exceeding the promise of The Sex Pistols with their new music. After all the Pistols were merely supercharging the template set by The Stooges, New York Dolls and Ramones. PIL were doing something else entirely, with Jah Wobble’s gonad shaking basslines lifted from stoned-out underwater Jamaican dub records and Keith Levene’s guitars similarly tuned in by way of surf rock and Richard Dudansky’s drumming like a disco record sped up. On top of it all was Rotten’s chanting, moaning, cajoling. It’s an extraordinary record that sounds both timeless and unrepeatable and it proved to be both – PIL would never reach these heights again nor ever revisit the sound as the core group imploded. Originally the record was issued, appropriately enough given the cinematic sweep of the sound, in a metal film canister filled with three discs – hence the title. Second Edition was the conventionally-sleeved re-issue.

9. The Jam – Setting Sons

The Jam was too retro to be punk but too edgy to be hard rock. Instead they got tagged as Mod revivalists, a scene which they would remain the only relevant members of despite spawning several other Who-inspired bands. In hindsight they were a crucial link between the Britpop of the 60s and the resurgence of the same in the 90s – showing that the elements that made The Kinks and The Who local treasures could still be tapped in the midst of punk and new wave. Setting Sons was a concept album of sorts about war, set both in an apocalyptic future foretold by The Clash in “London Calling” and the near past of British colonial warfare that sent local boys home in boxes. Yet the record is anything but somber with crackling arrangements and killer songs like “Wasteland” and “Smithers-Jones” and detours like the marvelous “Girl on The Phone” with only a misplaced cover of “Heat Wave” to spoil things.

10. Stiff Little Fingers – Inflammable Material

The last gasp of British punk’s first wave came by way of Belfast, Ireland with a band that was uncompromisingly critical of the warring factions that continued to tear their country apart, calling them to task with brutally hard anthems that shone with a rare combination of hope and anger on tracks like the classic “Alternative Ulster” where they exhort listeners to “Alter your native land…”

11. The B-52’s – The B-52’s

Like Stiff Little Fingers, this was a gem I first discovered in my older brother’s record collection but there’s where the kinship ends. The B-52’s resembled a John Water’s film more than anything else happening musically at the time, mining garage sale kitsch and pop-culture avant-garde to come up with a debut that was stunningly original. Even better, you could dance to it. Named as much for the giant beehive hairdos of singers Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson as for the warplanes, their 50s and 60s in a blender ethos was trotted out at a time when this stuff was not seen as being cool at all. Of course, they didn’t give a shit and their highly original songs, killer guitar playing by the late Ricky Wilson and blend of vocals both electrifying and campy have made this a classic. Bonus points go to the indelible “Rock Lobster” which John Lennon heard on vacation deep in the middle of his house-husband phase. Zeroing in on the band’s reclamation of Yoko Ono’s most outre vocalisms Lennon declared the world ready to hear new music by both he and she, and the comeback Double Fantasy was born.

12. Swell Maps – A Trip to Marineville

The world is awash in lo-fi indie experimenters, from No Age to Deerhunter to the late great Guided By Voices, but Swell Maps set the template for sprawling, fascinating messes. To hear them tell it a total lack of musical training led them to put art over chops and belch out this remarkably tuneful, shambling, and noisy debut. “Do you believe in art?” they ask and it’s hard not to grin back and say “fuck, yeah!”

13. Linton Kwesi Johnson – Forces of Victory

Just as reggae, dub and ska were becoming a major influence on musicians across the color and sound spectrum, the golden age of Jamaican music was on the wane. Linton Kwesi Johnson’s life mirrored the migration of the music he would leave a lasting mark on, born in Kingston Jamaica he was raised in London’s Brixton district. Johnson considered himself a “dub poet”, concentrating on delivering socially conscious lyrics that cut to the heart of the black British experience. Luckily he fell in with Dennis Bovell and his band who provided a taut and hooky musical bed o all of Johnson’s classic albums. Forces of Victory is album number 2 for Johnson and quite possibly his best with track after track of great songs like “Want Fi Go Rave” and “It Noh Funny.”

14. Supertramp – Breakfast in America

Supertramp are about as uncool as a band can be but Breakfast in America is a soft rock classic as well as their commercial and artistic peak. Though the band started out as British prog rockers backed by a mysterious Goldmember-like Dutch millionaire, they developed a taste for pop success with hits like “Give a Little Bit” and “Bloody Well Right.” Much of the record is devoted to the lament of rock stars who have reached a certain station – the touring, the whoring, broken marriages, breadheads who don’t get them, and of course the joy of discovering America. The songs are leavened by a British tongue and cheek sensibility, particularly the title track. Guilty pleasure or not, Pink Floyd took all these themes and inflated them over two discs, a lot more misogyny and a lot less humor for The Wall this same year. I find this much more listenable.

15. Cheap Trick – At Budokan

After three brilliant but underachieving albums it was hard to see Cheap Trick as anything other than a cult band. Their particular melange of influences, The Move, The Who, The Beatles (especially but not limited to the hard rocking stuff) made them come off almost as punks when they debuted in 1977, compounded by their subject matter which took in suicide, murder, and lust in every permutation. In Japan however they were treated like gods, leading to this live album which unexpectedly made them stars in the US as well. Oddly enough, stripping off the production gloss that had accumulated on albums two and three allowed the killer hooks and raw riffs of songs like “I Want You to Want Me” and “Auf Wiedersehen” to breathe and emphasized the punkier hard rocking aspect of the band to positive effect. Though today we would call what they do power pop, they would have an influence on both the hair metal that would follow them through the 80s and bands like Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins who supplanted them in the 90s.

16. Fleetwood Mac - Tusk

Tusk had the unenviable task of following up Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 juggernaut Rumours which at the time was the best-selling album – ever. Lindsey Buckingham’s brilliant songs and arrangements sprawl all over what was a double-album – one that flopped in comparison to its predecessor and the amount of label money spent on it. Nevertheless it is chock full of jaw dropping songs and performances as well as weird detours, making it the apex of the 1970s California sound embodied by the Mac, The Eagles, James Taylor and others.

17. The Slits – Cut

This record is about a million miles removed from Tusk, The Slits were three British women who were among the last in the punk scene to put a record out. This gave them time to pick up a lot of the Reggae and dub cues that were permeating the best records of the time, putting their own distinctly female point of view on great songs like “Typical Girls” and “Love Und Romance.” The amateurish singing and playing at times adds to the charm and the songs are sturdy enough to shine through the occasional bum note. A catchy treasure.

18. Tom Verlaine – Tom Verlaine

After a disappointing second album Verlaine’s band Television, one of the pioneers of New York’s legendary CBGBs scene, were no more, and he duly set off on a solo career. Though his profile would never be particularly high the quality of his work was often the equal of his original band, certainly on this debut which featured a number of songs originally meant for Television. His vaunted guitar playing blisters as always and his vocals, while characteristic in their warbly-ness, are also distinctive. It’s a great set of songs – good enough for Bowie to crib “Kingdom Come” the following year.

19. The Cars – Candy-O

Like Fleetwood Mac, The Cars had the task of following up a widely admired hit record, in this case their debut. Though Candy-O wasn’t as big a hit, it showed that The Cars stardom was no fluke and cemented their status as leaders of the burgeoning new wave sound (despite being from Boston and not England.) “Let Go” supplied the brilliant hit single quota but the insistent Bowie-esque groove of the title track, “Dangerous Type”, “Double Life” and “It’s All I Can Do” would become radio staples. An under-appreciated grower.

20. Iggy Pop – New Values

Iggy roared back to life after the Stooges implosion in the early 70s just in time to be hailed as a punk godfather, with a little help from his old buddy David Bowie. New Values was already three records deep into his comeback and if the energy was beginning to flag just a tad Iggy showed he still had something to say. The title track and “Five Foot One” are tough, vintage fare but tracks like “Endless Sea” added a surprising and not unwelcome touch of synthesizer.