Usually, I’m pretty good about rating a film I’ve watched through Mystery Science Theater 3000. But, apparently, not in this instance. As this film as starting, I got a massive sense of deja vu and so I went to its Wikipedia page and saw that I had indeed already watched it (or most of it) …
Tag: 1978
Death on the Nile (1978, John Guillermin)
This is a goofy – at times almost campy – adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel which benefits from location shooting but perhaps suffers just a little bit from the characterizations of its excellent cast, a few of whom feel like they are just reveling in their roles.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1978)
Full disclosure: I ended up not reading the novel. I polled some friends about what I should consume “first” and the verdict was that I should listen to the radio play first. So I listened. And then I listened to the Christmas episode, and then I listened to the “second season” (which, I believe, is …
Public Image First Issue (1978) by Public Image Ltd
Simon Reynolds begins his definitive history of post punk, Rip It Up and Start Again with “Public Image” and this album. He argues that Lydon leaving the Sex Pistols, recording and releasing a song about them and releasing this record mark the point at which punk wasn’t just punk, but evolved into something else. It …
No New York (1978) by Various Artists
I have heard about this record so much that it was inevitably going to prove difficult to listen to it by the time I got around to it. I first learned about it in The Secret History of Rock close to twenty years ago but I have at least managed to listen to the Contortions …
Outlandos d’Amour (1978) by The Police
The Police’s debut album is a bouncy energetic thing, with way better than you’d expect musicianship for their music scene and the kind of performances you would require from that same scene. Much of what initially captivated people about this band, present on this album, would disappear by the end of their career.
Prehistoric Sounds (1978) by The Saints
Eternally Yours might be the first ever “punk with horns” album, but the band lacked the courage of its convictions and only put them on some tracks. Not so here; instead we have the full embrace of the horn section and the result is, for me, a substantial improvement on the last album.
Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) (1978) by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band
For some reason, so much of my experience of Beefheart is tied up with Safe as Milk and Trout Mask Replica, and how the latter is such a huge departure from a former, that when I hear latter Beefheart records that are closer in spirit to his early work than Trout Mask Replica I’m not …
52nd Street (1978) by Billy Joel
Full disclosure: I do not like Billy Joel. This is the third record of his I’ve listened to in the last year or so and I have liked exactly zero of them. Moreover, I don’t think I get Billy Joel. At all. I listen to this record and I don’t understand how there are 4/5 …
Killing Machine (1978) by Judas Priest [aka Hell Bent for Leather]
Judas Priest are not my favourite metal band by a long shot, but I had to admire how significant Stained Class was, with some tracks feeling like they were NWOBHM before such a thing even existed. I can’t decide now whether that was due to my very low expectations or the sound of that record, …
Parallel Lines (1978) by Blondie
My dad bought a Blondie compilation sometime in my teens. It was a double disc. So I feel like, to the extent I know Blondie, it is through that compilation. Had he bought it 10 years earlier, I would likely know all their hits very well. Alas, he bought it a few years before my …
Love Bites (1978) by Buzzcocks
I am not a fan of the Buzzcocks. They are way too far on the pop side of the pop punk spectrum for me. (Yes, going by that, it’s safe to assume I don’t like pop punk.) I acknowledge their importance in the evolution of punk and particularly in pop punk, but I would just …
Road to Ruin (1978) by Ramones
Someone on RYM observed that this title is prophetic. They are likely far from the first person as this record is considered by serious Ramones fans to be the beginning of the end, as far as I can tell. Well I’m not a serious fan of the Ramones, but I am a serious fan of …
Blue Valentine (1978) by Tom Waits
I am very a much a fan of the Tom Waits who reinvented himself and who gave the world a unique sound. I am less a fan of the early Tom Waits, whose music was far less inventive and imaginative. That’s not to say I dislike ’70s Waits, more to say that I prefer his …
C’est Chic (1978)
I don’t know much about disco, its history or the major artists who performed it. That’s because I don’t much like music that exists solely for you to dance to – I can’t help it but I like music that has an intellectual component to it more often than not. (And, if it doesn’t, I …
Can’t Stand the Rezillos (1978)
This is one of those second wave English punk albums that manages to win you over despite the fact that they are quite late to the party at this point.
Real Life (1978) by Magazine
As an album recorded by a band featuring the former lead singer of one of the original British punk bands, but manifestly not playing punk rock, I think there’s a temptation to say this record could be the original post-punk record. (It literally is “post punk” in that sense.) That in itself would make this …
The Cars (1978)
The Cars’ debut album marks the point where, for better or worse, New Wave goes commercial. Basically very previous (American) New Wave album was too arty, too quirky, too herky jerky to connect with the average listener. But Ocasek and company found how to merge New Wave with that basic American need for big dumb …
Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) by Bruce Springsteen
Sometimes I feel like I go on and on about how I think Springsteen is overrated. At least a little of that is because I feel like I have to compensate for all the rock critics who told people Springsteen “saved rock and roll music from disco” or whatever the fuck. But part of that …
Peter Gabriel [Scratch] (1978)
Because of the nature of the collaboration – my favourite guitarist, Robert Fripp, produced this record – I had sort of viewed this record as the holy grail of early Peter Gabriel records, in spite of the lukewarm reviews. I had just assumed that, whenever I got to it, I would discover this incredible mixture …
Eternally Yours (1978) by The Saints
The major innovation of The Saints’ second album is the presence of the horn section on some tracks. Basically we can trace the “punk with horns” thing back to this album.
Power in the Darkness (1978) by Tom Robinson Band
This is certainly more musically traditional punk than so many of the punk albums that came out in 1977 and especially in 1978. I guess that’s why some people consider it pub rock; it’s more musically competent than punk and, were it not for the lyrics and the vocals, it could be mistaken for pub …
Die Mensch-Maschine aka The Man-Machine (1978) by Kraftwerk
If I thought Trans Europa Express was the beginning of synth pop, that was because I had not heard The Man-Machine. The connections between Trans Europa Express and ’80s synthpop felt slightly tenuous; honestly it felt like I might have been exaggerating the connection just a little bit. Not that that record didn’t influence a …
Adventure (1978) by Television
It’s hard when you’ve only ever listened to one album by a band for so long, you think that that album is the band. Worse, it’s the band’s “classic” and the one everyone knows.
Grease Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1978)
When I was young, I absolutely hated nostalgia. I saw it as the enemy of creativity. Time, and particularly age, has softened that approach; I now understand nostalgia and even sometimes like it despite myself. But the thing is, when I do like nostalgia, it’s nostalgia for something I experienced. So I can understand why …
Another Music in a Different Kitchen (1978) by Buzzcocks
Full disclosure: I don’t like the Buzzcocks. Until hearing this debut, I’d only ever heard A Different Kind of Tension and that record likely biased me towards this one and its importance.
Easter (1978) by Patti Smith Group
I struggle with Patti Smith; she’s one of those artists I think I should like, not just because of received opinion but because the things she does are things I supposedly like. But for some reason I have this barrier. I think it comes from how I first heard her.
The Kick Inside (1978) by Kate Bush
The problem with starting mid-career with an artist is that you kind of assume what they sound like in their maturity or prime is how they’ve always sounded. I started with The Dreaming, a record that knocked me out. It was pretty damn unlikely that Bush’s debut would stand up to it. And I certainly …
Crossing the red Sea With the Adverts (1978)
I think the thing that so many people find really appealing about this band is that they manage to combine punk attitude with a pretty strong sense of melody, a sense of melody lacking in other punk bands of the sort of second wave of British punk bands, who got record deals in 1977 but …
Van Halen (1978)
The first time I ever heard “Eruption” my mind was blown. I had never heard anyone play guitar like that (though that was because I hadn’t heard so many guitarists). It was my gold standard in virtuoso (masturbatory?) guitar showmanship until I heard “Spanish Fly,” which seemed so much more impressive for being played on …