The year of the self-titled album, apparently. The New York Scene began its ascendancy with Blondie and the Ramones, a pair of Boston bands made influential debuts (one I'm sure I'll get slagged for), and Reggae/Dub had perhaps its landmark year with Lee Perry, Bob Marley, Bunny Marley and Peter Tosh all releasing seminal albums. If the poll were only 12 slots long I wouldn't feel bad about having to admit a handful of other deserving candidates. Apologies specifically to KISS- Destroyer. Sorry boys, couldn't really get you guys in...
Omissions:
# Rico * Man From Wareika (Island)
# Cedric Im Brooks * The Light Of Saba (Total Sounds/Honest Jon's)
# Max Romeo & the Upsetters * War Ina Babylon (Mango/Hip-O Select)
# The Mighty Diamonds * Right Time (Shanachie)
# Justin Hinds & The Dominoes * Jezebel (Island)
# The Meditations * Message From The Meditations (UA)
# Bunny Wailer * Blackheart Man (Island)
# Johnny Clarke * Rockers Time Now (Front Line)
# Augustus Pablo * King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown (Shanachie)
# Harry Mudie * Harry Mudie Meets King Tubby In Dub Conference Vol. One (Moodisc)
# Parliament * Mothership Connection (Casablanca)
# Serge Gainsbourg * L' Homme a Tete De Chou (Philips Fr)
# Toots & the Maytals * Reggae Got Soul (Mango)
# The Abyssinians * Satta Massagana (Heartbeat)
# Gladiators * Trench Town Mix Up (Front Line/Virgin)
# The Wailing Souls (Studio One)
# Johnny Clarke * Authorized Version (Front Line)
# Bob Marley & the Wailers * Rastaman Vibration (Tuff Gong/Island)
# Heldon * Un Reve Sans Consequence Speciale (Cunneiform/Rune)
# T. Rex * Futuristic Dragon (Mercury)
# Graham Parker * Howlin' Wind (Mercury)
# Burning Spear * Man In The Hills (Mango)
# Patti Smith * Radio Ethiopia (Arista)
# Be Bop Deluxe * Sunburst Finish (EMI)
# Peter Tosh * Legalize It (Columbia)
# Vibrators * Pure Mania (Columbia)
# Jah Lion * Colombia Colly (Mango/Island)
# Haruomi Hosono * Bon Voyage Co. (Crown Japan)
# Fela Kuti * Up Side Down (Celluloid)
# Parliament * The Clones Of Dr. Funkenstein (Casablanca)
# Graham Parker * Heat Treatment (Mercury)
# John Holt * Up Park Camp (Channel One)
# Delroy Wilson * Sarge (Charmers/JAS)
# Third World (Island)
# Cluster * Sowiesoso (Sky)
# Tom Waits * Small Change (Elektra)
# Joni Mitchell * Hejira (Asylum)
# Can * Landed (Spoon/Mute)
# Leon Ware * Musical Massage (Motown)
# The Mighty Diamonds * Stand Up To Your Judgment (Channel One)
# Ry Cooder * Chicken Skin Music (Reprise)
# Prince Jazzbo * Natty Passing Thru/Ital Corner (Black Wax/Clocktower)
# La Dusseldorf (Radar)
# Judas Priest * Sad Wings Of Destiny (Columbia)
# Rainbow * Rising (Polydor)
# Burning Spear * Garvey's Ghost (Mango)
# Steely Dan * The Royal Scam (MCA)
# The Heptones * The Meaning Of Life: Best Of 1966-76 (Trojan/Sanctuary)
# Al Green * Full Of Fire (Hi)
# Curtis Mayfield * Give, Get, Take And Have (Curtom)
# Van Der Graaf Generator * Still Life (Charisma/Blue Plate)
# Gregory Isaacs * All I Have Is Love (Trojan)
# AC/DC * High Voltage (Epic)
# Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes * Wake Up Everybody (Philadelphia International)
# Chrome * The Visitation (Siren)
# Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (MCA/Gone Gator)
# Santana * Amigos (Columbia)
# AC/DC * Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (Atco)
# AC/DC * High Voltage (Atco)
# The Buzzcocks * Time's Up (Document)
# Lou Reed * Coney Island Baby (RCA)
# Sparks * Big Beat (Island)
# The 101ers * Elgin Avenue Breakdown Revisited (Astralwerks)
# Can * Flow Motion (Spoon)
# Funkadelic * Hardcore Jollies (WB/Charly Groove)
# Funkadelic * Tales Of Kidd Funkadelic (Westbound)
# Deaf School * 2nd Honeymoon (WB/Sanctuary)
# Thin Lizzy * Johnny The Fox (Vertigo/PolyGram)
# Al Green * Have A Good Time (Hi)
# Rod Stewart * A Night On The Town (WB)
# The Rolling Stones * Black And Blue (Virgin)
# ZZ Top * Tejas (WB)
# Aerosmith * Rocks (Columbia)
# The Residents * Fingerprince (Ralph)
# Scorpions * Virgin Killer (RCA)
# Kiss * Destroyer (Casablanca)
# Boz Scaggs * Silk Degrees (Columbia)
# Led Zeppelin * Presence (Swan Song)
# Ohio Players * Gold (Mercury)
# Rush * 2112 (Mercury)
The Ramones - The Ramones
Quote:
With the three-chord assault of "Blitzkrieg Bop," The Ramones begins at a blinding speed and never once over the course of its 14 songs does it let up. The Ramones is all about speed, hooks, stupidity, and simplicity. The songs are imaginative reductions of early rock & roll, girl group pop, and surf rock. Not only is the music boiled down to its essentials, but the Ramones offer a twisted, comical take on pop culture with their lyrics, whether it's the horror schlock of "I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement," the drug deals of "53rd and 3rd," the gleeful violence of "Beat on the Brat," or the maniacal stupidity of "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue." And the cover of Chris Montez's "Let's Dance" isn't a throwaway -- with its single-minded beat and lyrics, it encapsulates everything the group loves about pre-Beatles rock & roll. They don't alter the structure, or the intent, of the song, they simply make it louder and faster. And that's the key to all of the Ramones' music -- it's simple rock & roll, played simply, loud, and very, very fast. None of the songs clock in at any longer than two and half minutes, and most are considerably shorter. In comparison to some of the music the album inspired, The Ramones sounds a little tame -- it's a little too clean, and compared to their insanely fast live albums, it even sounds a little slow -- but there's no denying that it still sounds brilliantly fresh and intoxicatingly fun.
Thin Lizzy - JailbreakQuote:
On Thin Lizzy's third album with new guitarists Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson, Jailbreak, the band perfected their hard-rocking, storytelling, guitar-laden style and were rewarded with worldwide breakthrough success. It also marked the first album where the band finally realized they were a true hard rock band, and put a stop to the soft rock that plagued such albums as 1974's Night Life. Although vocalist/bassist Phil Lynott was unfairly criticized as being a Bruce Springsteen soundalike at the time, it was on Jailbreak that he came into his own, perfecting his storytelling lyric-writing and becoming a true poet in the process. Songwise, the album was also Lizzy's first really consistent album; there is simply not a single weak track in the bunch. The hard-rocking war tales of "Emerald" and "Warriors," the killer boogie of "Angel of the Coast," the country rocker "Cowboy Song," and a pair of rock's greatest anthems, the title track and the perennial radio favorite "The Boys Are Back in Town," are among Lizzy's best tracks ever. Add to it such strong album cuts as the Dire Straits-esque ballad "Fight or Fall" plus the heartbroken tales "Running Back" and "Romeo and the Lonely Girl," and you have one of the finest hard rock albums of all time.
David Bowie - Station to StationQuote:
Taking the detached plastic soul of Young Americans to an elegant, robotic extreme, Station to Station is a transitional album that creates its own distinctive style. Abandoning any pretense of being a soulman, yet keeping rhythmic elements of soul, David Bowie positions himself as a cold, clinical crooner and explores a variety of styles. Everything from epic ballads and disco to synthesized avant pop is present on Station to Station, but what ties it together is Bowie's cocaine-induced paranoia and detached musical persona. At its heart, Station to Station is an avant-garde art-rock album, most explicitly on "TVC 15" and the epic sprawl of the title track, but also on the cool crooning of "Wild Is the Wind" and "Word on a Wing," as well as the disco stylings of "Golden Years." It's not an easy album to warm to, but its epic structure and clinical sound were an impressive, individualistic achievement, as well as a style that would prove enormously influential on post-punk.
Blondie - BlondieQuote:
If new wave was about reconfiguring and recontextualizing simple pop/rock forms of the '50s and '60s in new, ironic, and aggressive ways, then Blondie, which took the girl group style of the early and mid-'60s and added a '70s archness, fit right in. True punksters may have deplored the group early on (they never had the hip cachet of Talking Heads or even the Ramones), but Blondie's secret weapon, which was deployed increasingly over their career, was a canny pop straddle -- they sent the music up and celebrated it at the same time. So, for instance, songs like "X Offender" (their first single) and "In the Flesh" (their first hit, in Australia) had the tough-girl-with-a-tender-heart tone of the Shangri-Las (the disc was produced by Richard Gottehrer, who had handled the Angels ["My Boyfriend's Back"] among others, and Brill Building songwriter Ellie Greenwich even sang backup on "In the Flesh"), while going one step too far into hard-edged decadence -- that is, if you chose to see that. (The tag line of "Look Good in Blue," for example, went, "I could give you some head and shoulders to lie on.") The whole point was that you could take Blondie either way, and lead singer Deborah Harry's vocals, which combined rock fervor with a kiss-off quality, reinforced that, as did the band's energetic, trashy sound. This album, released on independent label Private Sound, was not a major hit, but it provided a template for the future.
The Modern Lovers - The Modern LoversQuote:
Compiled of demos the band recorded with John Cale in 1973, The Modern Lovers is one of the great proto-punk albums of all time, capturing an angst-ridden adolescent geekiness which is married to a stripped-down, minimalistic rock & roll derived from the art punk of the Velvet Underground. While the sound is in debt to the primal three-chord pounding of early Velvet Underground, the attitude of Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers is a million miles away from Lou Reed's jaded urban nightmares. As he says in the classic two-chord anthem "Roadrunner," Richman is in love with the modern world and rock & roll. He's still a teenager at heart, which means he's not only in love with girls he can't have, but also radios, suburbs, and fast food, and it also means he'll crack jokes like "Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole...not like you." "Pablo Picasso" is the classic sneer, but "She Cracked" and "I'm Straight" are just as nasty, made all the more edgy by the Modern Lovers' amateurish, minimalist drive. But beneath his adolescent posturing, Richman is also nakedly emotional, pleading for a lover on "Someone I Care About" and "Girl Friend," or romanticizing the future on "Dignified and Old." That combination of musical simplicity, driving rock & roll, and gawky emotional confessions makes The Modern Lovers one of the most startling proto-punk records -- it strips rock & roll to its core and establishes the rock tradition of the geeky, awkward social outcast venting his frustrations. More importantly, the music is just as raw and exciting now as when it was recorded in 1973, or when it was belatedly released in 1976.
Boston - BostonQuote:
Boston is one of the best-selling albums of all time, and deservedly so. Because of the rise of disco and punk, FM rock radio seemed all but dead until the rise of acts like Boston, Tom Petty, and Bruce Springsteen. Nearly every song on Boston's debut album can still be heard on classic rock radio today due to the strong vocals of Brad Delp and unique guitar sound of Tom Scholz. Tom Scholz, who wrote most of the songs, was a studio wizard and used self-designed equipment such as 12-track recording devices to come up with an anthemic "arena rock" sound before the term was even coined. The sound was hard rock, but the layered melodies and harmonics reveal the work of a master craftsman. While much has been written about the sound of the album, the lyrics are often overlooked. There are songs about their rise from a bar band ("Rock and Roll Band") as well as fond remembrances of summers gone by ("More Than a Feeling"). Boston is essential for any fan of classic rock, and the album marks the re-emergence of the genre in the 1970s.
Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of LifeQuote:
Songs in the Key of Life was Stevie Wonder's longest, most ambitious collection of songs, a two-LP (plus accompanying EP) set that -- just as the title promised -- touched on nearly every issue under the sun, and did it all with ambitious (even for him), wide-ranging arrangements and some of the best performances of Wonder's career. The opening "Love's in Need of Love Today" and "Have a Talk With God" are curiously subdued, but Stevie soon kicks into gear with "Village Ghetto Land," a fierce exposé of ghetto neglect set to a satirical baroque synthesizer. Hot on its heels comes the torrid fusion jam "Contusion," a big, brassy hit tribute to the recently departed Duke Ellington in "Sir Duke," and (another hit, this one a Grammy winner as well) the bumping poem to his childhood, "I Wish." Though they didn't necessarily appear in order, Songs in the Key of Life contains nearly a full album on love and relationships, along with another full album on issues social and spiritual. Fans of the love album Talking Book can marvel that he sets the bar even higher here, with brilliant material like the tenderly cathartic and gloriously redemptive "Joy Inside My Tears," the two-part, smooth-and-rough "Ordinary Pain," the bitterly ironic "All Day Sucker," or another classic heartbreaker, "Summer Soft." Those inclined toward Stevie Wonder the social-issues artist had quite a few songs to focus on as well: "Black Man" was a Bicentennial school lesson on remembering the vastly different people who helped build America; "Pastime Paradise" examined the plight of those who live in the past and have little hope for the future; "Village Ghetto Land" brought listeners to a nightmare of urban wasteland; and "Saturn" found Stevie questioning his kinship with the rest of humanity and amusingly imagining paradise as a residency on a distant planet. If all this sounds overwhelming, it is; Stevie Wonder had talent to spare during the mid-'70s, and instead of letting the reserve trickle out during the rest of the decade, he let it all go with one massive burst.
Bob Dylan - DesireQuote:
If Blood on the Tracks was an unapologetically intimate affair, Desire is unwieldy and messy, the deliberate work of a collective. And while Bob Dylan directly addresses his crumbling relationship with his wife, Sara, on the final track, Desire is hardly as personal as its predecessor, finding Dylan returning to topical songwriting and folk tales for the core of the record. It's all over the map, as far as songwriting goes, and so is it musically, capturing Dylan at the beginning of the Rolling Thunder Revue era, which was more notable for its chaos than its music. And, so it's only fitting that Desire fits that description as well, as it careens between surging folk-rock, Mideastern dirges, skipping pop, and epic narratives. It's little surprise that Desire doesn't quite gel, yet it retains its own character -- really, there's no other place where Dylan tried as many different styles, as many weird detours, as he does here. And, there's something to be said for its rambling, sprawling character, which has a charm of its own. Even so, the record would have been assisted by a more consistent set of songs; there are some masterpieces here, though: "Hurricane" is the best-known, but the effervescent "Mozambique" is Dylan at his breeziest, "Sara" at his most nakedly emotional, and "Isis" is one of his very best songs of the '70s, a hypnotic, contemporized spin on a classic fable. This may not add up to a masterpiece, but it does result in one of his most fascinating records of the '70s and '80s -- more intriguing, lyrically and musically, than most of his latter-day affairs.
Lee "Scratch" Perry and the Upsetters - Super ApeQuote:
By 1976, Lee "Scratch" Perry was well established at his Black Ark studio, a fact proven by the quality of the creations emerging from its walls. The success of Max Romeo's "War in a Babylon" brought a deal with Island Records and the possibility of greater financial rewards. The single was followed by a full-length album of the same name as well as deejay Jah Lion's Columbia Colly LP. Riding this crest of productivity, Scratch then turned to a creation of his own. Super Ape offered a series of the producer's finest 1976 rhythms, from Devon Irons' "When Jah Come" and the Blue Bells' "Come Along" to Romeo's "War in a Babylon" and "Chase the Devil." All are bathed in the distinct, murky atmosphere that was becoming a Black Ark trademark, then served up in the form of dub-like de-constructions. Island's U.K./U.S. sequencing of Super Ape places "Dread Lion" at the album's heart. If any track fulfills the cover's promise to "Dub it up, blacker than dread", this is it. Vocals from numerous cuts seem to compete for their spot on the rhythm, while a dizzying mix of horns, flute and melodica swirl around them. Punctuating the song's rock-solid underbelly, Perry conjures startling thunderclaps from his mixing board. Other Super Ape heavyweights include "Croaking Lizard" and "Zion's Blood": thick muscular constructs from the Upsetter session team. The former features an excellent Prince Jazzbo toast over the "Chase the Devil" rhythm, while the latter, a cut of "When Jah Come," draws its elusive meaning from vocal phrases courtesy of Heptones Earl Morgan and Barry Llewellyn. Super Ape is a dubwise, alternate universe to Perry's Black Ark vocal hits. It awaits anyone willing to heed it's closing call: "This is the ape-man, trodding through creation, are you ready to step with I man?".
