my bad b

That's odd, this morning I grabbed Elvis Costello - This Year's Model and thought, "I kinda hope they do 1978 next."

I've been meaning to pick that one up forever paper. Never heard it.

Get on that, it's a good'n.

Jade Warrior~ Way of the Sun- The fourth and final album they would put out on Island Records was a dynamic, exultant abstract interpretation of the world of pre-Columbian culture, liberally interspersed with lingering Eastern influences from the previous three Island records. Ambient before the style knew its name. World music when the music of individual cultures had not yet been properly introduced to one another. Jade Warrior deserved a whole lot more attention than they ever received.

The Cars - The Cars

Really the only thing you need from this band.

tentoze, i don't have that one. could you ysi? i guess i could probably find it anyway

Such a great fucking album...

Jerry's Pigeon's is the greatest song of all time.

Willie playing and singing the standards: songs by Hoagie Carmichael, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and more. Proves, once and for all, that Willie has few peers as an interpreter of popular song.

Also:

Maybe the best record that George Clinton and co. released under the Funkadelic moniker. The funk never got funkier... almost visceral, like you could touch, smell and taste the funk coming off of this plate. In every sense of the work. This was a scummy, dirty-ass record -- in the best possible way.

Probably the Q's best album front to back. Can't believe this came out so long ago. If you don't know these guys, they play classic, straight ahead pop, r&b, and rock. Never have been the coolest band. Never cared about breaking boundaries. Just about chicks, cars, and summer, and having fun. Totally fun band that many an artist has covered tunes by and has fans in all corners of the music industry.





If you think AC's best album begins and ends with "Back in Black" or "Highway to Hell" then you owe it to yourself to hear this. Bon Scott and Angus all lean and mean and razor sharp. One of the best hard rock albums ever.





Zevon at his late 70's peak. Whip smart lyrics and a debauched lifestyle = Underrated classic. Anyone who has only ever heard "Werewolves of London" should pick this up immediately.

Is that David Bowie on the RUSH album art?

Did Jack White pattern his look after the man on the right of the Cheap Trick cover?

My favorite album of 1978:

Pere Ubu - The Modern Dance

Pere Ubu's first album is their best, in my opinion, and has pretty much all of their best material aside from what was on their earlier EPs. I mean, Dub Housing and New Picnic Time are both great, but this is probably the most perfect balance between their weird, exploratory side and their fun, accessible side.


And going all obscure:

San Ul Lim - Vol. 2: "As Laying Carpet on My Mind"

San Ul Lim (산울림 - sometimes "San Ul Rim", translates as "Mountain Echo") were a Korean psychedelic rock band of sorts, consisting of three brothers and occasionally their sister on keyboards. They seem to have arrived at psyche rock a little late, putting out their first three albums in the late '70s, but naturally they were isolated from what was going on in the US and Europe and maybe not quite as savvy about all that as the Japanese were (see, for example Les Rallizes Denudes who around this time were making what would eventually become influential noise rock). Supposedly their recordings were much older than their release dates, though, dating as far back as the early '70s. They were an isolated phenomenon, apparently not connected to any larger Korean rock scene (which apparently did exist, but I know nothing of it), but they're the one Korean band that seems to have maintained the largest following and interest. One of the brothers went on to become an actor in Korean TV dramas which are popular throughout Asia, and I believe he died pretty recently.

If you want, you can read more about them here: http://progressive.homestead.com/sanulrim.html

And here are all of the Youtubes I could find from this album.

The opening track is the most commonly uploaded, and it almost sounds accidentally relevant to what was going musically in the West in late '70s (post-punk, et al.):


And a couple more that are more typical of their '60s-type psychedelic rock sound:



This might all seem like '60s also-rans, and I dunno. This is honestly the only contemporary Korean music I've ever heard that I genuinely like at all so maybe I give it some bonus points for that. Still, they were a pretty good band wherever/whenever they came from, and their first three albums are all worth checking out. The first one is much more amateurish and rough, this one is probably the best and most varied, and their third is the most polished and classic/hard-rock-sounding.

i'd assume these are a given, but you never know:



these got a wonderful reissue/repackaging job a couple years ago with demos/live discs attached to each.

edit: gotta give a shout out to billy g for urging folks to look beyond Singles Going Steady all those years ago

Before Spinal Tap did what they did for metal, The Rutles did the same thing for The Beatles; and they did it every bit as well and every bit as hilariously. There are songs on here that, if you didn't know any better, you would swear were The Beatles, themselves, but then the lyrics gives the band away. Absofuckinglutely brilliant.

+1 on the NRBQ, and the Zevon, of course.

So many spectacular albums from this year. I could list about 30, including a stack of the ones already mentioned.

For starters, how about:



This is probably one of my fave obscurities from the late '70s punk/ new wave goldrush. Deaf School started out as a British art rock combo that could almost have been compared to 10cc., but by the time of English Boys/Working Girls they'd seen the punk rock light and added a much needed dose of aggression to their sound. The highpoints here all rock pretty damn good, substituting punk's fury and spite with wit and momentum. In a perfect world, the singalong bounce of lead-off track "English Boys (With Guns)" should have ensured a lofty position in the singles charts. Of course, the same thing could be said about the Tom Robinson Band's "2-4-6-8 Motorway" and approximately a hundred others. So it's established we don't live in a perfect world, which is all the more reason to cherish small triumphs like this.



Kinks-influenced noo wave power pop, far too clever for their own good.



Not exactly folk, not exactly rock, more like a guttersnipe Van Morrison trying to sing while being strangled. Includes the spectacular "Mouth Full of Suck".



Storm The Reality Studios was produced by Mick Ronson. A one shot from a band that disappeared as quickly as they came.



Before the world lost him to Christianity, Tonio K. was a wise-ass version of the already wise-ass Warren Zevon. "Funky Western Civilization" should've been a hit... hell, it still should be a hit.



Even messier, though perhaps more coherent, than their chaotic debut album, Eternally Yours had the Saints augment their punk attack with a rhythm'n'blues horn section. Somehow the gameplan worked. Apart from proving them as one of the few punk acts interested in uncovering their own roots, the new tack also produced an instant classic in "Know Your Product" - three minutes of glorious, timeless rock & roll that can't be pinned down by genre.