Loud Family - Music: What Happened?

1978
by Scott Miller

"No Action" - Elvis Costello and the Attractions
Most at-all-flammable corners of pop music were now on fire with punk/new wave. 1978 was the year some of the most complex of the practitioners came out fully baked, and the most important of several towering album results is Elvis Costello's This Year's Model—almost unquestionably one of the ten best rock and roll albums ever made. The first thing to worship at this altar is Pete Thomas's godlike drumming. Most studio wisdom has always been: keep it simple and supportive. He doesn't. He can, but not on "No Action"—he bolts like a sprinter toward the finish line, and Elvis and the band had better keep up; after it's over, he's warming up for whatever else you've got. Which of any of those fills isn't a high-risk triumph? The formidable drama of Elvis's refusal to give up on romance in the face of perfect disillusionment is played out more fully in other songs, but consider the packing of "Sometimes I phone you when I know you're not lonely/But I was disconnected in time."

"D.I.Y." - Peter Gabriel
All three of the Peter Gabriel solo albums, with the crusted, glittering styrofoam of Genesis chipped off, are pretty interesting. Although—don't hate me—"Solisbury Hill" doesn't rate with this one. What is he saying with, "Come up to me with your 'What did you say?' and I'll tell you straight in the eye, hey, D.I.Y." mean? Doesn't matter—he's apparently not good at it. What counts is that he's in a righteous snit about whatever it is; that and the half-step ascents are my cup of "hos-tile and hard."

"I Am the Cosmos" - Chris Bell
Once-flowering Chris Bell's emotional valediction has an inimitable faded grandeur to it. It's a bit like Berlin but more lovesick—and for real. It was Chris's bona fide Geoff Emerick/Abbey Road moment; he'd earned it. You can hear just enough of Bell's claim on Big Star in the tantalized sevenths and "Every night I tell myself, "I am the cosmos, I am the wind"/But that don't get you back again."

"Candy's Room" - Bruce Springsteen
A sort of cross between the Raspberries and Rambo, "Candy's Room" has such a way with working a theme, and with sheer overheated velocity, you ignore the doing-working-class jive of lines like "she has fancy clothes and diamond rings." The drum roll rhythm is a swell idea, there's a simple, awesome, Alomar-worthy guitar solo (is that Bruce himself?), and if it isn't the old Spector-ready glockenspiel.

"Shattered" - The Rolling Stones
Finally Jagger's counterfeit-gay seventies thing was put to good use: comedy. A Joan Rivers of a song, the rhythm section is the Stones at their percolating Some Girls best, and I like the two-chord pattern that gives way in the bridge to any-chord-is-fair game. I'm a-shattered! Uh-huh!

"Comes a Time" - Neil Young
I always think: okay, Neil, Mr. Famous, you've got Emmylou Harris to sing harmonies, you'd better nail the lead. Yes, of course he does—this is a best-of list, right? There's a real sweetness to this song. "This old world keeps spinning 'round/It's a wonder tall trees ain't layin' down" is a wonderful Rodgers and Hammersteinesque trope, like, "The wind is so busy, it don't miss a tree." On some days I don't think the half time chorus is such a good idea, but other days I think it's perfect. The little string wash after "comes a time" is definitely perfect.

"Hanging On the Telephone" - Blondie
The totality of Parallel Lines is a more significant achievement than just this, the best song, but we all know the song will do. But don't forget to go revisit something like "I Know But I Don't Know."

"Hair" - Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band
Let's say I heard "Hair" in a shopping mall. It will never happen, but suppose. I would stand up, unable to hide my exhilaration, and probably start singing along with "That's right it don't matter no more," mortifying my family. I don't get too many Willie converts, but I will take my faith to the grave. One star in Rolling Stone? What medication were those people not getting? The drum production is weak, but Billy Loosigian's screaming lead guitar obliterates any possible excuse for not getting this.

"Non-Alignment Pact" - Pere Ubu
One of the earliest and most important indie albums to make waves in what was threatening to solidify into a majors-only world, The Modern Dance was clearly capable of very respectable hard rock and chose to vary the sonic palette bravely. I love the way the chorus could almost pass for "na na na na hey," but is really "non-alignment pact."

"Make a Scene" - Van Duren
Idiot Optimism was a shelved release until 2003. It's so remarkable (not that one would necessarily call every cut a success) that I'm putting this blazing Chris Bell cover here, and a Duren original in '03. What a recording. I think Van regrets some details like the synth. Nay, that synth is perfect, like everything else. If you don't believe Van was the singer to beat in this period, here's what I'll play you: "I told them it wasn't so"—ripping enough—but then there's the lumber-chipping horsepower when that refrain returns as "I turned on the raadiioo"; not for listeners with a history of dizziness.

"I Need To Know" - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
It only took one song from the sophomore You're Gonna Get It to prove the classic TP debut wasn't a one-off, and hey, only one song does! But what a beaut; still his best song since the debut. "Who would have thought that you'd fall for his line?/All of a sudden it's me on the outside" rings awfully true.

"You Can't Put Your Arms Round a Memory" - Johnny Thunders
I don't think everyone in the room was clear on whether "can't" or "arms" is the one count. Not a problem if you're also forgetting that you already rhymed "try" and "why" just one line ago. An all-star lineup leverage this (seriously) very fine composition to make the tricky case for the ex-Doll stick. Where credit: I wouldn't be hip to Thunders were it not for Ms. Donnette Thayer.

"Promises" - Buzzcocks
What fun: the Buzzcocks reclaimed the concept of a "singles band," producing singles every couple of months with great sound and great graphics. This one was my favorite.

"There's No Way Out Of Here" - David Gilmour
The best Pink Floyd song that never was actually originated as a composition by a band called Unicorn, whose version puts in sharp relief how much the sometimes unprepossessing Gilmour can radiate star quality. Although credit Ken Baker with doing downer lyrics right ("There are no answers here/When you look out, you don't see in") at a time when Roger was losing his battle with existentialism.

"Surrender" - Cheap Trick
One of the jewels in the crown of power pop, this funny pile-driver about deciding your parents are weird was eclipsed in the public eye by the freak success of "I want you... to want... me" live at Budokan—relegating it to a place alongside other under-the-radar Cheap Trick treasures from the first three albums, like "Daddy Should Have Stayed In High School" and "Southern Girls."

"The Big Country" - Talking Heads
One of Brian Eno's most triumphant productions, More Songs About Buildings and Food is the second best album of '78, sporting the best all-around bass guitar performance by Tina Weymouth. The way she draws out a cinematic impression is remarkable; I've always wondered how much the members contributed arrangementwise, and why they brought in the ringers in '80. Anyway, "The Big Country" has a couple of notable Tina tricks, like the clipped 1 followed by the sustained 2; I never would have come up with that good an idea. The song's impact grows on you, with its naturalistic and apparently bemused description of the human civitas observed from 30,000 feet, followed by the opaque pronouncement, "I wouldn't live there if you paid me to." I don't take this as misanthropy so much as expressing the impulse not to go along with something you have no choice but to go along with.

"Public Image" - Public Image, Ltd.
As hard as it was in 1978 to top the Pistols, this almost does. The high, harmonizing rhythm guitar is an intensely musical innovation, the production made the world safe once again for tons of reverb, and Lydon's singing is better than ever. It gives the impression of a passion indifferent to technique, but do in fact listen to the technique on a line like, "Public image, you got what you wanted"; the plaint and vibrato are right there at any moment when they need to be.

"Just What I Needed" - The Cars
I'll always remember Laurie Hicklin's very generous gift of this album when I was a band teen. This is my favorite Roy Thomas Baker prodution; he was notorious for recording everything in the red, muttering black magic about odd order distortion products that I have no reason to doubt is a completely legit part of why he was getting the best sound out there. The pro-all-the-way Cars bring just the right aired-out arrangement for this, keeping it mostly a small combo affair with only the occasional Night At the Opera vocal cluster traipsing past like a Greek chorus.

"Be Stiff" - Devo
After the Beatles, I think the most intense band fandom I've ever experienced was for Devo in 1978. I was grudgingly intrigued by the "Jocko Homo" single, followed with increased interest through the Are We Not Men? album, and saw what I believe is the best live show I've ever seen when they played the tiny U.C. Davis coffeehouse that Fall. I figured they'd be arty and amateurish to a degree. They were so utterly tight, loud, wound-up, and confrontational that it was like being hit by a bus. The later hit "Whip It" doesn't begin to capture the peak offering of musicianship, graphics, aesthetics, and cultural mayhem of which they had their day as masters. Eno's razor-sharp production on "Be Stiff" is the best record of the sheer unexpected power they wielded. Obviously this is amazing guitar work, but the real standout element is Alan Myers's drumming: the most seamless shifting between half-time and double-time I think I've ever heard.

"Tiny Steps" - Elvis Costello and the Attractions
They created the mighty This Year's Model, they threw in "Radio, Radio" in case "there's no reason to play" something else in your country, and they're not even tired. "Radio Radio's" B-side is the stupendous "Tiny Steps," with its crashing waves of indictment of abusive relationships. 1980's Taking Liberties detritus release, on which this was collected, holds up as well as most top artists' best albums. I'm bending the rules to give E.C. two songs in '78; it feels like not enough.

"Nightime" - Big Star
Recorded in 1974, the third Big Star album has to be the most disorienting result ever to come out of a recording project. With its ostensibly lavish arrangements and the involvement of such participants as Steve Cropper and Jim Dickinson, it had the air of a great waste of someone else's money. With Alex Chilton's narcotic vocals floating through the vastness of heaven and hell, the subjects are oddly everyday for never seeming too far from ecstasy, death, murder, hopelessness. "Nightime" is a captivatingly beautiful snapshot of getting dressed for an evening out with someone who is then seized with anxiety: "Get me out of here/I hate it here/Get me out of here." That perfect dramatic clarity plays against the dreamily blissful chorus of "Caught a glance in your eyes/And fell through the skies." As a whole, it takes your breath away.

"Baker Street" - Gerry Rafferty
Raphael Ravenscroft's rapturous sax line could be said to have singlehandedly put saxophone back in the picture for lyric music, having previously drifted with Tom Scott into a sort of lifestyle-integration territory. Picking up where the excellent Stealers Wheel left off, Rafferty seems to have been trying to cram as many instruments and arrangement touches as humanly possible into the recording: besides the sax and Hugh Burns's blistering guitar solo, I'm thinking I'm hearing piano, Wurlitzer, accordian, bongos, flute, those little hanging chimes by the drum kit... how does it all hang together? But it does. "You used to think that it was so easy/But you're trying, you're trying now" is the centerpiece line to an easygoing demolition of the rambling and irresponsible urban dreamer who is the listener and possibly also the speaker of the lyric's message. The lyrics offer a capably rendered if knowingly routine species of disillusionment; it's the music alone that suggests the possibility of rising out of it. I'm not sure it wouldn't be this song if I knew I could only listen to one more.