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LF
The times they were a'changing.
After Disco music exploded on the scene in the late '70s replacing the multi-guitar southern rock sound and the ultra-complex (did someone say pretentious?) stuff that so dominated the early decade, it took rock a year or two to adjust. By '79 it struck back, responding with a starker stripped-down sound marked by an angry but often wry 'tude and some clever songwriting, largely dominated by bands from the NYC punk clubs and songwriters from the British pub scene.
I tried to steer a middle ground here. No way was I sticking strictly to hit singles but I also didn't want to go dredging up some obscure 5th cut off an album (I'll leave that to Edgy). So, along with the chart-toppers, I mixed in some personal favorites as long as they at least got some airplay in their time.
I'll start with NOT the top 30. These bonus 5 songs are ones I personally didn't like but they were so big in their time that I couldn't ignore them ... even though I'd like to.
I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor
Oh Lord did women love this song! Match pseudo-empowering lyrics to a dance beat (like that does a lot for a white boy w/size 12 feet) and they all went nuts!
I still despise hearing it.
Don't Stop Til You Get Enough - Michael Jackson
MJ was still sort of a black male at the time (he isn't either now) but he just never interested me.
Ladies Night - Kool and the Gang
Leftover disco junk. Are you detecting a pattern here?
Pop Muzik - M
Hey, synthesizers are suddenly in this year! Let's make up something hip and stupid and someone will play it.
Driver's Seat - Sniff and the Tears
One-hit wonder (and I wondered why it was a hit)
Now for the real ones:
30 - Devil Went Down to Georgia - Charlie Daniels Band
Southern rock's last gasp was a bit of a novelty really. But it spun a good story.
29 - Gold - John Stewart
Unobjectionable piece of California-style pop which - because it was about music - got lots of attention from DJ's for a summer.
28 - Dance Away - Roxy Music
Cleaned up, dressed up, high class rock-n-roll ... what in the name of dirt-bags & denim is going on here?
Bryan Ferry decides that Rock is not just for hippies anymore.
27 - September - Earth, Wind & Fire
Nice to hear some funk that wasn't buried beneath a relentlessly pounding bass beat.
26 - Dance the Night Away - Van Halen
More rockers attempt to pick up the dancers from disco's wake.
I was never much into VH. Never liked DLR as a vocalist and VH fans always seemed to believe that Eddie invented the electric guitar. But this one represented the fun side of VH that was only occasionally apparent IMO.
25 - I Want You to Want Me - Cheap Trick
I always thought they were such an aptly named group, but this one was a kick, and even cheesier in the live version.
24 - Old Time Rock n Roll - Bob Seeger
Yeah, I know you're all sick of it, but that's just because it got horribly overplayed for:
a) being the background music to Tom Cruise dancing in his underwear ... and
b) having the words 'Rock-n-Roll' in the lyrics. Radio program directors love that stuff.
23 - What a Fool Believes - Doobie Brothers
Michael McDonald's sound and voice had totally taken over the group by this point. He softened their edges and was an easy target for parody, but he could write & sing a great pop song.
22 - My Sharona - Knack
"Nuke the Knack" were popular tee-shirts at the time for those heavily into music snobbery. The wearers objected to the fact that the group was formed, the album was written, recorded, mixed & pressed in about 11 days by a crew that was about as musical as some punk boy band.
The lyrics sucked, the music sucked, the singing sucked and the whole result ... well it just sucked so good when you were in the right mood.
21 - Rapper's Delight - Sugarhill Gang
The first pebble of an oncoming avalanche I bet you never saw coming.
with a hip hip hop and ya don't stop a rockin
20 - Tusk - Fleetwood Mac
Following up 'Rumors' was going to be impossible. Tusk lacked the personal venom of it's disfunctional mega-smash predecesor but, backed by the USC marching band, it had a great sound.
19 - Dancin' Fool - Frank Zappa
I'm sure the real Zappa fans consider it a noverty throw-away but you gotta love a swift kick in the designer jeans on disco's way out the door.
18 - Cruel to be Kind - Nick Lowe
For some reason it took a group of songwriters (Lowe/Edmonds/Costello/Parker) from the British pub scene to rediscover rockabilly music.
17 - Girls Talk - Dave Edmonds
Great piece of rockabilly from the British pub mafia as Edmonds covers Costello's tune.
16 - Cleveland Rocks - Ian Hunter
I never got into Drew Carey's show, but I found myself watching the intro some nights just to hear the abbreviated version of the theme song. I finally figured out that it was because it was so nice to hear some "fun" rock in the midst of all the late '90s self-pitying angst.
15 - Romeo's Tune - Steve Forbert
1979 was rotten timing for a demin-clad/guitar & harmonica/singer-songwriter from Meridian, Mississippi to blow into NYC and try to become a star. But it doesn't mean he wasn't spinning some real good music.
Meet me in the middle of the day
let me hear you say everything's OK
Bring me southern kisses from your room
14 - Discovering Japan - Graham Parker
Nobody did angry-pop better than GP. And any song that rhymes 'posers' with 'film exposures' with 'travel brochures' is A-OK w/me.
13 - Dreaming - Blondie
My favorite from the early Blondie days. More rock, less styling and drums that just don't quit.
12 - I Need a Lover - John Cougar Mellencamp
Terrific intro made it much better than the more popular Benetar cover ... even if he didn't look nearly as fetching in spandex.
Someone who knows the meaning of a ... hey hit the highway
11 - What's So Funny 'bout Peace, Love and Understanding - Elvis Costello
More cross-pollination as Costello covers Lowe this time.
10 - Let's Go - The Cars
Wow, electronica can be fun!
I like the night life baby
9 - Rock Lobster - B-52's
How does one begin to write a song like this? As much novelty as song, but it was so damn catchy.
8 - I Don't Like Mondays - Boomtown Rats
From hit songs about homicidal teens to Nobel Prize nominations. So how did your decade measure up?
and the silicone chip inside her head gets switched to overload
7 - Crawling Fom the Wreckage - Dave Edmonds
Edmonds & Parker combine this time. Would a song about drinking and driving even get airplay today?
bits of me is scattered in the trees and in the hedges
6 - Frederick - Patti Smith
Patti's homage to her husband Fred Smith. This is a personal choice over the more popular 'Dancing Barefoot'. The good thing about marrying someone with your same name is that it saves you the trouble of remonogramming those bathroom towels.
Hi, hi, hey, hey. Maybe I will come back someday
And it was indeed the last we heard of Patti for a long while.
5 - Refugee - Tom Petty
Some guys just spend their entire careers putting out solid stuff.
Damn the torpedoes, pure rock ahead.
4 - Is She Really Going Out with Him? - Joe Jackson
Debut single that stripped away the heavy guitar sounds that preceded it and let you know that there was something new going on around ... here.
3 - Roxanne - The Police
Another bare bones debut that signaled there was a new decade in town.
you don't have to put on the red light
2 - Sultans of Swing - Dire Straights
Check out gee-tar Mark!
The first song from the last group I was running around telling everyone about before the whole world knew they were good. I'm so rarely ahead of the times.
1 - Life During Wartime - Talking Heads
Pop-apocolypse vision created by dropping design school students into the midst of the NYC punk scene
This ain't no foolin around
TK ROLLIN
You took me off the hook on Pop Muzik ... I liked it and thought
it was in 1980. Had it midway up ... as you said the times were
a changin' -- and it reminds me of changin' times.
Good list and explanations.
Shoobeedoobeedoowapp
Bappbappshowapp.
I suppose I shouldn't be lazy and google that up correctly.
POP MUSIK
FACTOR M
Get up...
Get down...
Radio, video
Boogie with a suitcase
Your livin' in a disco
Forget about the rat race
Let's do the milkshake, sellin' like a hotcake
Try some buy some fee-fi-fo-fum
Talk about, pop musik
Talk about, pop musik
Shoobie doobie do wop
I wanna dedicate this
Pop pop shoo wop
Everybody made it
Shoobie doobie do wop
Infiltrate it
Pop pop shoo wop
Activate it
New York, London, Paris, Munich
Everybody talk about pop musik
Talk about, pop musik
Talk about, pop musik
Pop pop pop pop musik
Singing in the subway
Shuffle with a shoe shine
Fix me a molotov
I'm on the headline
Wanna be a gun slinger
Don't be a rock singer
Eenie meenie mynie moe
Tell me where you wanna go
Talk about, pop musik
Talk about, pop musik
Shoobie doobie do wop
Lyin' in the tree (?)
Pop pop shoo wop
Eenee meenie
Shoobie doobie do wop
(?)
Pop pop shoo wop
You know what I mean
Hit it...
Now you know what to say...
Talk about, pop musik
Pop pop pop pop musik
All around the world
wherever you are
dance in the street anything you like
do it in your car in the middle of the night
La la la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la
Dance in the supermart
Dig it in the fastlane
Listen to the countdown
They're playin' our song again
I can't get jumping jack
I wanna hold - get back (?)
Moonlight muzak (?)
Knick knack patty whack
Talk about, pop musik
Talk about, pop musik
Shoobie doobie do wop
It's all around you
Pop pop shoo wop
Gonna suround you
Shoobie doobie do wop
It's all around
Pop pop shoo wop
Hit it...
New York, London, Paris, Munich
Everybody talk about pop musik
Talk about, pop musik
Talk about, pop musik
Pop pop pop pop musik
Now... listen...
Talk about,
Pop pop pop pop musik...
WIDE BEE GEE
If you saw my drunken karaoke rendition at the Cyclones game, you'da made it like, 5th.
Seriously, good list. Criticisms forthcoming!
London Calling
Powderfinger
Message in a Bottle
THE BIG TRAIN
Great list. Stop beating up on the Knack, though.
And stop taking preemptive shots at me. My list will crush your puny list.
LF
'London Calling' was released in December '79.
I will the contents of that album to KC.
'Message in a Bottle' got bumped for Roxanne
If 'Powderfinger' was '79 then my bad
I so wanted to stick 'The Knack' with the flunkies in the 'not quite' list. I just couldn't.
WIDE BEE GEE
I so wanted to stick 'The Knack' with the flunkies in the 'not quite' list. I just couldn't.
It was that guitar solo! You listened to it .... and said: "Godamn! This friggin song actually ROCKS!"
I think all the "Rusty" Neil Young came out in '79.
Both Police records: Outlandos and Regatta have '79 release dates so one is likely early and the other late. So London Calls for KC and says "Don't forget the second Police album. It might be their best!"
THE BIG TRAIN
25 - I Want You to Want Me - Cheap Trick
...and even cheesier in the live version.
There was another version?
Seriously, I'm with Maurice here on the Knack here. Something happens to "My Sharona" at that bridge. The rhythm changes, I think the key changes. If you haven't heard the full-length version in a while, you'd think they're segueing into another (better) song. As I would have said in '79, it was wickit.
GF212121
Have you seen the 'Behind The Music' on Weird Al Yankovic? Doug Feiger of The Knack heard Al's 'My Bologna' and recommended to his record label that he sign Al and release the disc. Nice to see that he didn't take himself too seriously.
THE BIG TRAIN
If not London Calling, surely there's a track or two from Sandanista!
And if those tee-shirts were half as clever as the band they were targeting, they wouldn't have said "Nuke the Knack," but "Knuke the Knack."
C'mon.
SOUPCAN
Wasn't 'Boys Don't Cry' released in '79?
Probably not since none of you audiophiles mentioned it.
LF
I'll cease making fun of The Knack when they pry this keyboard from my cold, dead fingers!
THE BIG TRAIN
I recently (like one web page ago) found out Joe Jackson has been playing with the band from his first three albums again.
CENTERFIELD
"I Want You to Want Me - Cheap Trick"
I usually hate remakes, but this song was recently remade by Letters to Cleo for the soundtrack of some teen movie (probably had Freddy Prinze Jr.) and it was much better than the original.
Some dude singing "I want you to want me" is kinda pathetic. A chick singing "I want you to want me" is like, really cool.
THE BIG TRAIN
Ten Things I Hate About You.
It was a closing credits song.
No Freddy.
CENTERFIELD
Thanks. Haven't seen the movie...just heard the song. If it has no Freddy, it must suck.
LF
No, but 'Ten Things' had Julia Stiles in it which beats the hell out of Freddie Prinze Jr. nine ways to Sunday.
I personally love cover versions.
List adjustment:
Powderfinger looks like it was '79 and I've liked that song ever since the river took Emmylou. I got a little confused because it apparently appeared on not only Rust Never Sleeps, but also Live Rust, Live Rust 2, Son of Rust, Rust Meets Abbott & Costello, and a few others as well.
So I'll throw that in instead of Cruel to be Kind which, because it was on several Edmonds albums, seems to belong better in '78.
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