1979

The seventies reach their conclusion and they do it very well.  Easter  will be a perfect day to begin the eighties, that most fascinating decade.  Since this year was so insanely strong I feel compelled to mention a few that I really wanted to include, but as I have told you, Miles, ten is a very small number.  Sorry to Entertainment!, The Pleasure Principle, London Calling and The Specials.  Lots others that were great too, but four honorable mentions is too many anyway.  This is the year of post-punk, even if it's nothing new anymore.  Major  dominance.

10.  Swell Maps - A Trip to Marineville
Swell Maps, based around brothers Nikki Sudden and Epic Soundtracks (with no small contribution from mostly-bassist Jowe Head) had been making home-made recordings for years before the punk explosion.  This is their debut LP, which at the time was the first of its home-made kind to get any  recognition.  Their  influences are more glam, krautrock, avante-garde, and their own  child-like imaginations than "punk."  They make a whole lot of noise and with titles like "Gunboats" and of course, "BLAM!!" they had better.  At last the sounds of playfully violent young boys has been captures in  all its uninhibited  glory.  With that, songs range from both short blasts to long, slow drones worthy of lyrics like "I tried to poison you, but you poisoned me!  Why did you do it, you said you loved me?"  "Midget Submarine" has always been my favorite, but the  high energy opener "H.S. Art" is of course, the best place to start with the influential DIY all-stars.

9.  The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette
Forget London Calling (in this respect), this is the album that actually redefined the boundaries of "punk rock," or at least should have.  Reuniting without Brian James the band is actually at their collaborative and wild peak.  This a very free and fun album, far removed from what many of their peers were doing.  The songs get longer and more complex, but with all the camp and aggression of their earliest phase still intact.  The prominent keyboards on almost every track put them in closer comparison to Magazine than the Clash or the Buzzcocks, heard to best effect on the epic "Plan Nine, Channel Zero."  The punk is still there but with an intelligence and self-awareness the kids in their wake would not even dare to attempt such as "Noise Noise Noise" and the always-relevant "Anti-Pope."  Captain Sensible's move to guitar pays off and his style is as wild and unpredictable as his fashion sense, veering into flashy territory often reserved for the mainstream.  Vanian is at his best with his persona lightyears ahead of any guy trying out the Dracula look.  Scabies and new bassist Algy Ward provide the perfect foundation for the debauchery, and the whole thing wraps up with the classic "Smash It Up," which is the real sound of UK punk.

8.  Flamin' Groovies - Jumpin' in the Night
This one concludes the Groovies' trio of unbeatable late 70s work that defined power-pop and pure vintage rock.  Time has pushed this one closer and closer to the status of Shake  Some Action, though many still have a problem with its perceived reliance on cover material.  There are three Byrds covers as well as new sources James Brown, Warren Zevon, and Bob Dylan in addition to the Beatles.  However one feels about covers, their selection is inspired with them breathing  new life into deep cuts like "5D" and David Crosby's B-side "Lady Friend" along with the (for the time) un-hip "Please Please Me."  Their originals, unsurprisingly are even better, after all who but the Groovies could pull off that opening title track?  Then there is "Tell Me Again," one of the finest songs Cyril Jordan and Chris Wilson would write.  "Yes I Am" and "First Plane Home" come close too, then there is the mere fact that any album with George Alexander's bass tone is one  for the ages.

7.  David Bowie - Lodger
No other Bowie album (well, other than Diamond Dogs and Pin-Ups) gets as many mixed reactions as the final installment of his Berlin trilogy.  For me, it did nothing on first listen, but on my second attempt over four years later I was sold like Doug Martsch.  With the darkness heard on Station to Station out of his system he begins with a happier take on "Word on A Wing" with "Fantastic Voyage" before experimenting with Eastern sounds on "African Night Flight" and "Yassassin (Long Live."  The sounds on this album are wild and diverse partially thanks to Adrian Belew and Carlos Alomar joining the usual Bowie crew of Tony Visconti and Brian Eno on this one.  The German influence  is also more apparent than ever on the motorik classic "Red Sails," and Bowie shows he  is ready to really move on with "D.J." and "Boys Keep Swinging"  hinting at what would come on the next few albums.  If it doesn't stick, just wait and try again.

6.  The B-52's - The B-52's
Before his death, this was one of John Lennon's favorite albums.  Adds another level of tragedy, doesn't it?  Anyway, that's the only way you could take fun out of this  album.  It is the most fun one ever made,  at least  the best one at this level of fun.  The cover says  it all, doesn't it?  No, it doesn't, it doesn't convey all the energy found on the vinyl.  Kitschy sci-fi, 50s nostalgia, and trash culture made this party album the first sign of the decades of great music that would come out of Athens, GA.  "Planet Claire" and "Dance This Mess Around" show the band to be masters of tension on par with Wire and the Feelies despite their silly lyrics.  Makes sense considering how close the group's members were with the only brother-sister combo  I know of.  Basically the whole band is the rhythm section with the vocals leading most of the tunes along with the bizarre playing of indisputable guitar god Ricky Wilson.  It does hit its climax with "Rock Lobster" but side-two opener "Lava" is one of the sexiest recordings of all time.  No matter what your preference, Fred Schneider is no small part of that.

5.  Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
Here comes Factory records.  They put their best foot forward with this dark, atmospheric group that would define them and the City of Manchester until the Ecstacy kicked in, and even then kinda still...  This is a frightening and high-energy album even on its slower moments.  "Interzone" and "Shadowplay" capturing the speeding motion of the urban dystopia that beget the band.  "Glass" does  too, though that one's hand claps and squealing synths capture more an impending invasion like the heavy "New Dawn Fades."  "She's Lost Control," is the best-known and for good reason with it's mysterious rhythm being one of the few successful instances of two bass parts.  That's Peter Hook for you, the one guy allowed to use a 6-string.  The band's cohesion is the real star though, and the album functions best as a single piece despite the strength  of its ten songs on their own.  It sounds like the end of the world, presumably, though nothing had really come this close before and hardly anything after.  Either way, it never would have without the Mancunian quartet.

4.  Sparks - No. 1 in Heaven
The seventies end and we finally get to see some disco on here!  The Pallisades Mael brothers collaborate with Italian whiz Giorgio Moroder on this, and the following Terminal Jive.  Synthesizers and sequencers take over the glam rock sound, but Russell's falsetto and Ron's comedic lyrics still dominate.  The opening scientific view of a sexual  encounter "Tryouts for the Human Race" makes this an energetic dance album on most tracks, though "Beat the Clock" is pure sparks with a jerkier  rhythm and absurd lyrics.  Ron's deep view into the truth of disco and its power make "La Dolce Vita" and "Academy Award Performance" even better to move mind to, than the hips and ass.  However, it is almost all a moot point compared to the transcendent final track.  "The Number One Song In Heaven" has an arrangement that is so beautiful it makes you beg for the light of death, perhaps the only way to top the disco bliss that concludes this album and Sparks' seventies output.

3.  Talking Heads - Fear of Music
The Eno collaboration only gets better on this dark and futuristic album.  With "I Zimbra" beginning it, any hope for safety is  thrown out, though Byrne and company do have plenty of accessible material on this disc.  For one there is the jangling pop of "Paper" and the somewhat corny, yet still lovable "Heaven."  Even the bleak "Life During Wartime" is catchy enough to make it a staple of classic rock radio, at least where I come from.   Despite that song's misinterpreted lyrics, there is much disco influence here, especially on "Air" (possibly thanks to Arthur Russell).  My favorite  though, is the heavy and chugging "Memories Can't Wait."  Despite their certain degree of resistance, the whole band benefits from Eno with Tina Weymouth's bass sounding not unlike the unearthly warble of Another Green World, particularly on "Electric Guitar."  Eno and Byrne signal what is to come next and beyond on the closing "Drugs," one of the collaboration's finest efforts."

2.  Public Image Ltd. - Metal Box (Second Edition)
The first group of punks finally get what they want on this set of three dub-style 12-inch singles.  With John Lydon now able to fully embrace  his love of krautrock, Van Der Graaf Generator, free jazz, Captain Beedheart, and yes, all that great music he actually liked his voice makes this unsettling record a classic.  But not  entirely.  Many of this album's best songs are instrumentals like "Graveyard" and "Socialist."  At their great period, PiL was just as much former Clash guitarist and all-around musical genius Keith Leven's baby as Lydon's.  His talent on guitar and synth in all its layers it will take a lifetime  to discover is the second best part of this album.  The best is of course bassist Jah  Wobble whose grooves are  what keeps the whole thing together and make it as "un-rock" as the band wanted.  Sadly,  this would end his collaboration, putting  the "band" on a steady decline that only worked  in theory.  It's all great at this point here.  "Swan Lake" was the hit  and "Poptones" is pretty well beloved for it's actually-not-ironic title, but "No Birds," the free-form "Chant," and particularly frightening "Careering" are the greatest.  One of the  best realized post-punk albums, simply by  definition.

1.  Wire - 154
But this is the best one.  Wire continues to grow to the point that by the time this was done they had to stop.  And it's worth it, the following eight years would not be enough to really absorb this challenging record.  "The 15th" takes the beauty of "Outdoor Miner" even further making it maybe  their greatest song.  The unforgettable (idea, that is) title "Map Ref. 41°N 93°W" might be even better, especially as an American always glad to hear a Brit admit we're better, yet  that would be to belittle that "chorus."  By now fully embracing synthesizers, Wire distinguish their highly unusual music with other additions,  such as the noises on "Once is Enough" and the hellish vocals of "Indirect Enquiries."  While the song lengths have gotten much longer since Pink Flag the energy is just as high on the glow-in-the-dark "On Returning" and the super heavy "Single K.O."  The dynamics are the greatest strength along with the production which highlights it all on this alien album, as in the big change on "The Other  Window," an unsettling train ride to insanity.  Declining mental health is a huge theme here, and its sound shows that anyone creating such music would undoubtedly suffer as such.  It concludes with the schizophrenic "40 Versions," which wile leaving any listener begging for more of this tense post-punk, it does warrant its creators a good vacation.

Sorry if that was long.