FRIDAY FLASHBACK: Every Friday we set the Hot Tub Time Machine to one year in rock history and give you the best (and worst) music from that year, all day long beginning at 1:00 AM EST and running for 24 hours on Jivewired Radio powered by Live365.
This week: 1978
Next week: 2003
Article & Image Sources: All Music Guide, Amazon.com, Rolling Stone Magazine, Previous Jivewired Flashback Articles, WLS-AM, The Guardian, UK, Joel Whitburn, Billboard Magazine.
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Album art from 1978 - Click cover to download
1978 Album I Wish I Owned:Let There Be Rock by AC/DC
1978 Album I'd Give Back If I Could:Soundtrack to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
1978 Nominee For Worst Album Cover Ever:White, Hot & Blue by Johnny Winter
1978 Most Underrated Song:Beyond The Realms Of Death by Judas Priest
1978 Most Overrated Song:Paradise By The Dashboard Lights by Meat Loaf
1978 Most Memorable Song:Who Are You by The Who
1978 Most Significant Song:I Wanna Be Sedated by The Ramones
1978 Most Forgotten Song: Roller by April Wine
1978 Album Of The Year:Some Girls by The Rolling Stones
1978 Fan's Choice For Most Popular Song:Miss You by The Rolling Stones
1978 Most Likely To Start A Party Song:Flashlight by Parliament
1978 Please Don't Play Anymore Song:Paradise By The Dashboard Lights by Meat Loaf
1978 Song That I Like More than I Actually Should:Two Tickets To Paradise by Eddie Money
1978 Album I Liked More Than I Thought I Would:Molly Hatchet by Molly Hatchet
1978 Song That I Tend To Leave On Repeat:Life's Been Good by Joe Walsh
1978 Come Back Player Of The Year:Grease by Frankie Valli
One Hit Wonder of 1978:King Tut by Steve Martin
Guilty Pleasure of 1978: Magnet & Steel by Walter Egan
Breakout Artists Of 1978: Van Halen, Journey, XTC, The Police, The Ramones, Gerry Rafferty, Jackson Browne, Molly Hatchet, Eddie Money, Cheap Trick, The Cars, Blondie, Boston, Talking Heads, B-52s, Blues Brothers, The Pretenders, Squeeze
Overplayed In 1978: Bee Gees
Not Played Enough In 1978: Nick Lowe
Greatest Single Chart Re-Entry from 1978:Dixie Chicken by Little Feat (1973)
Best Cover Song Of 1978:Dreams I'll Never See by Molly Hatchet (Original - Allman Brothers)
An unheralded great album from 1978:Jesus Of Cool by Nick Lowe
An unheralded great single from 1978:Statue Of Liberty by XTC
Best Soundtrack of 1978:The Last Waltz
Jivewired Picks: Top
01. Who Are You by The Who
02. Let There Be Rock by AC/DC
03. Eruption/You Really Got Me by Van Halen
04. Miss You by The Rolling Stones
05. Sultans Of Swing by Dire Straits
06. Life's Been Good by Joe Walsh
Jivewired Picks: Top
01. Some Girls by The Rolling Stones
02. Let There Be Rock by AC/DC
03. Van Halen by Van Halen
04. Darkness On The Edge Of Town by Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band
05. Who Are You by The Who
06. Molly Hatchet by Molly Hatchet
HONORABLE MENTION #1: Jesus Of Cool by Nick Lowe
HONORABLE MENTION #2:Heaven Tonight by Cheap Trick
NEW FRIDAY FLASHBACK FEATURE - FIVE O'CLOCK ROCK
We will dedicate the afternoon drive slot to our favorite hard rock songs from the featured year. Today you will hear the following selections from 5PM - 6PM CDT.
- Beyond The Realms Of Death by Judas Priest
- Gates Of Babylon by Rainbow
- The Sails Of Charon by Scorpions
- Roller by April Wine
- Circumstances by Rush
- Let There Be Rock by AC/DC
- You Really Got Me by Van Halen
- Draw The Line by Aerosmith
- Hot 'N' Ready by UFO
- Snowblind by Ace Frehley
- Open Fire by Ronnie Montrose
- On Top Of The World by Cheap Trick
- Tonight You Belong To Me by Paul Stanley
- Ain't No Love In The Heart Of The City by Whitesnake
- Slow Ride (live) by Foghat
"I was nine years old when I saw Elvis on 'Ed Sullivan' and I had to get a guitar the next day. I stood in front of my mirror with that guitar on..... and I knew that's what had been missing."
-- Bruce Springsteen
All that you need to know about 1978 is this: The gap between mainstream popular and underground popular was probably never wider. AM Radio clung to an aging, formulated platform and FM Radio bucked wildly in retaliation. The year-end Top 100 lists for your typical Top Forty AM Radio format in 1978 bore absolutely no resemblance to their AOR FM Radio counterparts. In fact, one could easily divide 1978 into two retrospectives because of this great divide in tastes and broadcasting models.
We can therefore surmise that 1978 is a generally considered a year of closure for popular music, marking the end of an entire musical generation and the start of another as tired pop faded away and the mainstream further distanced itself from the heavier AOR format.
1978 started with the break up of the Sex Pistols and ended with the closing of The Winterland Theater. However, and perhaps more importantly, 1978 should be remembered for what it truly defined: an ideal microcosm of musical rebirth. There was great stuff happening in the underground that forced it's way to the forefront, in the United States and abroad as well, creating a virtual melting pot of cultures and musical tastes that had something for everybody.
Being that 1978 was the first full year of punk and the last full year of disco, it’s heavy on canonical albums -- the kind of records that show up on Greatest-Albums-Ever lists, and deservedly so. While Saturday Night Fever ruled the charts for the first half of 1978, at one point selling an average of one million copies per week, it was typical parent-puke mainstream, i.e, music for newly-single divorcees and a last gasp attempt for the aging summer-of-love generation to cling to their fading, collective youth.
The mainstream really needed a good, hard wake-up kick to it's polyester crotch. Fortunately, punk rockers started lacing up their combat boots and taking aim. The debut, self-titled release by The Clash, released mid-1977 and gaining runaway momentum by 1978, and arguably their best work ever, was precisely what popular music needed at precisely the right moment.
1978 saw the emergence of the first DIY movement in music, and it was really an offshoot of punk's charging rebellion against the industry's old guard inner circle. While the United States' foray into the punk sound of 1978 was limited to garage bands in middle-class suburbia, the renaissance in England originated from the musicians who had been playing rhythm and blues and rockabilly in the local pubs. Initial success came by way of decadent stars like The Clash and countless mainstream pop singers with a driving, slightly harder edge. Soon, the local clubs began staging independent punk bands because the fare was far more exciting music. Punk changed the face of the industry and, indirectly, helped those same musicians get out of those smaller pubs. CBGB at Bowery & Bleecker in Manhattan was the first big venue to take the punk sound into the mainstream here in the United States and The Ramones were the first, true US punk band to ascertain similar notoriety to their British brethren.
Founded in 1973, the CBGB became a forum for American Punk and New Wave bands like The Ramones, Television, Patti Smith, The Cramps, Blondie, The Shirts, and The Talking Heads. The full name is CBGB & OMFUG which stands for "Country Bluegrass Blues and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers."
Editors Note: Gormandizer here means "a voracious eater of ... music".
CBGB had only one rule in order to play at the venue: musicians had to play primarily original music. Cover bands and cover songs were strictly forbidden. The policy was meant to help the club avoid paying ASCAP royalties for the compositions being performed, but as the club's reputation and national notoriety grew, so did punk's dynamic. The influence was immense and worked two-fold in popularizing all kinds of new music. In order to fulfill a need of belonging, the anti-punkers sought out new music as well in an attempt to stay somewhat relevant. The result was an almost unheard of increase in new and groundbreaking bands, not just in the underground, but in the mainstream as well.
As CBGB's reputation and poularity grew, it began to draw more acts from outside New York City. The club hosted the first American gigs by The Police on October 20 and 21, 1978. However it was two local acts that really established CBGB as a home for independent punk and new wave artists. New York City resident Debbie Harry and her band Blondie became frequent headliners at the CBGB and in fact, the venue gets and takes full credit for launching their very successful career with those early shows. Likewise, The Talking Heads were frequent headliners and used the venue to launch their landmark album More Songs About Buildings And Food after winning a contest to open for the Ramones.
From the punk movement of 1978 there emerged a new kind of pure pop troubadour, solidly anchored to the roots of rock and roll yet keenly aware of current social issues. Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Graham Parker, Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello were the artists who launched this more sincere and vibrant approach to edgier pop and rock.
Each of these artists used different means to promote their messages, however. Nick Lowe was the theoretician of power-pop and American roots-rock, as evidenced on Jesus Of Cool while Graham Parker was fundamentally and for all intent and purpose, a direct disciple of Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison and Neil Young. Joe Jackson was the most eclectic of them all, eventually blending calypso, gospel, soul, ska and jazz throughout a long and storied career. However, his 1978 release Look Sharp featured a far more edgier sound than any of his following works.
While pessimism, rebellion and disillusion set the tone and attitude of those artists, they did lay the foundations for the rebirth of music in 1978. Perhaps the greatest example was Elvis Costello's release This Year's Model. Costello matched a Buddy Holly look and a big pair of glasses with an intentionally neurotic delivery and a whole lot of anti-industry rebellion. The angst of Radio Radio and Pump It Up were songs typical of Costello's ambiguity, openly attacking the era's social issues while not-so-subtly endorsing its corresponding soundtrack.
Taking it one step further, bands like the Police, The Stranglers and The Beat infused the angst of punk with reggae and ska to create a softer punk hybrid that became very popular during 1978's musical rebirth. By emphasizing the melodic element rather than the scathing lyrical content, for example, The Police found success as the founders of the post-punk, modern romantic sound that became the norm in the early 1980s and the cornerstone of the new wave. Their progression toward pop and soul melodies led to the old-fashioned romanticism of songs like Can't Stand Losing You and Roxanne, and influenced future acts like Fine Young Cannibals and Men At Work.
On New Year's Eve, 1978, the Winterland Theater closed it's doors for good. Located at the corner of Post Street and Steiner Street in San Francisco, the venue was a skating rink built in 1928 at a then-unheard of cost of one million dollars that was converted to exclusive use as a music venue in 1971 by rock promoter Bill Graham. The Winterland Theater became a common performance site for many of the most famous rock music artists of the 1970s, including the final performance by the Band in 1976, documented in the film The Last Waltz.
During Winterland's final month of existence, shows were booked nearly every night. Acts included The Tubes, The Ramones, Smokey Robinson, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and on December 15–16, 1978, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band. Winterland's final show was the legendary New Year's Eve concert by the Grateful Dead, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and The Blues Brothers. The show was an eight hour marathon, with the Grateful Dead's performance — documented on DVD and CD as The Closing of Winterland— lasting nearly six hours itself.
Gone Too Soon:
- Terry Kath of Chicago, aged 31 (January 23)
- Vic Ames, aged 52 (January 23)
- Sandy Denny of Fairport Convention, aged 31 (April 21)
- Glen Goins of Parliament Funkadelic, aged 24 (July 29)
- Louis Prima, aged 67 (August 24)
- Keith Moon, aged 32 (September 7)
- Nancy Spungen, aged 20 (October 12)
- Chris Bell of Big Star, aged 27 (December 27)
Okay Tokyo! Are You Ready?
Cheap Trick's 1978 album Heaven Tonight went Triple Platinum 18 months after it was released, though it generated only mild success initially. Until then, the midwestern band from Rockford, Illinois struggled to establish a footprint outside of the Chicago-Milwaukee freeway with their hybrid pop/west-coast punk sound. None of Cheap Trick's first three albums made it into the Top 40 in the United States.
In Japan, however, all three albums became gold records. When Cheap Trick went to Japan to tour the country for the first time in April 1978, they were received with a frenzy reminiscent of Beatlemania here in the States. During the tour, Cheap Trick recorded two concerts at the Nippon Budokan. Ten tracks taken from both shows were compiled and released as a live album titled Cheap Trick at Budokan, which was intended to be released exclusively to Japan. Demand for the import album became so great that Epic Records finally released the album in the United States in 1979.
Cheap Trick at Budokan launched the band into international stardom, and the album went triple platinum in the United States. The smash track was the live version of I Want You to Want Me, which had originally been released on In Color. It reached #7 on the Billboard Hot 100, and became Cheap Trick's biggest-selling single.
Tragic Kingdom:
On the morning of October 12, 1978, Sid Vicious of The Sex Pistols claimed to have awoken from a drugged stupor to find his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, dead on the bathroom floor of their room in the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan, New York. She had suffered a single stab wound to her abdomen and appeared to have bled to death. The knife used had been bought by Vicious on 42nd Street and was identical to a collector's knife given to punk rock vocalist Stiv Bators of the Dead Boys by Dee Dee Ramone. According to Dee Dee's wife at the time, Vera King Ramone, Vicious had bought the knife after seeing Stiv's. Vicious was arrested and charged with her murder.
He said they had fought that night but gave conflicting versions of what happened next, saying, "I never stabbed her. I loved her, but she treated me like shit", then saying that he did not remember and at one point stating that during the argument Spungen had fallen onto the knife.
On the night of Spungen's death, there was a party going on in their hotel room. She was rumoured to have been showing a lot of money. When they found her dead the next day, the money had gone, as had Vicious's knife. None of the party guests have given evidence about what had happened.
On October 22, ten days after Spungen's death, Vicious attempted suicide by slitting his wrist with a smashed light bulb and was subsequently hospitalized at Bellevue Hospital. He was charged with assault after an altercation with Todd Smith (singer Patti Smith's brother) at a Skafish concert.
Vicious was arrested December 9, 1978 and sent to Rikers Island metro jail for 55 days on the assault charge. He was released on bail on February 1, 1979.
On the evening of February 2, 1979, at a party in honor of his release, Vicious allegedly overdosed at sometime around midnight, but everyone who was there that night worked together to get him up and walking around in order to revive him. However, Vicious was discovered dead late the next morning.
He was never stood trial for Spungen's murder.
A few days after Vicious's cremation, his mother found an alleged suicide note in the pocket of his jacket: "We had a death pact, and I have to keep my half of the bargain. Please bury me next to my baby in my leather jacket, jeans and motorcycle boots. Goodbye."
Go Forth, For You Are The Future Of Rock & Roll.....
The following bands trace their beginnings back to 1978: Bauhaus, Berlin, Duran Duran, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Go-Gos, Great White, The radiators, Simple Minds, Social Distortion, Survivor and UB40.
To hear 200+ songs from the year 1978 please tune in to Jivewired Radio all day long and thank you for reading!