Speaker 1Hello and welcome to another episode of the Album Years with myself Stephen Wilson and my co-host Mr Timothy Bowness. Hello Tim. Hello. So today Tim it's another cracker of a year isn't it 1976 and again we were kind of like spoilt for choice with this year weren't we in terms of amazing albums we could have talked about.
Speaker 2Absolutely and it's odd because obviously this year is seen as quite a crucial year really quite an important year in the history of pop and rock as it was the one that kind of ushered in punk and preceded the whole kind of new wave revolution. And yeah one of the interesting things is that kind of. Looking at the year is how a little like some of the other years we've dealt with like 1973 and so on almost every genre was on incredible productive form.
Speaker 1And isn't it interesting also that we think of I guess we think of now retrospectively as the 76 78 period as the kind of heyday of punk it's the brushing away of the old garden the introduction of this completely new music and more aggressive and more down to earth. And more back to. To the roots kind of thing but if you actually look at the really big albums of that period we're talking about things like breakfast in America by super tramp we're talking about meatloaf spat out of hell aren't we we're talking about Jeff Wayne's war of the worlds I mean these albums these are the these are the children of the sort of great progressive rock here aren't they these aren't the children of punk rock at all.
Speaker 2Absolutely I mean obviously Andrew Lloyd Webber's variations yeah I did with Coliseum too was not a huge one around this time. And I think it is kind of interesting that you know. I always think with with music that sometimes you know action breeds reaction and in some ways you've always got opposites coexisting and so in the time when music was supposedly being simplified I think with a lot of pop music and a lot of album rock music it was actually getting more pompous more complicated and you know thinking of these years it was actually the heyday of jazz rock as much as anything else.
Speaker 1But it was also a time wasn't it when the sort of the influence of progressive rock had morphed. Into something a little bit more accessible and mainstream so those albums I just mentioned there obviously they have they have a strong legacy of conceptual rock music but at the same time they're much more accessible and they're much more commercial aren't they I mean you know something like ELO's out of the blue which is another massive record you know not this year but the following and another massive record I mean this is a band that obviously come through that era of experimental you know progressive rock but they're they're now kind of making a very sort of. You know friendly version of it which is crossing over to a massive massive audience isn't it absolutely
Speaker 2although I think in some cases it isn't really that the bands are compromising because you know I still think that with bands like ELO and Genesis some of the most commercial work is amongst their best work and in some ways it's it's the bands getting better at their craft and maybe that's no longer they the eccentric novelty they've been embraced by the mainstream so you've got a much wider audience that is receptive to what they've got to offer.
Speaker 1So let's start actually by talking about that because there was so many albums to talk about this year we've kind of grouped them again like we did I think in one of the previous episodes so let's talk about first the sort of so-called art rock scene now we talk about a kind of fusion of the ideals of conceptual rock music and a more kind of commercial song oriented bent and this is kind of what we're talking about here in a way isn't it when we when we talk about art rock so we have albums like. Electric light. Orchestra is a new world record we have bebop deluxe sunburst finish we have queens a day at the races we have bowie station to station a very important record in in his kind of career but I think the one that we want to focus on I think we both agree that this is a band we really want to talk about because they are in a sense eternally underrated even though they sold a lot of records and you know made some amazing and have a lot of respect because they never seem to fit into anything particularly they kind of get overlooked. Don't they and we're talking about 10 CC here and this is how dare you from 1976 which for me has the the quintessential 10 CC track on it which is not I'm not in love it's a track called I'm Mandy fly me.
Speaker 2Yeah which is an amazingly ambitious single and this kind of highlights one of the other things about 1976 that there were singles being released that was ambitious as albums in terms of their detail their scope the way in which they would change multiple times you know you've got. Music by John miles even hotel California year of the cat some huge hits that were tremendous in the scope and I'm Andy fly me was one of those obviously has multiple sections and time changes yet is incredibly accessible and grand it's almost like the fulfillment of the promise of heroes and villains or good vibrations the sort of mid to late 60s beach boys hits is there a sense also that maybe
Speaker 1some of these artists have been bolstered by the. Massive success of bohemian rhapsody the year before I mean I don't know if that that works chronologically because maybe 10 CC had already finished this album before that was even a hit but it seems that you know the success of bohemian rhapsody kind of ushers in more kind of songs and of a similar nature almost like this patch you know you're right this is these these songs are like the children in a way of good vibrations or a day in the life in the sense that they move through different moods different scenes it's almost like that kind of cinematic approach to making a song that doesn't obey the. The usual kind of verse chorus middle eight you know rules and bohemian rhapsody is such a massive massive success isn't it that it must have almost encouraged you know a band like 10 CC who who had ambitions of their own to attempt their own kind of equivalence of that and I'm Andy fly me really is that isn't it I mean just the production and I mean just ignoring the kind of structural issue this the production in this song and that the whole album is just it's so inspiring for me as someone who's very interested in production. Play I'm Andy fly me and just sort of you know obsess about all the little details going on like the the backwards zither and the you know that the sound of those acoustic guitars in the middle just so many great things to latch on to from a production point of view.
Speaker 2Yeah well I mean art for art's sake is another example because that's quite an epic in its own right in the beginning the atmospheric beginning to that is stunning and that has a fantastic groove and so yeah there's great melody great hook great groove but it's all incredibly detailed clever. Beautifully mapped out and one of the other things about this album was that it was quite emotional I think one of the things that always gets lost in this with a lot of English art rock in particular is that people see it as being quite cold quite reserved or quite clever for the sake of being clever and I've never really seen this I think it was you know whether it's Peter Gabriel's Genesis 10 CC Kate Bush Roxy music I think in some ways they kind of create characterizations or masks. In which really strong emotions can come through so I think that with some of their stories now in this album for me don't hang up is a great example of something that's incredibly touching and very human that you know through the humor through the masks through the storytelling it's actually quite vulnerable.
Speaker 1So let's we forget that the 1976 or this era that's about to come in isn't just about punk it's also about the you know disco music and disco is going to become a masterpiece. Massive massive massive thing for the next few years perhaps obviously a much more commercially successful you know genre than punk ever was although disco has largely been forgotten whereas punk is still seen as being something that was very kind of you know revolutionary and very key to the future of music but disco was dominant wasn't it I mean the following year you had Saturday Night Fever but it's already beginning to make its presence felt and we have some great I mean some of these you might almost call pre disco records. Funkadelic made two records this year and there was a Parliament record too Santana's Amigos has a strong element of disco and I know that you and I both feel the Santana Amigos is a very underrated Santana album for me it has my favorite Santana track of all on it in Dance Sister Dance and one of the things we're going to talk about now this is the album you want to talk about from this scene but it has something in common with Santana's Amigos which is the use of the Selena string synth sound. So we're both suckers for this sound and it's all over the Amigos sound by Santana and it's all over the album that you want to talk about which is Roy Ayres Everybody Loves the Sunshine now this is an album you've picked him so so why have you picked this album particularly.
Speaker 2Well really I've picked it for the title track there are good tracks on this album and it has a nice flow and a bit like the Lonnie Liston Smith album Reflections of a Golden Dream from the same period. It's sort of. Alternates between quite wistful almost meditative pieces and then full on funk workouts and the title track for this I think is really quite interesting in that in this year it's difficult to find things that speak of the disquiet you know if you think of the sort of political disquiet of the mid 70s and late 70s and if you like this kind of preamble to punk but this track is bizarre in that it has an incredibly. incredibly optimistic lyric. incredibly optimistic groove but there's a real aura of decadence and melancholy where you're kind of thinking that the party isn't what it's been made out to be and that there's a real sense of disillusionment despite the seeming optimism of the lyrics and I always kind of connect this with Good Times by Chic which I also think has this kind of sense that somebody's walking out of this party they're supposed to be happy and actually what you can see is the cocaine dribbling down their nose and tears in their eyes now
Speaker 1interestingly we talk about this you know this this aspect of music apparently being very positive and and very sort of feel good but having a kind of melancholic undercurrent and we're also talking about the disco and ABBA this year made Arrival which for me is probably their greatest album and the most famous song on this record is their take on disco Dancing Queen but they're also a band aren't they? And I think Dancing Queen's no exception that somehow, and I'm not even sure they're aware of it sometimes, somehow there's always this slight feeling of melancholy and regret and nostalgia about even their most kind of positive songs. I think with me, when I hear Dancing Queen, it's kind of, it's all in her imagination. She's kind of imagining herself as this, you know, Dancing Queen on the dance floor, blowing everyone away. But it's not real. And I don't know. Absolutely. I guess I'm kind of projecting this in a way, but that's the way it kind of comes across to me. I think you're right. It's a dream.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. It's somebody who's actually either contemplating suicide in Stockholm or dreaming that they're on the dance floor. There is something there.
Speaker 1I agree. But this album is stunning for me. I mean, this is ABBA making their first album in the sense that there's no filler on this record. I mean, every track on this album. This album could have been a hit single. And it's very diverse. I mean, you've got everything from the, you know, the slightly prog rock instrumental, the title track, to very sort of, you know, melancholic songs about divorce, like Knowing Me, Knowing You, to the feel good songs like Dancing Queen and When I Kissed the Teacher. But they're all brilliant. It's an album experience. And this is a band that were at the time, I guess, dismissed largely by the, you know, the so-called cognoscente, the sort of intellectual album buying public. Wouldn't have taken a band like ABBA seriously.
Speaker 2Well, there's a real sophistication in the production and the playing as well. I mean, I think it's interesting you talk about the instrumental, which obviously was covered by Mike Oldfield. And I think there is a kind of intricacy in the arrangements that puts it up with the best of the British art, rock and art pop bands, 10cc, ELO and so on. Yeah, you know, very underrated. And you're right. I think that what made it work, even at the time when I was 12, is that there was a. Feeling that it speaks to something that isn't quite right. And, you know, I do like this idea of, you know, Dancing Queen in a sense, almost being like an Alan Bennett talking heads play. Yeah, that this is somebody talking themselves up on screen as being extraordinarily happy. But we can see the melancholy in the soul.
Speaker 1It's all a dream. Yeah. So also this year, we do have, you know, arguably the most famous, along with the Bee Gees, the most famous disco artist of all, Donna Summer. Now, there's something about this year. A lot of great artists are making not one great record, but making two great records. We've already mentioned that Funkadelic made two records this year. Donna Summer made two terrific records this year, A Love Trilogy and Four Seasons of Love. And again, there's something about these records that has the influence of conceptual rock music and progressive rock music to both these records. Four Seasons of Love is a concept album, four 10 minute pieces, each dedicated to a. A Love Trilogy has a sidelong piece on it, which which moves through many, many different sort of, you know, like dynamics. Also, Marvin Gaye released I Want You, which is another kind of bittersweet, you know, record, I think, for him, isn't it?
Speaker 2And also quite conceptual in the sense that the themes are carried on throughout the album. I mean, you know, the Donna Summer albums, Four Seasons of Love is probably my favourite of the two. And that's mainly because there's a lot more synthesiser on it and the synth on this. It slightly reminds me of a rainbow in curved air, Terry Riley. You know, there's something going on outside of the disco. And it's what I quite like about this, that you've almost got this kind of relentlessness that you could argue has something of the kind of metronomic kraut rock quality. You've got the concept that's running through it. But there are some really nice synth ideas on it that kind of link the pieces on the album.
Speaker 1It seems like everyone that's making music at this point seems to have taken something. Something from the great era of experimental pop and progressive rock for, you know, the, say, the sort of late 60s, early 70s. It's kind of coming through in a lot of music. And obviously punk was pretty much about removing that completely, wasn't it? But right at this moment, it's everywhere, isn't it? And in fact, I want to talk now about progressive rock itself, because that's kind of the elephant in the room at the moment. It's the influence progressive rock has had. And again, you know, you kind of touched on this a few moments ago. Here, when supposedly all of this stuff was being swept aside, a lot of these bands were arguably making some of their strongest music and some of their most, quote unquote, ridiculous music. And I use that in a positive way, you know, in a sense of reaching for something really grand and really bold. And so this year, in terms of progressive rock, we have, you know, another band that made two great albums this year. Our friend, Mr. Hamill, with his band Van de Graaff Generator, made two terrific. This year, Still Life and World Record, Camel, Moon Madness, which I think a lot of people would hold up as their as their greatest record, came at a time when apparently no one should have been making that kind of music. Gentle Giants, Interview, Caravan, Blind Doggets and Dunstant, Jethro Tull's Too Old to Rock and Roll. What's interesting is I do see a lot more of these bands are perhaps trying to make their sound a little bit more accessible.
Speaker 2It's difficult to know whether, in a sense, because some of these bands, obviously spent periods becoming more experimental and getting back to their own roots and their own roots were often sort of Beatles, pop or Motown. Genesis being a great example of this because they released two albums this year, which I think are amongst their best. Incredibly beautiful, not remotely compromised, yet very accessible. And I think that's because they're allowing perhaps some of their roots influences to come through. And perhaps it's a reaction against Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. I mean, it's interesting, again, about 1976, because there are so many beautiful sounding albums, you know, whether it's Al Stewart, Genesis, Donna Summer, these albums sound lush.
Speaker 1There are some beautiful sounding records here. Also, more in this category, Barclay James Harvest, October Run, Alan Parsons Project released their first album, Tales of Mystery and Imagination. But I think the thing that all these records have in common is that they're all crossing over slightly more to a pop aesthetic. But none of them had hits on, did they? I think that's going to come. But at this moment, these bands are moving slightly more towards a pop sound, but none of them are actually crossing over into the pop charts yet, are they? Well, they're getting to
Speaker 2that stage where I think it's probably 1978, really. And I remember seeing these when they were on television at the time. But Nationwide, if you remember that, would have an hour long special on Genesis in 1978, an hour long special on Kate Bush. And this was effectively just. The news program, the national news program. And I think at that stage, the artists really have crossed over. And if you haven't seen that Nationwide on Genesis, it's interesting because it actually begins with, I think, probably Frank Boff saying, you may not have heard of Genesis, but I'll tell you, your children have.
Speaker 1Isn't it? Isn't it fair to say that what you would probably have the presenter saying now would be, you may not have heard of Genesis, but your granddad has.
Speaker 2Absolutely. Frank Boff, if he's alive, would say that.
Speaker 1Yeah. So, but we're talking about progressive rock. I want to pick actually one album to talk about specifically from this bunch, which is arguably the most ludicrous, the most pompous in the best possible sense of the word of all of them. This is a guy that is completely, apparently in a bubble of insanity, but making a beautiful, beautiful record. And that is John Anderson. And it's an absolutely ridiculous record that goes by the name of Elias. But I love it because it is, it could be none more progressive rock, could it?
Speaker 2Except it doesn't have the tricky time signature aspect. And I agree with you. It's my idea of progressive in the sense that he is searching for something special. He is experimenting wildly. You know, this reminds me in a way of the first programme, 1980, when we were discussing Common One by Von Morrison, which led to Spirit of Eden by Mark Hollis. This, in a way, is in a similar space. It's somebody creating their own sound world with no regard to anything else. It's incredibly beautiful. It's incredibly ambitious. It could be no one other than Anderson. There's all sorts of things from kind of African chants to proto-ambient.
Speaker 1I think there is a sense that this is progressive rock without the kind of showmanship element. It's much more of an experiment in texture. As you pointed out, he's experimenting with like. percussion and particularly a lot of vocal overdubs, as you would expect. expect from from someone like John Anderson but the notion of it is none more progressive isn't it the artwork the concept which I don't yeah I don't begin to understand or even want to understand but there's something about it that's just completely deluded in the best possible sense of the word just creating a whole musical universe of his own and and I just find it's a magical and beautiful a beautiful thing to listen to and I love him for making this record you know absolutely um so let's
Speaker 2move on now to um
Speaker 1something else that was that was kind of going on at the time which was that a lot of the singer-songwriters that had come out of the late 60s early 70s were also reaching kind of peaks in a way Bob Dylan's Desire came out this year um Al Stewart's Year of the Cat which you mentioned which you know Al Stewart had been around for 10 years by this point but Year of the Cat became his belated his big breakthrough record didn't it um it did yeah Tom Waits' All Change one of my favorite Tom Waits albums Billy Joel's Turnstiles um and arguably the greatest singer-songwriter of them all sorry Bob Dylan fans but arguably the greatest singer-songwriter of them all in my opinion Joni Mitchell made Hajira um which is um such a sublime record and it's kind of a breakthrough record for her because in a way this is where the influence of jazz music on her on her oeuvre if you like really gels for me um you you've got Jaco Pastorius on bass here or in in the context of a relatively stripped down sound but she's also adopted I think I believe for the first time the open tunings which means she's working with alternative guitar tunings and she's coming up with all these very strange harmonically strange chord voicings and it just seems to take her to a whole nother level of her artistry I don't know if you agree with me Tim this is this is for me is her greatest record Hajira
Speaker 2it's difficult because there are so many albums in a catalogue that are brilliant and so many that I could choose as favorite albums of all time let alone favorite albums of Joni Mitchell and um you know she was obviously flirting with jazz on Caught in Spark and Hissing of Summer Lawns and it's always um difficult for me to choose between Hissing of Summer Lawns which has much more experimental and eclectic songs and Hajira which is almost like one long tone poem in some ways it's kind of her almost doing the Bob Dylan in the sense that she's just got this catalogue narrative that seems to last a whole album and often doesn't change very much while changing constantly because of the nature of the playing you know especially Pistorius who is brilliant on this album you know it was the year of Pistorius because of course it's his first album with Weather Report this year Black Market which is a great record it's his um solo album which does extraordinarily well and then you've also got him working with Pat Metheny I think this year so um you know what tremendous player and in some ways it's the involvement of people like Pistorius that make Hajira so wondrous I mean partly it's the lyrics partly it's the relentlessness but it's the fact that it's kind of hypnotic but it's subtly changing all the time and um and again you wonder about this thing you were talking about something being in the air and next year of course she's going to do Don Juan's Reckless Daughter and that has a side long track you know one of the things that I think is really important is that it's a song that's you know once more this is as epic and experimental as any progressive band are going to get so um
Speaker 1we talked about jazz let let's so let's talk about I mean you kind of already alluded to some of the records that came out this year from that scene the Lonnie Liston Smith record um and you also mentioned the the uh the Weather Report record Black Market um there's also some other great jazz records this year there's Jeff Becks Wired um there's Brand X's first record Unorthodox Behavior with a very sort of peculiarly English take on on fusion um Zappa's Zootolaw arguably an album affinity to jazz rock um but the one I want to talk about actually is um is a very French take on jazz rock one of the most instantly recognizable and distinctive sounds in rock music is that of Magma and this year they made their album Udu Vudu which it's not necessarily one of their best albums but for me it has their best ever track on it which conveniently takes up the whole side of a record which is uh Di Futura um now how can you how can you describe Magma to someone that's never heard Magma Tim how do you even go about
Speaker 2doing that it's very very difficult because part of it as well is that you try and find out what Magma is and so you then find out more about Christian Vander's obsessions with the spiritual jazz of Coltrane and um and then Albert Eiler and so on and then you also hear that he was a huge Otis Redding fan and obviously an opera buff but it's extraordinary you know if when you're hearing this for the first time it's it's closest to King Crimson and Van de Graaff Generator in the way in which it constantly rhythmically shifts and in the way in which it uses dissonance and I think that you know when I first heard them that was kind of my reference point but it goes well beyond that because you can hear all sorts of peculiar soul reference points and operatic reference points in in the vocal and um and Di Futura has to be one of the greatest pieces they've ever done you know it's sort of 17 minutes of relentless riffing that is extremely engaging but I think one of the
Speaker 1other things that's that that it has in common with some of those other artists you mentioned is the and particularly this track Di Futura is the in this increasing sense of abandon and it's actually created by the fact that the tempo is constantly increasing it's this sense of rocketing towards a cliff edge uh being unable to stop the momentum and it just sweeps you along with it carries you along this constant sense of the track getting faster and faster and faster and faster as it moves to almost this orgiastic peak this kind of fury um and you can you know put that together with this kind of these as you said the elements you've mentioned the kind of operatic elements the jazz rock elements and also the fuzz bass now I know we're both suckers for a bit of fuzz bass aren't
Speaker 2we you know yeah I suppose King Crimson Starless gives an idea of the effect that certainly Di Futura has but they're also very haunting and lyrical moments um in Magma's work I think you know you can have the the echoed flutes the sort of wafting wordless voices and there's a lot of things going on the otherworldly
Speaker 1aspect partly is because you don't the the lyrics are all in this made-up language so you're not
Speaker 2yeah that does help you don't you
Speaker 1don't have that element to kind of keep it earthbound do you it's it's already kind of alien it already has an alien kind of aspect to it yeah so yeah so jazz rock uh also Gong Shamal album this year uh this year came out I love that record um uh so um okay let's talk about again let's shift into another genre completely this is a year this is very interesting this is a year that electronic music reached the mainstream in in a very big way now um to put this in context for years there have been great electronic bands making some great electronic music Tangerine Dream have been around for years they've made they also made a great album this year Stratosphere Klaus Schultz has been around for years he made an album called Moondawn this year Vangelis has been around for years he made what this guy did the new kid on the block uh came out with an album which actually had a massive hit single on it and became arguably the biggest selling electronic album at that time and that was Jean-Michel Jarre who released Oxygen this year um and it's something about this album isn't it that you kind of hear it and you understand why it did cross over to the mainstream it has in in the melodies in the textures in the sonic aspects of the record it's something much more inviting much more accessible isn't it than perhaps some of these other artists have managed to achieve until that point
Speaker 2yeah though it's as uncompromising you know it was interesting to me because when you um introduced me to the Morton Sabotnick I could hear elements that Jean-Michel Jarre had taken this especially uh the use of electronic sounds as the basis for the rhythms and so I think it's a very uncompromising album and of course he created this pretty much on his own in his fairly makeshift home studio so it was a real DIY effort so I'm not going to say that it's not quite sure he sort of had global domination on his mind when he was doing it and sometimes you know a lot of the best music and a lot of the best pop music is created accidentally or through just sheer love of making noise and making melody and um yeah you know it's an exciting album I kind of compare to Tubular Bells in some ways in the sense that it was somebody who'd presumably been brewing these ideas for several years finally managed to bring it to fruition in a way that they were satisfied with and I think it's a really exciting album and I think it's a really and like Tubular Bells it has central themes that are tremendously inviting and accessible and aren't going to frighten your grandmother I mean
Speaker 1this is the electronic album that my dad bought you know this is you can't really understate this electronic music until this point had been not invisible but it had been pretty low key in terms of the mainstream pop charts isn't it I mean occasionally you would get a novelty a novelty song like Popcorn or something and you would hear a Brian Eno synthesizer on a Roxy music single but it It was used in a very different way. It wasn't used as part of the competition. compositional framework here this is electronic music and it's suddenly in the mainstream well i suppose i was
Speaker 2going to say there's one precedent in a way i mean not tangerine dream but possibly even tomato or tomita however one pronounces it didn't have hit singles though
Speaker 1didn't have hit singles number one in tanzania well actually see you've made a bit of an error there because tomita himself he was the japanese impersonator of walter carlos because walter carlos was a guy that had a synthesizer and basically wrote recorded few bach music but on the synthesizer and tomita took that clockwork orange but basically he was taking the walter carlos thing but again they didn't have hit singles they might have had a sort of album audience but what what's interesting about jean-michel jarron oxygen is this was a big hit single um yeah as
Speaker 2you're saying it reached my dad you know my dad bought oxygen part four yeah but he also had a lot of his music in the 70s and 80s and i think that's why it's a big hit and i think it's a big
Speaker 1hit and i think that's why it's a big hit and i think it's a big hit and i think it's a big hit by the way snowflakes are dancing snowflakes are dancing terrible falling terrible error it's very interesting that what's also going on this year apart from electronic music apart from singer-songwriter music and disco music and proto-punk music is that the heavy rock bands of the 70s are also doing some new things in 1976 so we have um black sabbath but we've also got thin lizzy another band making two albums this year both terrific records jail jailbreak and johnny the fox both came out in 1976 we've got blue easter cult making agents of fortune we've got rush making 2112 which is kind of their their their big breakthrough record but the album i want to talk about is by the most famous heavy rock band which is led zeppelin but i think this album they made this year arguably is very underrated now if it's possible to say that a led zeppelin album is underrated well i'm saying i'm saying this record is underrated presence my favorite led zeppelin record and i believe it's your favorite led zeppelin record too right i think
Speaker 2it possibly is yeah i mean along with um houses the holy but obviously houses the holy is quite disconnected is is very eclectic and doesn't hold together i mean presence is the one led zeppelin album that weirdly i tie it in with his era in that it's an album with a tremendous sense of focus and a very distinctive sound that runs throughout it and as an album it's very very intense it has quite a harsh soundscape again this like van der graaf generator like magma lightly read patty smith isn't the beautiful sounding album a lot of albums are during this era there's a real edge and a crunch to it and it's a very guitar dominated album it lacks the yeah i mean i was gonna say yeah this is this is jimmy's
Speaker 1favorite album too and i believe it's his favorite album because it's very much his baby john paul jones is barely on this record there are no keyboards and and sorry to interrupt you but yes you're absolutely right i mean this is this is very much jimmy page's record yeah and
Speaker 2and maybe that's one of the things that accounts for it's like a popularity i can only think of two things really um the physical graffiti seem to be seen as the definitive zeppelin statement i mean for me it's a typical double album of that period in that i'd probably have an album's worth of it would be one of me too zeppelin's greatest you know cashmere is undoubtedly one of the greatest things they've ever done it's a there's astonishing music on it but it always struck me as being at least a side and a half too long yeah i agree whereas this is perfect yeah throughout from start to finish it does not exhaust your patience so i think on one level it was perhaps the era it came out in because i think it was possibly later 76 when punk had just about made its first impact on the scene and i think also it came after what was seen as this epic definitive um statement you know a bit like we were saying with with the beach boys that smiley smile is a great album in itself but it came after sergeant pepper's it came after quite a number of major works including their own pet sounds and perhaps seemed a bit small um so i'm not sure and and and also because of course the john paul jones element which was often the sweetener the the clavinet the melatron the strings um that's really not on this album at all um but i think to make
Speaker 1up for that we have we have some extraordinary layered guitar work here i mean i don't think there's another led zeppelin record where there are so many different interlocking layered parts in the guitar department if you listen to a track like achilles last stand there's so many sort of lines going on counterpoint lines sure i just think jimmy page is an absolute peak here i also think bonham is at an absolute peak here and i think roger robert plant is at a peak here although he was he was singing most of this record from a wheelchair i think he'd had he'd had a very bad car accident and he was having to do most of the singing sitting down but there's also something about this record that i think is worth pointing out is that this is the record where led zeppelin absolutely nail i think the funk elements to their sound now they kind of had they'd kind of always had this groove element they'd almost have pastiches of funk tracks on previous albums i think of that track on uh houses of the holy what is it called pastiche one i've forgotten the title of it the crunch the crunch yeah yeah but here there is just pure malevolent groove i mean i don't know how else to put it it just feels badass do you know what i mean um tracks tracks like um you know for your life and nobody's fault but mine bonham is just so in the groove and everyone is just so in that groove and i can hear the influence to come on bands like red hot chili peppers for example i think
Speaker 2you're right and and it's in you know because as you say it's one of plant's best albums and he sounds so emotionally committed and desperate at times but there's tremendous um input from all of them on this and um in some ways it reminds me as well of animals in that it gives the light this idea that led zeppelin were flabby um in that there's a muscular sound to this in the way that there's a muscular almost punkish sound to animals that in some ways is far more bitter aggressive and this goes for magma and vandegraaff as well than a lot of what chelsea are going to do at that
Speaker 1time um it's interesting we you know we talk about punk and you've already mentioned lou reed and patty smith and they both made records this year not their best records um it has to be said but the lou reed made coney island baby patty smith made radio ethiopia the first ramones record came out this year and i've always struggled a bit with the ramones for exactly that reason and i think it's a good thing that that i almost find it too reductive too simplistic i
Speaker 2mean patty smith album radio ethiopia has some great stuff on it and coney island baby the title track on lou reed's album is well worth hearing you know it's a beautiful epic piece it almost fits into the tracks i was talking about earlier the hotel california's the music and this is reed stretching himself and it has a great payoff line
Speaker 1at the end this is also you know we've talked already a lot about how um the the kind of quality of the work belies the reputation that this era has that actually this was just as creative as the early 70s had been for a lot of these artists even with punk just around the corner some of these artists were making some of their most radical radical and ambitious statements and it's no exception if you look at the world of very much the the mainstream pop artists or at least the cool ones so um stevie wonder songs in the key of life double out with a bonus seven inch just brimming with ideas and everything kind of thrown into that record also and i think it's um but the one artist i want to talk about that also made a double album this year that i don't think people really talk about this record enough i think it's for me one of his one of his best records and it's elton john and his double album blue moves which again a bit like songs in the key of life for stevie wonder is all over the shop i mean it's got everything from beautiful orchestrated piano ballads to gospel music to jazz almost like um you know torch songs to to progressive rock to disco bite your lip get up and dance he's got his disco song on this record too um and i don't think people listen to this record talk about this record enough and again i guess i wonder if it's a bit what you were saying about led zeppelin it was just the timing of this record that if it had come out say three or four years earlier when he was kind of at his commercial peak people would have listened more closely to it um but i certainly think in retrospect it's a record that people really should go back and appreciate for what it
Speaker 2is well i think you're right i mean one of the in particular is that they're artists at the peak of their commercial power and at the peak of their abilities and they are just doing anything they like brilliantly i mean the one thing that was interesting to me is listening to the instrumental on i think it's contusion i might be wrong on that on stevie wonder fusion songs in the key of life um the fusion track and listening yeah listening to the instrumentals on um elton john is actually they could have been brilliant jazz rock artists they could have been brilliant progressive rock artists they could have been brilliant balladeers brilliant funketeers and so on disco mavericks and um there is so much talent on display willfully on these albums and uh and blue moves i i agree you know it's kind of um elton unleashed if you like i mean it's
Speaker 1it's difficult to to talk about blue moves without without comparing it to his other you know classic double album from five years five years earlier leeward no less than that three years earlier yeah which of course is a massive record and but to me blue moves is right up there with that record it's just as ambitious just as eclectic and you have to obviously always obviously when you talk about and john you always have to remember the kind of rates he was producing these records is phenomenal i mean i i still hold up that run from the second elton john record the self-titled record in 1970 through to blue moves which is a mere span of six years which produced something like 10 classic studio albums two of them doubles as one of the greatest consistent runs by any pop artist in history perhaps only only matched by someone like the beatles or david bowie between a similar kind of period it's an astonishing work rate isn't it and no wonder no wonder there was fall i mean a personal fallout for him in terms of his addictions and the pressure and the stress
Speaker 2getting to so many artists of that period do seem so committed to their art so many bands from thin lizzy donna summer genesis vandegraaff producing two studio albums in 76 and then you know as we said you know wonder not only releasing this um career best double but giving a seven inch alongside it you know and it's and mccartney's work rate was was phenomenal during this period as well i mean he had um was it speed of sound out this year
Speaker 1speed yeah yeah t-rex futuristic dragon yeah yeah he's kind of an artist that's disappeared into his own little bubble in a way but you know we were talking about you know artists like magma and john anderson being in a bubble i think boland by this point is kind of you know and unless we forget three or four years earlier he was the biggest artist in the uk i mean he was massive and but even three even just three or four years later he's kind of disappeared into his own little kind of netherworld um but it's a very interesting record futuristic dragon i don't know if you're that familiar
Speaker 2with it it is yeah well i mean i think i quite like the boland funk era i actually think it's incredibly underrated you know it's as ambitious and as dotty as his earlier work and obviously you know luckily i mean partly i think it's because of his television program that he had on granada tv which i i used to watch you know coming home from school that he sort of rehabilitated himself because he would have 10cc and bowie on alongside the damned and in some ways he kind of became a sort of you know even though he was probably about 29 an elderly figurehead for punk you know and the irony of this is that members of wire and members of the stranglers were probably older than mark boland you know but that
Speaker 1that's that's interesting isn't it because a lot of that you kind of touched on something there are a lot of these guys that are that were branded old farts by the music press if not this year certainly by the following year some of them were still in their mid-20s i mean that's just bizarre isn't it and here we are the age of i mean i still feel like an up-and-coming artist i'm 52 you know but um it's extraordinary isn't it and and there's something a little bit tragic about it in some respects in some careers you look at some careers and you think okay well this band uh or this artist the career was kind of in terms of the the great creative peak was kind of over wasn't it by the time they hit 30. but what was
Speaker 2interesting is which artists were kind of saved from that so bowie was saved from it ferry was saved from it but you know yeah mike olfield i mean he was how old he's still probably early 20s at this stage wasn't he in
Speaker 11976 he didn't actually make a record but he's only 23 or 24 yeah yeah yeah and you
Speaker 2know this is somebody who's been completely dismissed as as antique and you're right you know boland olfield eddie jobson who i think was
Speaker 1younger again um so last thing tim i want to talk about there's a few there's a few on our list here that we've we've kind of put in the category or i've put in the category of outliers in the sense that i didn't really i didn't really know where to put them they're almost um you know albums that exist outside of genre in the best possible way the first penguin cafe orchestra uh comes from this year now how i don't know how you categorize an album like music from the penguin cafe it seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time doesn't it it seems to come from a tradition uh you know almost orchestral chamber music but it's got the playful ness of of you know art rock and how would you describe penguin cafe orchestra to someone that never heard them tim
Speaker 2difficult i suppose um playful chamber classical but that doesn't remotely no it doesn't touch on the folk elements that are in the band there's a whimsical quality but there's also a melancholy quality and the first album might be my favorite actually i think it's certainly the most unfettered um they continue to produce good albums throughout the 80s there's a timelessness about their music but but
Speaker 1yeah i mean i think but also penguin cafe you have pop i mean they're a pop band you think of songs like music for a found harmonium sure and the song with the the rubber telephone and rubber band i mean these are these are tracks that people may know because they've been used so many times in tv and and cinema um there's a there's definitely a pop sensibility in the same way that we talked about jean-michel jar having a pop sensibility it's almost like taking chamber classical music to the mainstream isn't it the pop mainstream well
Speaker 2they're always on the edge of being a pop sensibility and they're always on the edge of being a pop being too twee yeah but they just about avoid it yeah and that's one of the the beauties of it that there's something in the sound there's a kind of organic grain in the sound of the band that doesn't make it sound cheap and i suppose that's one of their their skills really to sort of bring some quite experimental you know even systems music or minimalist music ideas to the mainstream
Speaker 1so there's also can making an album called flow motion which is i think of as kind of their reggae but the album i want to talk about from the outliers category which is a record that i think is possibly the most obscure record on this entire list uh and i adore this record um and it's again it's very hard to categorize although it has a lot in common with music from the penguin cafe in the sense that simon jeffs is contributing to this record and this album is an album made by a guy called john g perry called sunset wading now if you've never heard of this record don't feel bad because most people have heard of this record and i think it's a really good record and i think it's a really good record and i think it's a really good record and i think it's a really good record um john g perry was a bass player he played bass in caravan earlier in the decade and somehow he got this record deal with decker records at the time to make this beautiful tone poem i don't know how else to describe it really it's it's predominantly instrumental it's a love letter to a part of the united kingdom called the lake district a very bucolic album in that sense and it has an incredible lineup it has people like roger glover from deep purple playing synthesizer on it it's michael jack michael giles from king crimson playing drums and drums um has simon jeffs from penguin kathy oxford as i mentioned and it's produced by rupert hein who famously would go on to become a very big producer in in the 80s with artists like howard jones and rush um and they're basically they basically with this record they just made as i say this beautiful kind of tone poem a love letter to the countryside and it has a very acoustic quality to it but it's not folk um it's not classical music it's definitely rock music isn't it i suppose it's still a very acoustic music it's definitely rock music isn't it i suppose it's still has the dna in a way of something like caravan this very charming kind of progressive aspect to it but it really is something out on its own isn't it tim how would you describe yeah
Speaker 2well i think you know the word bucolic comes to mind with this and and i always kind of see it in relationship between two things really one um what michael feel was doing on things like yes i kind of hear in this definitely a sort of beautiful thematically linked quality and the sounds of it remind me of oldfield and then an album i know we both love uh virginia astley's from gardens where he feels secure in the early 80s which of course again is another sort of instrumental homage to the english countryside or a day in the english countryside it's got a similar feel because doesn't this also have field recordings as well it has field
Speaker 1recording and also has in common with the virginia astley it has a sense of things unfolding in real time so like yeah the first half of the second side you you're kind of going on a ramble through the countryside you hear the sound of the farmer saying good morning so and you hear the sort of sound of rivers and streams as the as the walker passes in
Speaker 2that respect there is a similar feel despite the music being quite different but what's interesting is that obviously oldfield you know partly perhaps because of the success of tubular bells um herges ridge did fantastically well but this is a very quiet record and you know you it's crucial isn't it it's 1970 76 it's deca records it could not have been commissioned in the next two years three years four years perhaps ever again this is the last year that an album like this could be made and while we were saying at the beginning of the show you know renaissance and jeff wayne had huge hits with progressive follies in 1978 the one thing that they had that this doesn't have to a certain extent is grandeur you know even the andrew lloyd weber variations it's quite manic it's quite grand whereas this unfolds really gently it's a very quiet album and perhaps that went against its profile at the time penguin cafe orchestra although there's an element in some of the playing i think it's the the epic on that has almost a sense that actually these guys know who lou reed is but there's no rock on that album really there's no rock on the penguin cafe orchestra and perhaps it's one of the reasons why you know they became beloved of um world music fans folk music fans classical music fans as much as pop fans and i guess this album was that little bit too much rock to have crossed over in the way that penguin cafe orchestra did i don't know i mean i think i
Speaker 1think there's a lot to do also with the label a deca couldn't have been more uncool in 1976 if they tried this is not a cool label to be on you know uh whereas i think correct me if i'm wrong Café were on EG, weren't they? But it's interesting because I think the one thing um it does have in common with with say the john anderson album and you kind of touched on this is it's very hard to believe that these people were even aware of what was going on uh it sounds like they're completely in their little bubble i can't imagine john g perry and rupert sitting down of an evening and and listening to the ramones debut album uh probably more likely they would have put on the lark ascending by vaughn williams or something like that you know what i mean it's it sounds like it's completely of another time but in a sense that's also made a very timeless record it doesn't date it still sounds gorgeous a little story um i introduced this album to to michael from opeth my friend michael from opeth um and on their last record right until the last minute michael always has no titles for any of his songs um and one of the tracks on their last record which has the latin title which i can't remember but um right until the last minute when he sent me the finished album before he titled the songs was still called john g perry um because it had basically been very influenced by a song on this record so he was very much fell under the spell of this record too and i think it is a record that the kind of weaves its spell on people if you get it if you get it it really is a magical
Speaker 2experience it is and i think in the way that the virginia rast the album did it is one of those albums that people who don't know this exists listen and they are beguiled by it it sounds like this was the last year an album that could have been made could have been
Speaker 1released on a major label there is actually the exception that proves the rule to your theory tim that this is the last year that something like this could get done in 1977 decker commissioned the fairy symphony from tom newman i'll leave it there
Speaker 2you're right yeah i'll leave
Speaker 1it there okay also
Speaker 2when sorry i was going to say when was the whatever the pentatark of the cosmogony oh that's another thing i think do you
Speaker 1know what i think that might even be the year after that 1978 yeah so there you go so there are exceptions that prove the but i think your point broadly is is obviously true and and well taken yeah you so um tim okay so yeah this is what we need to do at this point is we need to pick our favorite album of the year or favorite albums of the years we always do and also the album that we think points most to the future what what music is going to become so arguably the most influential record from this year in the longer term so what would be your first of your favorite albums from this year i mean
Speaker 2this is again almost impossible to choose i mean i've got to choose his year uh as my favorite because it is certainly my equal favorite jenny mitchell album possibly my favorite artist of all time in terms of sort of um what hit me emotionally probably at the time it would have been how dare you 10cc which i still think is a great album and um a trick of the tale by genesis actually i find an incredibly beautiful new beginning for the band they sound very confident for a band that in effect have had the stuffing knocked out of them and the focal point taken away they produce this beautifully compelling album what would you unless you
Speaker 1want to pick something else i was going to say would now would you pick your most influential record i'm going to say something
Speaker 2which you might agree with which is jean-michel jarre's um oxygen in that it anticipates the electro pop of the late 70s early 80s it anticipates chill out and aspects of its sound can still be heard in soundtrack music and even the odd hip-hop production
Speaker 1that would also be my my choice for most influential my favorites yeah it's again i think like you it's tough not to not to include hijira uh my favorite jenny mitchell am i one of my favorite artists presence i love presence abba's arrival i just think is a masterwork um elton's blue moves album there's so many great choices and as we kind of touched on there's so many different genres here that seem to be peaking in a sense so many artists from different areas are kind of peaking at this point
Speaker 2yeah q roan is an album that we didn't mention john greaves album which is fantastic from this period and and you know the big mainstream hitter this year hotel california it's actually very ambitious in parts and the title track is certainly one of the best eagles pieces and that i suppose a bit like everybody loves the sunshine has a sense of disillusionment a sense that perhaps the party isn't what it was cracked up to be and the excess is reaching a conclusion so maybe you can hear the seeds of punk in things like hotel california as excessive and opulent and lovely as it is and you know that never-ending guitar solo there's a sense that they're aware of their own obsolescence and excess nothing wrong
Speaker 1with a never-ending guitar solo as long as it's a good never-ending guitar solo of course that is true yeah okay great tim we'll wrap up there uh that that was uh very interesting we crammed an awful lot of records into that episode i think something like 70 or 80 records got a name check there which which is testament to to what a what a great you know year it was in the past and i think it's a testament to in pop and rock music um we've had this problem with a number of years and this is another one um just one more thing i want to say before we we uh before we sign off is if you have enjoyed the podcast you've enjoyed this podcast or any of the podcasts please please please do go and give us a rating or leave a review on any of the platforms you've been listening on particularly the apple podcast platform because a lot of these uh platforms rely on feedback um for their algorithms to do their work and just you know spread the word about the podcast uh so all it remains to do is to say thank you very much for listening again and we'll see you next time thank you very much and goodbye from me and goodbye from me bye
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