Tag Archives: 1979

878. you’ve got my number (why don’t you use it?)

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“The Undertones being one of the greatest singles bands ever, You’ve Got My Number (why don’t you use it?) being a darned fine single. Though I’ll be honest. I never really liked them that much at the time, for which I blame Edward. One of those obsessive fan-holes who can’t let a good thing speak for itself – has to evangelize it, until you come to hate it, even if you don’t, just to get under the guy’s skin. Anyway, he’s long gone now, haven’t seen him in decades. Which rather sets the Undertones free.” (Philip Random)

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890. the thrasher

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In which Neil Young waxes sad and beautiful about leaving home and finding himself on an asphalt highway bending through libraries and museums, galaxies and stars. Found on the acoustic side of 1979’s Rust Never Sleeps, the album where Mr. Young faced the punk whirlwind, found it relevant, and thus ensured that (unlike most of his contemporaries) he would neither burn out nor fade away, but keep on keeping on.

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892. fantastic voyage

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In which the alien aka David Jones aka David Bowie comes clean and reveals he’s really human after all. “I remember hearing this a lot in 1980 – memories of Ronald Raygun running hard for the White House, the hostage thing ongoing in Iran, a clash of civilizations apparently … the realization of how utterly doomed and damned we all were if couldn’t find a common humanity beneath all our bullshit gods and politics. The supreme challenge of learning to live with someone else’s mental and spiritual health issues. Same as it ever was.” (Philip Random)

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896. groovy times

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The Clash telling it like it was in 1979 (and now for that matter). Got a problem with the weight of the world? You’re just not thinking, grooving, acting fast enough. In fact, they were so prolific (and good) at the time that they dropped Groovy Times as a b-side. First band since the Beatles to be that hot. And probably the last.

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934. I pity inanimate objects

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Godley and Crème started out with 10cc and ended up as cutting edge rock video artists, but in the middle somewhere found time for a few albums of overtly strange and accomplished pop experimentation. And it never got stranger than I Pity Inanimate Objects (from 1979’s Freeze Frame) which employs all manner of studio trickery to accomplish a genuinely unexpected end – you actually feel pity for things that are not alive, except they are, of course, they’re comprised of atoms and neutrons and other insanely small actions and reactions, which are the fundament of all life, all matter, all everything. It’s true. Do some research. And be kind to your toaster.

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941. look back in anger

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“A nifty bit of Bowie genius from 1979’s Lodger, the comparatively overlooked album that capped off his so-called Berlin Trilogy. So-called because Lodger was actually recorded in Switzerland and NYC in and around various tours. But Berlin was never far away from Bowie’s heart and brain in those days, the friction of its divided soul fueling mutant sounds and angles that couldn’t seem to help invent the future — the decade to be known as the 1980s.” (Philip Random)

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