The year of Rumours, Star Wars, Saturday Night Fever (all represented!) and more. In addition to OG punks The Ramones putting out their second and third albums, you can also hear stirrings of this new genre bubbling up in fellow yanks Talking Heads and Television; France also has its say with Plastic Bertrand’s cheeky one-off, which smashes the 50s, 60s and 70s together until it resembles punk.
Still, even before Travolta transformed into a silver screen, white-suited icon at year’s end, disco was arguably at its creative peak. The extended dance remix, popularized by Donna Summer the previous year nearly dominates this playlist, from Santa Esmeralda’s epic flamenco-disco take on an Animals song to Belle Epoque’s quirky fiddle-laced take on the genre (when I first heard those intro vocals, I thought I’d put on Joan Jett or Suzi Quatro by mistake) and of course, Summer’s own synthetic, predicting-the-‘80s-and-beyond masterpiece “I Feel Love”.
And yet, by a hair, “Marquee Moon” remains the longest track here, for the post-punkers and prog-rockers felt more comfortable taking their time as well. By then, you expected six-minute mood pieces from the likes of Brian Eno (“Julie With…” serenely drifts in and gradually coalesces only to gently fade into the ether.) But Steely Dan? Making the title track of their best-selling LP an eight-minute tone poem almost jazzy enough for fusion-era Miles Davis? And endurable enough for me to first hear on classic rock radio on a chilly Saturday afternoon in early 1993?
Balancing out other big hits from rockers (ELO, Heart), MOR-ers (Jimmy Buffett, Commodores, ABBA) and dancers (Chic, KC, Marvin Gaye and the most perfect disco single of all time from Thelma Houston) are relatively lesser-known gems: Joan Armatrading’s rhythmic folk, ex-Beach Boy Dennis Wilson’s attempt to make his own Nilsson Schmilsson and Bobbie Gentry, who recorded a few tracks around this time that didn’t see the light of the day until much later. “Thunder In The Afternoon” sounds very little like her 1967-74 catalog but it’s so full of promise it leaves one wondering what else she could’ve done had she kept releasing albums well into the next decade or three.
1977: Can’t You See It’s Burning Out of Control?
- Joan Armatrading, “Show Some Emotion”
- KC and the Sunshine Band, “I’m Your Boogie Man”
- Bee Gees, “More Than A Woman”
- Chic, “Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)”
- Boney M., “Ma Baker”
- Bobbie Gentry, “Thunder In The Afternoon”
- The Brothers Johnson, “Strawberry Letter 23”
- Brian Eno, “Julie With…”
- Dennis Wilson, “Dreamer”
- Thelma Houston, “Don’t Leave Me This Way”
- Marvin Gaye, “Got To Give It Up (Part 1)”
- Climax Blues Band, “Couldn’t Get It Right”
- Iggy Pop, “Lust For Life”
- Belle Epoque, “Miss Broadway”
- Donna Summer, “I Feel Love”
- Ramones, “Teenage Lobotomy”
- ELO, “Turn To Stone”
- Plastic Bertrand, “Ca Plane Pour Moi”
- Television, “Marquee Moon”
- Talking Heads, “Psycho Killer”
- Althea and Donna, “Uptown Top Ranking”
- Steely Dan, “Aja”
- Fleetwood Mac, “The Chain”
- Heart, “Barracuda”
- Abba, “The Name of the Game”
- Santa Esmeralda, “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”
- Cerrone, “Supernature”
- Meco, “Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band”
- Jimmy Buffet, “Margaritaville”
- Commodores, “Easy”
- David Bowie, “Sound and Vision”
Haunted Jukebox 