new wave

It’s the golden age of New Wave, from heavy hitters like Blondie (“Picture This”, while not a US hit encapsulates everything great about them) and Elvis Costello to cult artists such as Nick Lowe (a year away from his only US hit) and Talking Heads (opted for their elegiac single rather than the obvious one from that year) and a few true weirdos (XTC, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Devo (whose chaotic Stones cover is the very definition of smashing “post” and “punk” together.))

Still, the above selections comprise but a small portion of what the year had to offer—you can make ’78 look especially cool by spotlighting The Undertones, The Ramones, even a reformed Walker Brothers (with the wondrous, Bowie-aping “Nite Flights”), but it’s not the whole story. Far more telling is Olivia Newton-John, the only artist who appears more than once here with the John Travolta duet “You’re The One That I Want” (honestly the only thing I love about Grease) and her late-in-the-year, lesser-remembered smash “A Little More Love”, which nearly rivals ABBA (don’t worry, they’re here too) in ultra-catchy power-rock shlock.

Actually, let’s talk about schlock (some might alternately describe it as “trash”.) I suppose I’m more susceptible to it from this period for it would make up a notable portion of the first songs I’d remember hearing on the radio in the immediate years to come. The epic sax solos of “Baker Street” and “Time Passages”, Michael McDonald’s inimitable backing vocals on “You Belong To Me”, the faux-exotic, extra-cheese samba that is “Copacabana”—all of them talismans from my early childhood, none of them at odds of ever remotely seeming hip (at least until Yacht Rock became a recognized, categorized thing in the 2000s).

Disco only further plays into this: sure, one can unironically praise the crisp, gleaming funk of “Dance With Me” or lush elegance of “I Want Your Love” or unstoppable drive of “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”; however, one then must also consider “I Love The Nightlife (Disco ‘Round)” where Alicia Bridges’ campy intonation surely inspired generations of drag performers or (speaking of camp) Boney M’s inexplicable “Rasputin” (aka, “Russia’s Greatest Love Machine”), which threads both the ridiculous and the sublime more seamlessly than even Santa Esmeralda did in ’77 or Disco Tex and His Sex-O-Lettes in ’75.

As usual, Kate Bush is an entirely different matter. If you listen to her debut single “Wuthering Heights” (not the ’86 remake on The Whole Story, my own introduction to it) or watch the music video above, you might be tempted to lump her in with all that schlock (and camp) and call it a day. But no, there’s something present within the song, within her essence, even, that transcends the very notion of schlock—an ingenuity projecting sincerity even in the most theatrical of presentations. It blows my mind that this was a four-weeks-at-number-one-hit in the UK and yet, it makes total sense that so many listeners could instantly give themselves over to it. Bush’s salvo is one-of-a-kind in how it simultaneously looks forwards and backwards, utilizing elements from the past to formulate what still feels like a whole new language.

My 1978 playlist on Spotify:

The peak year for post-punk, 1981 even had its own theme song of sorts in Kim Wilde’s immortal “Kids In America”. It came from the synth-end of that spectrum, along with other such newfangled artists as Depeche Mode, OMD and Soft Cell (not to mention then-veterans Kraftwerk); from the guitar-end, you had The English Beat, Pretenders, The Go-Go’s, even the good ol’ Ramones. More often than not, however, post-punk encompassed a canny blend of the two, an in-between space that collected oddballs from Romeo Void (with Deborah Iyall wailing “I might like you better if we slept together” over and over again into the void) to Adam & The Ants, whose “Prince Charming” is surely one of the oddest UK number one hits of the 80s.

On that note, Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman” is easily the oddest UK number two hit ever, a free-form, spoken word proto-AMSR tone poem spread out over eight minutes. As a six-year-old in Wisconsin, I didn’t hear it until I was in my twenties. My favorite song at the time was undoubtedly the famous-orchestral-flourishes-over-a-drum-machine-beat medley “Hooked On Classics”; I remember becoming ecstatic whenever it came on the radio and I fully appreciated its recent appearance in the gay sex montage in the first episode of It’s A Sin.

Most of the stuff I knew at the time came from Solid Gold and my parents’ preferred soft rock station; while I have a nagging respect for some of it, you won’t see the likes of Air Supply, Christopher Cross or even Rick Springfield here. But Kim Carnes’ husky voice (and slap-happy music video) for “Bette Davis Eyes” endures, as does Lindsey Buckingham’s “Trouble” (he had no good reason to keep such gibberish in the intro, but I’m thankful he did) and ABBA’s startling, verging-on-new-wave “The Visitors” (Who are these “Visitors”? Immigrant hordes? Alien invaders? Mere figments of the singer’s imagination?)

This is the year hip-hop begins to seep (however slowly) into pop culture. Although I didn’t include Blondie’s “Rapture” (too obvious, opting for Debbie Harry’s flimsier but kookier solo effort) or Grandmaster Flash, I did make room for the soon-to-be heavily-sampled ESG and Tom Tom Club, plus Frankie Smith’s novelty crossover and Gil Scott-Heron’s epic proto-rap Reagan takedown. Inevitably, my attention shifts over to post-disco anthems by Taana Gardner, Was (Not Was) and former disco diva herself Grace Jones—Nightclubbing, her gender-bending (and genre-bending) apotheosis has steadily grown into one of my favorite albums since first hearing it just four years ago, with slinky, sultry “Walking In The Rain” a perfect leadoff track.

My 1981 Playlist:

Haunted Jukebox

1978: I Hated You; I Loved You, Too

1981: Feeling Like A Woman, Looking Like A Man