1979

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Was this the best year ever for popular music? I think so. Even if you don't agree, you have to admit it was a very fine vintage indeed. So let's discuss this marvellous year. What was going on that made the music so good? I suppose it was one of those hybridising moments when all sorts of styles were starting to mate with each other and produce something new and exciting. You could have electronic with an r&b beat, you could have art rock with a pop feel, you could have punk outrage with a disco gloss... or maybe that explanation's a bit too pat, I don't know. It was definitely the moment of punk/disco crossover, though, you only have to listen to Blondie or "She's Lost Control" to hear that. I'm listening to Human League's Reproduction at the moment and that seems to sum up what was happening quite well.

― pj proby, Tuesday, 1 February 2005 10:48 (twenty years ago)

welcome!

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 10:51 (twenty years ago)

Thank you!

"Lodger" is a pretty good summary of what was happening too - the eclecticism of it, the krautrock influence on "Red Sails", the disco of "DJ", the nihilism of "Repetition", the art rock experiments of backwards tapes and songs with exactly the same chord sequences, the overlay of irony on even the most emotional of the songs etc

― pj proby, Tuesday, 1 February 2005 10:54 (twenty years ago)

Is THE LODGER David Bowie's best record?

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 10:58 (twenty years ago)

already been done

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 1 February 2005 10:59 (twenty years ago)

ah, the heady days of mid-January 2005...

― Miles Finch, Tuesday, 1 February 2005 11:01 (twenty years ago)

Oh. Sorry.

― pj proby, Tuesday, 1 February 2005 11:15 (twenty years ago)

Good song, too.

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 14:09 (twenty years ago)

Also, that was the year Michigan State won the NCAA championship (Magic over Bird) and I was a ten-year-old kid living in Lansing so that was pretty much heaven.

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 14:12 (twenty years ago)

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