March 22 - April 7, 2019
Jan. 22-Feb.7, 2015
Philippine Showbiz Today
13
Special Feature
Albums that Mattered the Most in 1979
t was in early 1979 when
I
I decided to seriously
begin my hobby of collecting
the United Kingdom.
The Spirits Having Flown
album marked the end of the
vinyl albums. Locally made vinyl Bee Gee’s most successful era,
albums, that is. A single vinyl prior to a severe downturn in the
album cost P26 and a double early 1980s when they would
album cost P42. Imported vinyl experience a near-total radio
albums were rare and hard to find blackout (particularly in America
during those days and cost more and the Disco Sucks! campaign)
than a P100 for a single album— that Robin Gibb would refer to
much too expensive for a high as “censorship” and “evil” when
school student whose daily baon interviewed by the music press.
was P20.
After having bought my
first ever long playing record
last Christmas Season of 1978
at Greenhills Shopping Center
(the original motion picture
soundtrack of Sgt. Pepper’s
Lonely Hearts Club Band, ugh!)
I began searching high and low
the following New Year at record
bars and record stores for quality,
classic albums to buy and spin on
our trusty Sony stereo back home.
And I was not disappointed by the Cheap Trick at Budokan
sheer number of albums released (Released in February 1979)
It took a trip to Japan for
in 1979, the end of the 1970s, the
Cheap
Trick to become popular
Give Peace a Chance decade and
the start of the I Me Mine decade at home in the United States.
While garnering only moderate
of the 1980s.
Now let us flash back 40 success in the US with their
years ago and read about and first three albums (Cheap Trick,
listen to these vinyl/cassette/8 In Color, Heaven Tonight), the
track cartridge albums that really quartet of Robin Zander, Rick
made a profound impact on music Nielsen, Tom Petersson and Bun
lovers when they were released E. Carlos managed to generate
and appeared in record stores all Beatlemania-type frenzy during
the group’s 1978 tour of Japan.
around the country in 1979.
Cheap Trick found success
in Japan and capitalized on this
popularity by recording Cheap
Trick at Budokan in Tokyo on
April 28 and 30, 1978, with an
audience of 12,000 screaming
Japanese fans nearly drowning
out the music of the band at
times. The album was intended
for release only in Japan but with
strong airplay of the promotional
album From Tokyo to You, an
estimated 30,000 import copies
Spirits Having Flown – Bee were sold in the United States and
Gees (Released on January 24, Cheap Trick at Budokan was finally
1979)
released domestically in February
The Bee Gees last hurrah 1979. The album also introduced
after their blockbuster double two previously unreleased original
album soundtrack to Saturday songs, “Lookout” and “Need Your
Night Fever, Spirits Having Flown Love.”
didn’t disappoint diehard fans of
The gate fold cover of Cheap
the Gibb brothers. The fifteenth Trick at Budokan, a live shot of
long playing album released by vocalist Zander and bass player
Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb, Petersson, was a smart marketing
the album’s first three songs— move, putting the pretty boys
“Tragedy,” “Too Much Heaven” in front to attract young female
and “Love You Inside Out”—were buyers. But it was also deceiving,
released as singles and all of since it is the talented—though
them reached the No. 1 position less photogenic—twosome of
on the Billboard Singles Charts in guitarist Nielsen and drummer
the US.
Carlos that really made this album
This musical feat gave the rock and roll.
Bee Gees an unbroken run of six
Nielsen, who wrote or co-
US chart-toppers in a one-year wrote nine of the ten songs on the
period and equalling a feat shared album, makes each note count
by Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley and with powerfully melodic lead
the Beatles. It was the first Bee guitar inputs, making “Surrender”
Gees album to make the UK top and “Big Eyes” still sound urgent
40 in ten years (excluding the today. Carlos pushes his drum kit
soundtrack for Saturday Night to the limit on the album opener,
Fever), as well as being their first “Hello There,” and then is an
and only Number One album in excellent example of restraint on
by Jose K. Lirios
PST Manila Correspondent
the remake of the Fats Domino Knack’s refusal to give interviews
hit song “Ain’t That a Shame.”
was also viewed negatively by the
Cheap Trick at Budokan music press at that time.
remained on the charts for over
a year and sold more than three
million copies. Cheap Trick
would later achieve success in
the recording studio, quickly
recording and releasing their
1979 top 10 album Dream Police,
but it would never again reach the
dizzying heights found in Tokyo,
Japan at the Budokan Arena.
Get the Knack – The Knack
(Released June 11, 1979)
Get the Knack, the debut
album by the power pop group
the Knack, came out in mid-June
1979. At the time of its release,
Get the Knack was one of the
most successful debuts in the
history of popular music, selling
over one million copies in less
than two months and spending
five weeks at number one on the
Billboard 200 album chart.
The first single released from
the album, “My Sharona,” was
number one on the Billboard
Hot 100 chart for six weeks and
number one on Billboard’s Top
Pop Singles of 1979 yearend
chart. The follow-up single,
“Good Girls Don’t,” followed “My
Sharona” to Number One on
the Canadian Singles Chart and
reached Number 11 in the United
States.
Get the Knack became an
immediate success because of
an intense promotional campaign
by their record label, Capitol
Records. The Knack’s image was
largely influenced by the Beatles.
The album’s front cover imitates
the Beatles’ first Capitol Records
album Meet the Beatles!, and the
back cover photo depicts a scene
from the Beatles’ film A Hard
Day’s Night. To complete the
Beatle imagery, the 1960s Capitol
rainbow label adorned the album,
a detail the band had written on
its contract.
A negative backlash against
the Knack’s overnight success
formed among music critics who
found the band’s image and music
too contrived and their attitude
too brash. Conceptual artist Hugh
Brown even started a “Knuke the
Knack” campaign complete with
T-shirts, buttons and bumper
stickers. Some music writers
began to criticize the Knack for
what they perceived as arrogance,
hype and a misogynist attitude
expressed in their songs. The
The B-52’s (Released July 6,
1979)
In the late 1970s, the sight
of B-52’s girls Kate Pierson
and Cindy Wilson dancing and
singing in gigs and performances
was a kind of culture shock that
even the nihilistic urgings of punk
hadn’t prepared the world for. After
years of hippie culture and the
whole back-to-nature simplicity
of 1970s artists like Neil Young,
Jackson Browne and the Eagles,
something as flamboyantly camp
as the B-52’s was a direct affront
to mainstream sensibilities.
The essence of New Wave, the
B-52’s combined playful silliness
with outright kitsch in a musical
mix that was both propulsive
and infectious. To many in the
mainstream, this made them
seem like a gimmick, but if critics
had looked below the surface they
would have discovered that the
group had been part of Athens,
Georgia’s avant-garde long before
the city became one of the first
indie-rock capitals.
Early versions of “52 Girls”
and “Rock Lobster” (which is said
to have convinced John Lennon
to come out of hiding and make
music again after hearing the
song being played in a disco in the
Bahamas) recorded for their own
label, proved that the members
of the B-52’s was capable of
straightforward punk aggression.
The versions on The B-52’s were
given considerably more depth
by the production style of Chris
Blackwell, so much so that “Rock
Lobster” actually became one
of the first significant New Wave
hits.
The B-52’s was one of the
first American New Wave albums
to enter the Top 50 and it was
on the strength of songs like “52
Girls,” “Dance This Mess Around,”
“Lava” and “6060-842” which
combined crazy rhythms with
absurd lyrics and the constant
intertwining of complex male-
female vocal harmonies.
The fact that Pierson and
Wilson apparently existed on
equal footing with their male
counterparts in the band helped
set the stage for the whole inter-
gender exchange of alternative
rock, along with the group’s
ironic, campy sensibilities. ●