1979: January to May

The seventies, best ever decade for music, was nearing its end. The beginning of 1979 was exceptionally quiet: I cannot name any significant albums to come out in either January or February. This delay led to an avalance of high quality in March, with five releases worth discussing. But before we get to those, let's reminisce one West German album that came out at an unknown time during 1979. And let's do the same with another one from the same country just a little later. These two are good placeholders for January or February. Who knows, maybe they did come out then.

The first one of the two is Peter Baumann's Trans Harmonic Nights that contains one of my greatest electronic music favorites of the decade, Meridian Moorland. By 1979, Baumann had left Tangerine Dream and showed some promise at the beginning of his solo career. There is no point in embedding anything else from the album because this one track is so unbeatable. I had to resort to Spotify once again since I couldn't find this song in YouTube.

However, there is one important thing to note. If you play the song directly using the link above, it is interrupted before its finish. For some reason, the track change is in a wrong location. If interested, please log in to Spotify, find the entire album and start playing Meridian Moorland from there. That way, you can hear it in its entirety because its last 65 seconds have been placed at the beginning of the following track called The Third Site. After those 65 seconds, you will notice a moment of silence that marks the place where the track really changes, and only after that does The Third Site really begin.

Let's get to the first March release next. Frank Zappa was an immensely productive musician throughout his career. He released so many albums that I couldn't possibly keep up with them all, but his 3 March double album release Sheik Yerbouti caught my attention. I really enjoyed its closing track Yo' Mama that has been embedded above. One thing worth noting is that it was recorded live with some exceptional musicians: at the end, among others, Zappa names Adrian Belew, Terry Bozzio and Patrick O'Hearn, all of whom will be important names in this blog later on.

The other West German release with an unknown release date (or month) is Die Nacht der Seele by Popol Vuh. Following Brüder der Schattens, Söhne des Lichts the group was still in a highly creative state but this time they composed much shorter tracks. There are several magical instrumental works on the album, none of which I was able to find either in YouTube or Spotify. If you have better luck, at the very least check out the tracks whose names begin with the word Mantram.

Onward with the March releases then. The American group Dixie Dregs from Georgia had a truly unique sound, combining southern rock with bluegrass and progressive influences. Their probably best known album Night of the Living Dregs contained a big favorite of mine, an instrumental called Punk Sandwich. There were some other decent tracks on the album as well, but this one is easily the best.

Another American group The Tubes has already made it to the Albums of the year list twice before, with their first two albums that were released in 1975 and 1976. Their third one Now (1977) was a forgettable affair but their fourth studio album Remote Control is overall their best. Their greatest individual songs appeared on the first two albums but this one was noteworthy in that it doesn't really contain a single weak track. The rock 'n' roll satire of America's obsession with the mindless entertainment of television was produced by Todd Rundgren who had a strong year - we will mention him again only moments later.

Easily the strongest track on an excellent album is its closing track Telecide, which is short for "television suicide". The angrily rocking track segues brilliantly into the main theme of Remote Control at its very end, closing not only the song but the entire album in a memorable way.

It's a funny thing that I mentioned Terry Bozzio only a few paragraphs ago. During the very same month that he played drums on Frank Zappa's Sheik Yerbouti, one of his greatest works was also released. The second album of the British-American symphonic prog cult favorite U.K. was always their true masterwork, although for some reason Danger Money isn't generally hailed as one.

I have written about the album's centerpiece Carrying No Cross already last year, when it reached number 14 on the Top 20 Long Prog Masterpieces list. Other masterpieces on the album include the title track, Bozzio's unbelievable show off track The Only Thing She Needs and the song embedded below.

One more important March release is still left to discuss.Tom Robinson Band, who had recently become a huge success with their single hit 2-4-6-8 Motorway, released their hastily collected second album TRB Two also in March. Like Remote Control, it was produced by Todd Rundgren but was hardly the masterpiece that the American effort was. And still, there was one brilliant song also on that album. It has been embedded below.

Earlier in the decade, I mentioned David Bowie's contribution to the success of Mott the Hoople. Then, instead of recording the brilliant All the Young Dudes himself, he gave it to a relatively unknown group for them to record, even though it was one of his best songs. Now, I think Peter Gabriel did almost the same thing, by giving his composition Bully for You for TRB to record. The lyrics were written by Robinson but the music was Gabriel's. The end result is extremely powerful, as you can hear below.

Compared to March, April 1979 was much, much quieter. The only release that I feel is worth noting, is the fourth solo album by Anthony Phillips called Sides. It wasn't anywhere as good as The Geese & the Ghost that I mentioned earlier, but there was one track that I immediately liked. Sisters of Remindum begins deceptively like any symphonic prog instrumental that places emphasis on piano, but soon changes its direction to something much more original. Check this one out if you have a chance.

In May, I turned 16 and the other former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett released his third solo album, easily his best work yet. Hackett's solo career would peak next year with his fourth album; this year's Spectral Mornings was an early indicator of great things to come. There are several strong songs to choose from, from the opening Every Day to an absolutely great instrumental Lost Time in Cordoba. But let's go with the one that has always been my favorite, The Virgin and the Gypsy.

Finally, let's close this blog entry with some Finnish music. The new album by Pekka Pohjola, called Visitation, was not quite as good as Keesojen lehto that we discussed a couple of years ago, but a perfectly fine effort nonetheless. I don't have an exact release date, or even a month, but since the album was recorded during January and February, it would most likely have come out in late spring; most likely May, or possibly June.

Visitation is pretty good all the way from beginning to end, but doesn't achieve true greatness before its very last track Try to Remember, which I will embed below. Pohjola, who died in 2008, was always good at creating atmospheric, lovely instrumental tracks and this one is among the best he ever made. It is slightly exceptional in how much pathos is built up towards the end, but otherwise, this is very much in the same vein with the rest of his best compositions.