In an earlier post, I said Wings' London Town, and I stand by it, but Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds comes in a VERY close second. Catch me on another day and it just might snag the#1 spot.
I’ll see your Street Legal and raise you one Street Hassle (Lou Reed) it actually features Bruce who has the clear winner of this thread with Darkness.
For me, 1978 is one of the weakest years of the whole 1954 to 1998 era of popular music that I'm reasonably well versed in. I have an aversion to 70s' hard-rock bands, I don't really enjoy disco, American new wave groups aren't my thing, and some (by then) established artists I like (Bob Dylan, Bob Marley) released some fairly 'meh' records that year. Or 'inessential', anyway. I don't like mid-to-late 70s' Springsteen, either. And McCartney's 1978 album is awful. I'm not an Elvis Costello or Kate Bush fan. I like the shout-outs (upthread) to Gino Vanelli and Stanley Clarke. The Blondie album is pretty good, I guess, but I wouldn't get excited over it. I haven't really heard Marvin Gaye's Here, My Dear, so I can't say yet. I guess the Willie Nelson album of standards was interesting (I heard that a lot when I was a kid in the early/mid-80s). There are really only two albums from 1978 that I listen to now and again. One is Bob James' Touchdown... ..and the other (more well known, I guess) is The Police's Outlandos D'Amour, which is nevertheless possibly their weakest album, if slightly: So, for me, this is a pretty forgettable year in Western popular music.
About time! Still one of my all time favourite albums and influential in many ways. Classic artwork too.
Played some Dickies this week, probably the first time since 1978! Loved all their colour vinyl singles. ..
If This Year's Model weren't in the way, I might just agree with you. I certainly think it's the Jam's greatest album. It has the special kind of energy and focus of an artist achieving a new level of musical ambition, understanding, and mastery, when anything seems possible.
With a few exceptions 1978 was not a great year for music. Especially compared to other years ... Yes, it's subjective. There's not much that I still regularly listen to. Either Funkadelic "One Nation Under a Groove" or Peter Gabriel's second LP.
