Hi! Just an update as I've almost finished whittling my list down to the last few slots. The Class of '77 Party was a big success! And we may do an early 80s Goth one for Halloween. The best list from our little party BY FAR was the one from my girlfriend Dawn who essentially submitted a spreadsheet that I'll summarize here with her top ten picks...
Dawn wrote:
I didn't get to listen to everything, but highlighted the ones I did listen to and like. And we especially need the females below added to the list!!! It can't be all about the dudes!
Dawn's Class of '77 in no particular order...
Blondie - Plastic Letters (recorded June - July '77)
Elvis Costello My Aim Is True (released July '77)
Iggy Pop - Lust For Life (released Aug '77)
Ramones - Leave Home (released Jan '77)
Ramones - Rocket To Russia (released Nov '77)
Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bullocks (released Oct '77)
Talking Heads - Talking Heads '77 (released Sept '77)
The Clash - The Clash (released Apr '77)
The Jam - In The City (released May '77)
The Vibrators - Pure Mania (released '77)
Class of '77: The Five U Don’t Know That U NEED to Hear!
Each of these flirted pretty hard with my top ten and fell just a bit short. A couple were right in the mix before the whittling hours of the past few days came for their heads. No matter. I found another spot for them here. All come with the highest endorsements. Give them some love, boys & girls! They deserve it!
o The American Elvis Costello
o A killer album that fell victim to the genre wars. Is it punk? Is it blue-eyed soul? It’s BOTH and all the better for it!
o An absolute fantastic & fun straight-up punk album that should be mentioned in the same sentence as The Damned's Damned Damned Damned, The Saints (I’m) Stranded and... dare I even say it... The Clash's debut!
o Spedding's self-titled debut from 1976 was a huge influence on the style & look of the punk bands emerging in the UK.
o The guitar GOD of the UK Pub Rock/Punk scene.
2.
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
Rock 'N' Roll With The Modern Lovers by Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers
o Jonathan is not afraid. He tailored punk after himself not the other way around. Making something exuberant, youthful and full of wild-eyed joy. He is is the Tyler Herro of the class of '77. Undaunted by the rules. Not afraid of being it’s own thing. And that’s punk as fuck in my book.
o Lo-fi DIY. Defiantly un-PC. Stupid & smart at the same time. Hardcore punk rock begins here, brothers & sisters with this band of fuck-ups from Washington DC! No wonder DC had such an amazing hardcore scene so early! An entire scene of 80s punk rock stems from the sound these guys created on this here platter. Do u like The Angry Samoans?! Then what are u waiting for? Throw this fucker on NOW!
A-side: Ok. My next post will be my Top Ten/HOF. I'm going camping this weekend with my kids and girlfriend so should be able to get to it when I get back.
All 5 of those are going to my Spotify 70s queue. Really glad the party was a success, but it doesn't look good for the Celtics 😁 _________________ Overall chart Fake overall chart
Repo's Class of '77: Hall Of Fame
This One goes to 11!
In the end I failed. I just couldn't do it. I whittled & whittled. Watching classic punk albums fall from the tree. Pruning is just not easy for me. In a month or so I will post my entire list of punk albums from 1977. But these are the ones that I just had to enshrine. The ones that I feel cannot be left out without undercutting the full spectrum and awesomeness of punk in 1977. Pub Rock. Metal. New Wave. Straight-up bangers. It's all here! As always, let me know what you think.
11.
Leave Home by Ramones
x Gabba Gabba We Accept We Accept You One of US!
y Bubblegum Punk perfection with classic after classic that will get your head boppin’ and your body poppin’!
z Wut? Over Rocket To Russia? It’s my list so STOP asking questions and keep scrolling, ya goober!
x “I’ve never called ourselves a heavy metal band. In every interview I’ve ever done I’ve just said we were a rock ‘n roll band. If we had short hair in 1977 we would have been called a punk band.” – Lemmy
y "The Godfathers of what punk would become in a few short years!" - Repo
z “It’s Punk PLUS!” - Dawn
x “You need help son. You need help really bad!”
y Epic punk vaudeville and the sequel the New York Dolls (and The Who at points) should have delivered!
x Truly angry and radical, Johnny Rotten had attitude for miles and quickly dismantled any notion that they were just some Malcolm McLaren marketing gimmick and became the voice of the class of '77
y The best punk vocalist of the entire class
x What happens when one overdoses on a speedball of The Rolling Stones and The New York Dolls
y Perfected the "Born To Lose" rock star mythos (for better & worse)
Mad to think that Wire album and that Pistols album both came out in 1977. The former is infinitely more forward-thinking, musically at least, than the latter. _________________ 2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.
SpyglassResident MetalheadProfile The red dot on the map
Mad to think that Wire album and that Pistols album both came out in 1977. The former is infinitely more forward-thinking, musically at least, than the latter.
Agreed. The Sex Pistols album is more about the purest version of the "punk sound" possible, but Wire had a very imaginative way of experimenting with that sound. _________________ Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802
Life ain't fair. You know it. I know it. It just ain't. Never has been. Never will be. Despite that, kids, particularly my kids, spend a gazillion hours lamenting about how things just aren't fair. How they’ve gotten the proverbial shaft. How their friends have it so much better. “Why do Hana and Jay get iPhones? And we don’t? Huh? Why, Dad?!?! Why? Why? Why? It’s NOT fair."
To which I always reply, “Yes, life isn’t fair. Get used to it!” And then I just start laughing like the crazy person I am. That shuts them up pretty quick, I tell ya. Hard to worry about life being unfair, when your Dad’s losing his grip on reality right before your eyes. And then I tell them this very story. This story about geography. The world is a big place. And our boys Riot were in the wrong place at the right time. New York City instead of Anywhere, UK.
Riot were one of the first bands to inject some molten metal into the 70s hard blues kettle mash. Along with Motorhead and Priest, they invented the whole NWOBHM sound. Yet, they've been excluded from the club! Just because some bozo rock critic from London didn't think how unfair it would be to exclude - oh, I don't know- THE REST OF THE WORLD from his pithy acronym. How imperliastic can you get? It's enough to send me into a tantrum.
So. If one band in the history of late 70s rock besides UFO have the right to squawk, it's Riot.
Riot put out an album in 1977 called Rock City that is a NWOBHM classic years before NWOBHM had even materialized. They did it again in 1979 with Narita. And then unleashed their best in 1981 with Fire Down Under. Three NWOBHM classics in a row!
And then their inimitable singer left them for a career as an exterminator. (That’s how metal his voice was! Black Flag has nothing on that!) And then they sank back down into bluesy generic rock on Restless Breed. Hell, the title track sounds like a cover of Bad Company's eponymous track. I ain’t kidding! Bad Company! That’s a slide. Luckily, they would reinvent themselves in a couple of years into one of the most influential power metal bands. But, that’s a story for another time. I got kids to tuck in. Squawking about water & melatonin gummies. Life ain't fair!
The THREE U Need!
1. Fire Down Under (1981) (E)
2. Rock City (1977) (HR)
3. Narita (1979) (R)
Last edited by Repo on 10/08/2020 20:06; edited 1 time in total
Life ain't fair. You know it. I know it. It just ain't. Never has Been. Never will be. Despite that, kids, my kids in particular, spend a gazillion hours lamenting about how things just aren't fair. How they’ve gotten the proverbial shaft. How their friends have it so much better. “Why do Hanna and Jay get iphones? And we don’t? Huh? Why, Dad?!?! Why? Why? Why? It’s NOT fair."
To which I always reply, “Yes, life isn’t fair. Get used to it!” And then I just start laughing like the crazy person I am. That shuts them up pretty quick, I tell ya. Hard to worry about life being fair, when your Dad’s losing his grip on reality right before your eyes. And then I tell them this very story. This story about geography. The world is a big place. And our boys Riot were in the wrong place at the right time. New York City instead of Anywhere, UK.
Riot were one of the first bands to inject some molten metal into the 70s hard blues kettle mash. Along with Motorhead and Priest, they invented the whole NWOBHM sound. Yet, they've been excluded from the club! Just because some bozo rock critic from London didn't think how unfair it would to exclude - oh, I don't know- THE REST OF THE WORLD from his pithy acronym. How imperliastic can you get? It's enough to send me into a tantrum.
So. If one band in the history of late 70s rock besides UFO have the right to squawk, it's Riot.
Riot put out an album in 1977 called Rock City that is a NWOBHM classic years before NWOBHM had even materialized. They did it again in 1979 with Narita. And then unleashed their best in 1981 with Fire Down Under. Three NWOBHM classics in a row!
And than their inimitable singer left them for a career as an exterminator. (That’s how metal his voice was! Black Flag has nothing on that!) And then they sank back down into bluesy generic rock on Restless Breed. Hell, the title track sounds like a cover of Bad Company's eponymous track. I ain’t kidding! Bad Company! That’s a slide. Luckily, they would reinvent themselves in a couple of years into one of the most influential power metal bands. But, that’s a story for another time. I got kids to tuck in. Squawking about water & melatonin gummies. Life isn’t fair!
The THREE U Need!
1. Fire Down Under (1981) (E)
2. Rock City (1977) (HR)
3. Narita (1979) (R)
We'll call them AWOAHM 😈
(Alternative wave of American Heavy Metal).
No I very much liked Fire Down Other so their other albums are definitely also on my wishlist.
No one gave them an invite. They hadn’t washed in weeks. Their fashions were out of date. But they came anyways. Scared most of the rest of us out of the backyard. They threw some horridly mixed cassette tape on the boom box they brought with them. Some Sony knock off. They hit play. What sounded like bastardized thrash versions of Venom and Iron Maiden riffs came forth from the speakers. Everything sounded tinny and distorted so it was kind of hard to make out exactly what was happening. The volume was way too high. All the cute girls left. Hair had to be washed. Jeans had to be pressed.
The few of us that stayed just kept drinking to make the oppressive din somewhat bearable. But you know what? They turned out to be great guys. They had brought this massive cooler of beer. And just started tossing cold ones to those of us who stayed. So we stayed some more. Free beer and all. And then the weirdest thing happened. By the sixth beer or so it started to sound good. Like really, really good. It was like beer goggles. But for your ears. Ear Goggles!!! We started laughing. Someone built a bonfire right on the deck. They were super fun. Easy to talk to. Not some pricks who cared at all about making it in the biz. Just some average blokes who loved the music. Loved it hard. Loved it fast. It was their religion. What they really cared about. Maybe the only thing they cared about. So there was purity to it all. To their vision. To their sound. And we became hooked. Converted. And now I haven’t washed in weeks. If you see my girlfriend, let her know I’m ok. Better than ok, actually. Now excuse me. I've got a party to crash.
1985 Extreme Metal (so far...)
1. Dark Angel - We have Arrived (HR)
2. Destruction - Infernal Overkill (HR)
Last edited by Repo on 10/14/2020 23:52; edited 1 time in total
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