My discoveries per year

[dihansse]

And that this is a fantastic year to explore will be clear from this post:
- Street Survivors by Lynyrd Skynyrd (nr 63 on the BEA top chart of 1977): in my opinion LS was only a shadow of themselves when compared to the beginning of the seventies. The songs are still ok but there's nothing special to be found here.
- This Is The Modern World by The Jam (nr 65): this is one of the Jam early records I failed to listen to yet (although everybody knows the title track of course). It doesn't seem to get as much love as the other Jam records of that period but to me also this one is a highlight.
- (I'm) Stranded by The Saints (nr 56): I managed to move up this one by at least 10 ranks. This is an album I knew was gonna be one of my favorite records but I always postponed listening to it until I started investigating 1977. Of course I already knew a lot of songs from greatest hits and because they were covered on Ed Kuepper or Aints records but the album still surprised me in the most positive way possible. It sounds very raw and demo-like but in one way or another this enhances the listening experience to this album. Everybody knows the title song and also to me this is one of the best punk songs ever but the real highlight on this album is Erotic Neurotic. This is one of a number of tracks here which are actually fairly long but still manage to sound like a sharp and pointy punk song: the energy on the whole of this album just doesn't let down for one second and there's not a bad song to be found on it. All in all I've come to the conclusion this is my favorite punk record ever and it immediately moves to the top of my 1977 chart and ends up very high on my overall chart. Because of the sheer energy it radiates this album is better than their greatest hits although there's a few of their best tracks missing of which not in the least This Perfect Day.

And I was so enthusiastic about this record that I also wanted to discover their second album of 1978:
- Prehistoric Sounds by The Saints: this album is so much different from Stranded. It doesn't have the immediacy of their first album and as much as I like Chris Bailey, the fact that this one is much more dominated by him than by Ed Kuepper, one of my favorite artists ever, makes this one a bit less good than Stranded. The addition of horns and the slicker production don't do the album a lot of bad and this is still a very good Saints album but it is very difficult to top Stranded and they were completely right not to try to imitate their first success.

[Yann]

[dihansse]

I just have to move on and keep digging into this great year 1977:
- Foot Loose & Fancy Free by Rod Stewart (nr 71 on the overall BEA top chart of 1977): this is one of those albums I grew up without ever listening to the full album. Hot Legs is one of his best rock tunes but this album essentially contains a lot of slows, some of them very cheesy and a few of them very good and those are You're In My Heart but especially I Was Only Joking. These three tracks make the album.
- Cat Scratch Fever by Ted Nugent (nr 73): In 1977 punk hadn't really broken in Belgium yet and at the time I was mainly a hardrock fan not in the least because of a hardrock program on the Dutch radio called Beton (can be translated as concrete) and the title song of this album was on heavy rotation there. I still like the song very much and the rest of the album is good as well although his live albums are better: nevertheless a classic.
- Pure Mania by The Vibrators (nr 79): The Vibrators were just a good punk band nothing more nothing less and this first album of theirs is their regular standout album with all good songs and one highlight: Whips and Furs. But if you really want to hear how good they were try their album of early punk song covers
Punk: The Early Years by The Vibrators which contains their take on the best early US, UK, Australian, etc punk covers and most of those, including their cover of their own Baby Baby were pointier and grittier than the originals. An absolute highlight.
- Spectres by Blue Öyster Cult (nr 83): I wanted to the full album because Godzilla was only one of those tracks on heavy rotation on Beton but that was a mistake: the rest of the album is one of the most terrible examples of real bad and dated AOR.

And still more 1977 albums to follow...

[dihansse]

And here is another sidestep now on the Kinks but starting in 1977.
In 1977, 1978 and 1979, the Kinks made three albums which were harder edged than their former albums in which they tried to sound a bit like The Who and where the guitar but also some prog elements played a large role. These three albums finally resulted in a live album in the 1980's, One For The Road, which is still one of my favorite live albums ever. So it really made sense to check out these three albums which preceded it:
- Sleepwalker by The Kinks (nr 84 on the BEA top chart of 1977): although there is not one track of this album to be found on the live album it already has its general feel of harder edged stadion rock type songs which however still show the song writing abilities of Ray Davies and is very much focused on the guitar playing of Dave Davies. There's not really a standout track to be found on this album but all of them are good.
- Misfits by The Kinks (nr 108 on the BEA top chart of 1978): the live version on One For The Road of the title tracks has much more emotional depth than the version on this album but it's still one of my favorite Kinks songs. There's not really anything special on the rest of the album but all tracks are solid.
- Low Budget by The Kinks (nr 74 on the BEA top chart of 1979): this album is dominated by the first 6 tracks which also appear on One for the Road and they are all of high quality, or because of their uptempo character like Attitude (a bit the Substitute of the Kinks) and Pressure or because of their mini-opera character like Superman or Low Budget. If I have to choose, this is the best of the three albums.

[dihansse]

I think it's time to wrap up this beautiful and pivotal year 1977 but first some more albums I listened to:
- Radios Appear by Radio Birdman (nr 85 on the overall BEA top chart of 1977): again one of those great Australian albums nobody knows but some Australians and again it's a top one. It's somewhat of a punk album with indeed a lot of Stooges influences but somehow they succeed in sounding original. Hand of Law is the positive outlyer.
- American Stars 'N Bars by Neil Young (nr 90): if Like A Hurrican wouldn't appear on this album I probably wouldn't have included it in my top chart of the year but it does and it absolutely makes the album. The other songs are ok but none of them is really top quality.
- George Thorogood And The Destroyers by ...Destroyers (nr 125): I once saw these guys live and boy they rocked. They're maybe better on one of their many live albums but their first regular albums are not bad either and Madison Blues and One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer are the standouts but I also very much liked the wordless Delaware Slide. They are not very original but the way they include the influence of nearly every single old blues guy and blend those into a hardrocking and still bluesy mix is just wonderful.
- Move It On Over by George Thorogood And The Destroyers (an album of 1978): and I liked the band so much that I also listened to this album of 1978 which has their best song: the title track. With also a great Who Do You Love cover and many other top notch songs, this album is even better than the first one.

With this I now have 50 albums of 1977 in my top chart of that year and I think I'm gonna stop with that and this is the list with at the start the overall BEA year rank and after that the BEA year rank and my personal rank before and after this listening session:

OverallRank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before To My Rank after
3320 (I'm) Stranded By The Saints 56 - Not yet listened To 1
50 Marquee Moon By Television 3 - 1 To 2
1178 Let There Be Rock By AC/DC 26 - To listen To 3
82 Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols By Sex Pistols 5 - 2 To 4
4604 Motörhead By Motörhead 75 - 3 To 5
5369 No More Heroes By The Stranglers 91 - 4 To 6
510 Out Of The Blue By Electric Light Orchestra 17 - 5 To 7
5663 Taken By Force By The Scorpions 97 - Already listened To 8
32 Rumours By Fleetwood Mac 1 - 6 To 9
472 Talking Heads: 77 By Talking Heads 15 - 7 To 10
484 Lust For Life By Iggy Pop 16 - 8 To 11
464 Bat Out of Hell By Meat Loaf 14 - 9 To 12
520 Rocket To Russia By Ramones 18 - 10 To 13
1334 Even In The Quietest Moments By Supertramp 29 - 11 To 14
2439 Lights Out By UFO 45 - Not yet listened To 15
1506 Damned, Damned, Damned By The Damned 32 - To listen To 16
1622 Rattus Norvegicus By The Stranglers 34 - 12 To 17
1558 Slowhand By Eric Clapton 33 - To listen To 18
4810 Pure Mania By The Vibrators 78 - Not yet listened To 19
4986 Radios Appear By Radio Birdman 85 - Not yet listened To 20
3825 This Is The Modern World By The Jam 66 - Not yet listened To 21
1333 Leave Home By Ramones 28 - 13 To 22
186 The Clash By The Clash 6 - 14 To 23
43 Animals By Pink Floyd 2 - 15 To 24
284 Pink Flag By Wire 12 - To listen To 25
4386 Cat Scratch Fever By Ted Nugent 73 - Not yet listened To 26
3402 Moonflower By Santana 57 - 16 To 27
2796 In The City By The Jam 51 - 17 To 28
2451 Blank Generation By Richard Hell & The Voidoids 46 - 18 To 29
4966 Sleepwalker By The Kinks 84 - Not yet listened To 30
815 News Of The World By Queen 23 - To listen To 31
37333 Rockin' All Over The World By Status Quo 376 - 19 To 32
220 Aja By Steely Dan 7 - 20 To 33
5347 American Stars 'N Bars By Neil Young 90 - Not yet listened To 34
2726 Foreigner By Foreigner 49 - Not yet listened To 35
3665 Book Of Dreams By Steve Miller Band 63 - Not yet listened To 36
4227 Foot Loose & Fancy Free By Rod Stewart 71 - Not yet listened To 37
8237 George Thorogood And The Destroyers By George Thorogood And The Destroyers 125 - Not yet listened To 38
1791 The Album By ABBA 38 - To listen To 39
3455 In Color By Cheap Trick 58 - Not yet listened To 40
253 Exodus By Bob Marley And The Wailers 8 - To listen To 41
1672 Running On Empty By Jackson Browne 35 - To listen To 42
335 My Aim Is True By Elvis Costello 13 - 21 To 43
1376 Peter Gabriel By Peter Gabriel 30 - To listen To 44
2310 Point Of No Return By Kansas 44 - To listen To 45
805 Before And After Science By Brian Eno 22 - To listen To 46
2107 Pacific Ocean Blue By Dennis Wilson 43 - To listen To 47
63 Low By David Bowie 4 - 22 To 48
282 The Stranger By Billy Joel 11 - To listen To 49
264 "Heroes" By David Bowie 9 - 23 To 50

Maybe I also should listen back to Heroes but I don't think it deserves to be at the last place but that's for later. For the rest just look at this list with old classics like Rumours and Animals with new challengers like the English, Australian and American punks and that great first album of Talking Heads but also the hardrockers like AC/DC, Motorhead, AC/DC and UFO made great albums. New life was breathing throughout the whole of this year.

Now I'm gonna do some more listening to other seventies album I might have forgotten on the way in order to make a final wrap up of the decade. I'll start in picking up a thread I already started: the 1978 and 1979 albums of Status Quo and Uriah Heep.

[dihansse]

As already said I’ll start with the last albums of Status Quo and Uriah Heep I listened to:
- If You Can't Stand The Heat by Status Quo (nr 368 of 1978): the two hits on this album are vintage Status Quo: Accident Prone and Again and Again. And overall this album is a great return to good form
- Whatever You Want by Status Quo (nr 372 of 1979): and this one is even better: they might be an anomaly in these years between punk and New wave but they are a fantastic anomaly. The title track is one of Quo’s best ever with one of the best intro’s ever and also Shady Lady and the very unQuo Living on an Island are good.
- Innocent Victim by Uriah Heep (nr 358 of 1977): not their best album but Free ‘N Easy is good and the rest is fairly ok so I’ll add this one
- Fallen Angel by Uriah Heep (nr 622 of 1978): but this one is utterly uninteresting overall

[dihansse]

Before I tackle the eighties I just want to finish the seventies by going through other good albums of the decade I haven't tackled yet.

First there are some loose ends to tie up: albums of the seventies in the overall top 2500 I haven't listened to yet:
- Pieces Of A Man by Gil Scott-Heron (nr 46 of 1971; nr 2122 overall): I suppose the first track of this album had a lot of impact at the time but nowadays it sounds fairly soft and the same is a lot more true for the rest of the album: not really my cup of tea
- Montrose by Montrose (nr 49 of 1973; nr 2231 overall): I already wanted to listen to this album a long time and I honestly thought I would like it more but I didn't: the sound is fairly dated and I didn't find any special tracks or adventurous guitar playing on it.
- Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares: Volume 1...x Bulgares (nr 41 of 1975; nr 2267 overall): I saw this group of indeed special female Bulgarian singers live a long time ago and although I was impressed by their technical skills the music itself didn't really touch me and this was still so for this album.
- You Don't Mess Around With Jim by Jim Croce (nr 47 of 1972 and nr 2281 overall): I fairly liked the overall atmosphere of the album but I wasn't really impressed by the quality of the individual songs
- Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers by Tom ...rtbreakers (nr 40 of 1976; nr 2296 overall): I fairly like the later albums of Tom Petty but this first one wasn't really that good; I don't really understand the comments that this in fact a sort of punk album because more americana/AOR than this is not possible to me in any case as far as the music is concerned. I think he sounded much more dangerous on later albums
- Blow By Blow by Jeff Beck (nr 44 of 1975; nr 2337 overall): I've never been a big fan of Jeff Beck and this album is another proof of that; also this album has a sort of jazz feel that feels more like muzak than real jazz
- 666 by Aphrodite's Child (nr 48 of 1972; nr 2390 overall): this is an absolutely terrible album; it's dated as hell and overly bombastic
- From The Inside by Alice Cooper (nr 52 of 1978 and nr 2419 overall): How You Gonna See Me Now is a fantastic song but unfortunately there's not one other track to be found on this album which is even remotely as good as this one
- Fear by John Cale (nr 44 of 1974; nr 2436 overall): if you want to discover the best music by John Call don't even doubt and listen to his live album Fragments from a Rainy Season but if you want to discover him by a regular album this one is a good alternative. Fear Is a Man's Best Friend, Buffalo Ballet and Gun are classics and also most of the other tracks are very good. While the general song structures are fairly classic they all have some kind of a twist, a bit like Wilco is doing. I've seen him perform a number of times live alone with his piano and it was an experience every time.
- La Leyenda Del Tiempo by Camarón (nr 47 of 1979; nr 2473 overall): maybe adventurous flamenco but still a genre I don't really like

This is all for the overall top 2500 but there some more albums not in the overall top 2500 I wanted to look into:
- Between The Lines by Janis Ian (nr 53 of 1975; nr 2717 overall): At Seventeen is her best song and I really like the bossa nova character of this song. But also the rest of this album is not bad. Maybe a strange comparison but her singing and delivery sounds a bit like that other great album of 1975: American Pie by Don McLean; of course lyrically the difference between the two albums couldn't be more different: this one is very direct while American Pie is very poetic. Overall I really liked this album.
- Squeezing Out Sparks by Graham Parker (nr 51 of 1979; nr 2736 overall): I fairly like this guy and his songs. Discovering Japan and Local Girls and although not of the highest quality the rest of the tracks are fine as well and good enough to include this one in my personal top chart of 1979).

I'll listen to some more albums of the seventies later.

[dihansse]

I've listen to some more albums of the seventies which are not part of the overall BEA top 2500 but are still worth mentioning:

First I tried two ABBA albums I hadn't listened to yet. As already stated hate is maybe too strong a word but when I was young it was not very cool to like ABBA so I didn't but now I do. They are and remain very strong songwriters and the harmonics of the two female singers just can't be matched:
- Voulez-Vous by ABBA (nr 54 of 1979 and nr 2805 overall): although they ventured here into disco which doesn't really suit them (and the same goes when they venture into rock like on Does Your Mother Know) this album still features a number of very fine tracks like As Good As New, I Have A Dream and Chiquitita.
- ABBA by ABBA (nr 60 of 1975 and nr 2988 overall): and also some very good tracks here like Mamma Mia and SOS, but also other tracks are just fine.

And two more other albums:
- Stranger In Town by Bob Seger & The...ullet Band (nr 57 of 1978 and nr 2838 overall): I had always seen Bob Seger as especially a greatest hits artist but some of his regular albums are just great and don't contain any filler and this album is a wonderful proof of that. There's many songs which don't appear on my greatest hits which I know and now that I listen back to them really appreciate. The best example of this is Still It Shines. A great album!
- Ted Nugent by Ted Nugent (nr 56 of 1975 and nr 2881 overall): I don't really like his political viewpoints but this guy rocks: just listen to the guitar work on the long Stranglehold! The rest of the album is also very good.

[dihansse]

And hereby I'd like to digress a bit again from my main course (the seventies) but for a good reason because I'm hooked about a number of albums of the 2010's.

I'll try to synthesize it like this:
- AM by Ovlov: in 2013, this album came out and I ignored it
- Is Stupider by Stove: in 2015 this album came out and I didn't even know of its existence
- Is A Toad In The Rain by Stove: in 2016 this album came out and I suppose I was excused because it only contained 7 tracks
- Greatest Hits Vol. II by Ovlov: in 2017 this album came out but I suppose I was excused because it was just a compilation of old B-sides
- TRU by Ovlov: and last week this album came out and I finally picked it up and absolutely loved it and just because this is just one fantastic year it is now 'only' my third album of this year. So I decided to listen to all aforementioned albums and I didn't regret it!

The common denominator between Ovlov and Stover is Steve Hartlett, a brilliant guitar player who has listened clearly a lot to J. Mascis but still developed his own style. In 2009 he started Ovlov with first a number of EP's (later compiled in that Greatest Hits I mentioned before) and finally issued an astounding album, AM which just grabbed me completely at my first listen just because of its pure guitar quality ànd quality of àll the individual tracks. My absolute favorite of this album is Milk which just keeps on going with shredding guitar solos after shredding guitar solos for 5 and a half minutes and has managed to become out of the blue one of my top 1000 tracks of all times. And the album hurled itself at the first rank of my 2013 personal top chart and has already nestled itself in the top 50 of my overall personal top chart.

And then Hartlett decided to start a new band, Stove, which was maybe a bit more mellow (it is compared to Guided By Voices than to Dinosaur Jr) but on this first album, Is Stupider (which features the tracks Stupid, Stupider and Stupidest), Hartlett's guitar is still all over the place. And again the albums is just filled with highlights. And again I discovered a track on this album which immediately became one of my favorite ones of all time: Dumboy (to diverge not too far from the stupid theme): nine minutes and a half of shredding guitar solos. And also this album immediately rose to the top of my 2015 year chart.

The second Stove album issued in 2016, Is A Toad In The Rain, was far from the fierceness of the first album and although the tracks are still good, it is just an average good album.

The greatest Hits albums was a compilation of the first Stover EP's but just showed that also in their earlier days this band rocked as hell.

And then Hartlett decided to re-invigorate Ovlov and made an album that easily matched their first main album and just is one of the greatest ones of this year and I can't advise you enough to listen to it.

In short: sometimes I'm really an ignorant guy: I just can't imagine in hindsight that I have missed any of these albums at the time they were issued. I'm just wondering all-knowing Tilly who knows everything of the nineties, if you have ever heard of these bands which really have their roots in those years?

[Repo]