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Great Singles of 1979

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@Tiggerlion did 69, let’s move forward a decade. I think 79 was one of the greatest years for pop/rock music. My age at the time (17), may have something to do with it.

Your starter for 10, Oliver’s Army – Elvis Costello and the Attractions:

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Comments

  3. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there is no way Johnny should have won. The devil outplayed him, no contest. I demand a rematch.

      • I recently watched an episode of the hospital casualty department documentary series “24 hours in A&E”.
        It featured the lead vocalist of the Jags, Nick Watkinson.
        In recent decades, he has transitioned to become a woman, and she is now known as Nicole.
        The episode ended with Nicole doing a solo acoustic version of “Back of my Hand”.

    • They also had When You’re Young and Strange Town out in 1979.
      Both fine singles (When You’re Young wins it for me), but the B Side of Strange Town was even better

      Butterfly Collector

  13. I loathed The Logical Song. Each to their own. It was a great year: post punk, new wave, 2 tone, disco and the old guard still worth hearing. One of my favourites is Spacer by Sheila B Devotion. I remember Danny Baker made it an NME single of the week. He was a contrarian and often picked the less hip, non rock releases. He was right to higlight this one. A serene Chic produced dancefloor smash.

    https://youtu.be/IuMNApRuWHo

  20. In 1980 I quite got into The Members album ‘1980 – The Choice Is Yours’. Had some great choons and lyrics. A particular favourite being from Gang War (iirc):

    In Belfast it’s religion (huh!)
    In New York it’s your race
    In Paris it’s your politics
    In London it’s your face.

    Offshore Banking Business wasn’t on that album, but had been a chart single the year before. The extended 12″ versh was extra fab.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlQLzdXfDAs

  22. And the Stranglers got in on the act.

    This was the second single off The Raven mastered by Porky! The first, Duchess, was one of their weakest I thought.

    ⬆️ Offshore Banking Business was rather ace too.

  32. 1979 – probably the last time “Granny Friendly” MOR fought it out with Pop/Rock/New Wave/Whatever for supremacy

    Lena Martell – One Day At A Tine
    Kenny Rogers – Coward Of The County
    Art Garfunkel – Bright Eyes
    Marti Webb – Take That Look Off Your Face

  38. Like the OP, dai, I was 17 in 1979.
    What a year it was.
    What shall we choose?
    There’s an embarrassment of riches, isn’t there?
    Let’s have this one…

      • 14 here as well. Year Zero for my musical education. Everything backwards from this was discovered rather than lived in real time. This is a thread where there is barely a single clip I need to play as all are ingrained on my internal ipod classic. And yes surely the best ever year for the charts, waaaay better than 1971.

  41. The Damned released a couple of singles in 1979.
    One of which was “Smash It Up”
    The single consisted of Part 2 only – somehow a punk band cannot be seen/heard using jazz chords and drawn out instrumental intorductions

  43. Was it this one or the previous single that was the first commercially available picture disc?
    It was originally released in the US in 1978, but never got to British shores until 1979 (so It counts)
    The Cars – Just What I Needed

    • Sting wearing a bow-tie and singing in a faux Jamaican accent. He might as well have “HATE ME” tattooed on his forehead.

      I loved and love this, personally. I’ve said it before, but the two-part Christmas TotP from 1979 was the gateway drug for music for the six-year-old me. This, Ian Dury, Elvis C, talk about pop pop pop music…. I’ve done very little else since.

  56. This thread reminds me of why I am so happy to be my age. I was 16 in ’79,the greatest year for pop there ever has been.

    And also why I never had any money – it all went on records!

  59. Absolutely the best year for singles ever. Imagine being 15 and having all of the above, plus Heart of Glass, I Will Survive, Boogie Wonderland, Sultans of Swing and Highway to Hell. We didn’t know how lucky we were.

  63. I started buying singles in 1979 and all the records I bought have been mentioned. Can’t be smug, though as I bought loads of sh*t in subsequent years and – even allowing for the allure of comics – how did I fail to buy Heart Of Glass, My Girl and Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick…?

  64. Patti Smith released Frederick in ’79. That was great, but Dancing Barefoot was even greater. For my money her 2nd best song, after Gloria. I love the spoken poem at the end:

    The plot of our life sweats in the dark like a face
    The mystery of childbirth, of childhood itself
    Grave visitations
    What is it that calls to us?
    Why must we pray screaming?
    Why must not death be redefined?
    We shut our eyes, we stretch out our arms
    And whirl on a pane of glass
    An afixiation, a fix on anything the line of life the limb of a tree
    The hands of he and the promise
    That she is blessed among women.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmDr9L1p6wA

    • @gary

      Yes yes yes! Fantastic song and her best, better than Gloria, Because the Night, People have the Power, er Piss Factory.

      Frederick was a lovely song too and I really really like their version of “So you want to be a rock n roll star?” even if it is most definitely rockist. Great hi-hat work.

    • 😮 This takes me back. I went with some older boys to buy weed from a very dodgy house in Liverpool 8. The guy (who was very nice, as it turned out) was playing this while we were there. As you say 🤯

  70. Pil doing Death Disco on totp caused a stir when such sensations seemed important. 1979 was a big year for music for me and a high point for post punk, which was so much more adventurous and interesting than punk.

    • Seeing some bastard in a bootlace tie and some other bastard in pyjamas playing a piano might make me want to go on a killing spree too.

      I loved this song then, though. You’ve got to credit the B-Rats for putting in the man-hours on TotP,when other more fashionable folk bowed not to Michael Hurll…. and paid the price in chart placings (hello, Strummer’n’Jones)

  76. The year I turned 50 I made a playlist of my favourite tunes from every year of my life so far, and the rule was that each year should be represented by one or two tracks. A few years got a couple of extra tracks, but the one year that refused to obey the rules was 1979, ending up with 21 tracks…
    It was the year when I really got into following new music, and buying albums (when I could afford it – I was twelve so I didn’t get much money each month…)
    All of the 21 have been posted already, bar a couple of album tracks and a Swedish single that wouldn’t mean anything to you guys!
    But this one didn’t quite make the playlist, as great as it is:

    (Anita Ward – Ring My Bell)
    And let’s have another disco gem from -79; Knock On Wood by Amii Stewart:

  77. Siouxsie and the Banshees were about to break up then reform but they still came up with powerful music. It seemed unlikely at the time that they would go on to be a big success throughout the 80s without really compromising artistically. I think it was Elaine Paige among others that gave this the thumbs up on Juke Box Jury. Playground Twist.

    https://youtu.be/EdLQxVcFWfE

  82. Still can’t quite believe we’ve lost Ranking Roger, or that he was only 16 at the time. IIRC Tears of a Clown was a double A with Ranking Full Stop, so they’re both here, with the majestic Twist and Crawl thrown in:

  87. As this thread shows there was some fantastic new and new-ish talent coming through. But the older generation (actually not so old) were still in rude health.

  94. We’ve had a fair bit of OMD on the Afterword recently, but Hey! that’s no reason not to include them on this thread too.
    Their debut single, Electricity, came out in 1979. Two different versions of it: one on Factory Records, and one on DinDisc.

  95. As an example of how ridiculously fast and furiously music was evolving at this time, I thought of posting some X-ray Spex but they were already done and dusted by the time 1979 came around.

  96. The 1969 thread flew high.
    This one is greeted with great recognition (and affection?)
    I wonder how a 1989 version would perform – or a 1999 version (party over, oops out of time)

    • I think given the average Afterword age 1979 is the likely peak. Is it that the music is better, or just that we are of a certain age? Ask my daughters and they’d no doubt point to the glory of 2009.

      • I think you are quite right there, BlueBoy, And perfectly right that your girls should champion the hits of their generation.

        Personally I am looking forward to doing 1929. Some real bangers to look forward to!

  104. Seeking inspiration from the Internet for 1979 “bangers”, I stumbled across this – a song I recognise, but not the name of the artist. A Europop masterpiece?

    Patrick Hernandez – Born To Be Alive

  113. How about some power pop? “Take me to your leader” by Sincerros.
    I loved this when it came out but it seems a bit slight now. Always thought they were American but apparently they were from London.

  114. If you had an international hit single in 1979, you were set up for life. The Flying Lizards could afford a new moped. Patrick Hernandez bought a mansion in the Dordogne.

    Just been reading about the Born to be Alive Hitmaker. He was in fact French and had a moderately successful career until Jean Van Loo asked him to come and record in Belgium. The rest is history.

    The song was # 10 in the UK, a hit in the US and many other countries. The HGVs loaded with dosh starting making their deliveries.

    • Born To Be Alive was massively popular here in Italy. Still is to people of a certain age. Along with My Sharona it’s the song you’re most likely to hear at a party for middle aged Italians.

  119. Greetings, Afterworders.
    I’m on holiday and only have my tablet device with me. I don’t know how to paste the url of a YouTube video into a comment box on the Afterword. So I can’t post a video.
    But I’d like to nominate “Typical Girls” by the Slits for this terrific 1979 singles thread. Dennis Bovell at the controls, of course.
    Maybe someone else can post the “Typical Girls” video where they’re throwing shapes in Regents Park. And let’s dedicate it to the memory of Ari Up.

  120. Ken Lockie’s band Cowboys International had a few intersting musicians pass through the ranks before the band split in 1980,
    namely Keith Levene (Public Image Ltd), Marco Pirroni (Adam and the Ants), Steve Shears (ex-Ultravox) and Terry Chimes (ex-Clash).
    He even had Magazine/Banshees guitarist John McGeoch play on his 1981 solo album ‘The Impossible’.

    • I got the album for Christmas and played it to death. To this day it isn’t truly Chrtistmas in my house until I play it while laying a new jigsaw puzzle (=another Christmas present in -79…)

      That dog with the bobbing head that George is “riding” towards the end is another Madeleine to my childhood, as an exact copy used to be chained to the wall of the stairs to the second floor of a big Stockholm shoe store back then, to the delight of all children. Long gone, now a Zara I believe…

    • This was another performer that hit the big time in the US and not so much in the UK.

      Two observations – my goodness that could easily be an Adam and the Ants song. Also, the bad miming was probably an intentional thing because punks of the time considered TOTP lame and appearing on it was a sell-out. In my little group of 13 year old arbiters of punk authenticity, Generation X were considered ridiculous and bandwagon-jumpers. I have revised that opinion since though – Billy Idol has star quality and all the books and articles about the Bromley contingent and the early punk scenes always mention him.

    • The 9 year old me (actually 8 as this is from January) saw this, and school playground wisdom the following morning was:
      all you need is spiky hair, a bit of a snarl and you were a punk

  131. There are lots of Graham Parker & the Rumour fans on this board, aren’t there?

    So we’ve got to have this 1979 single – “Protection” – from GP&the R’s greatest album, “Squeezing Out Sparks”

  132. John Cooper Clarke put out this volley of rudeness as the B-side of a live single in 1979.
    It came from a 10-inch clear vinyl live album that was a sort of tringular shape.

  133. Afterworders … you know we need the Go-Betweens, too, don’t you?
    As regards the photo accompanying the Youtube audio track of this 1979 single, I reckon that Robert looks much better in a dress than Grant does …

  137. .. and another. I think I might just keep posting until the measly 301 comments total on 1969 has been surpassed (lots of which were discussions on the many ways Tommy would have been improved by being shorter – singles, folks, the true test of a great year 😉 )

  140. Coming up in November we have Go West, Pseudo Echo, A Flock of Seagulls, The Cutting Crew and Wang Chung, all on the one 80’s-tastic night. How can I contain my excitement…possibly put it a matchbox without taking out the matches.

  143. We’ve had some mentions of Factory bands in 1979, but have we had A Certain Ratio’s debut single yet? We haven’t? Well, we’ve got to have “All Night Party”…

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