jgmclean0

Before the matchups are set, let's take a closer look at the Final Four in our
1977 Album Survivor contest. Someone called 1977 a "year zero"; this is borne
out as three out of the four survivors are debut albums.

***Elvis Costello - My Aim is True***

How it got here: defeating, in order of rounds: The Persuasions - Chirpin',
Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers - L.A.M.F., Muddy Waters - Hard Again,
George Thorogood & the Destroyers - George Thorogood & the Destroyers, Ramones
- Leave Home, and Clash - The Clash (UK version).

From the spunky production to the checkerboard cover design, this album set
much of the tone and fashion for the new wave. But as Costello would prove
again and again later in his career, he was much more than simply an angry
young man channeling aggression into music, and came as a welcome alternative
to pure punk acts. Critics on both sides of the Atlantic immediately
recognized this talent: the album was #2 for 1977 on the Village Voice Pazz &
Jop critics poll and #3 for 1977 on the NME critics list. Dave Marsh also put
the album at #2 for the year in his 1981 book of lists. The album remains
broadly popular today, ranking in the top ten (#6) for the year on the
popularity site Rateyourmusic.com .


"My Aim Is True (. . .) was one of the great debut albums in the annals of pop
music. Balancing the rage of punk with the formalism of the century's best
songcraft, the album delivers passion and intelligence in equal measure. From
the tender vitriol of "Alison" to the knowing arrogance of "(The Angels Wanna
Wear My) Red Shoes" to the free-associative Dylanisms of "Waiting for the End
of the World," Costello shows himself to be a budding pop master. And while at
times he is almost too clever for his own good, a problem that will become more
pronounced as his career progresses and his easy virtuosity becomes even
easier, one cannot but be charmed by the young Costello's charisma. For a short
time in the late 1970s, Elvis was indeed king."

My Aim is True reached #32 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart. The album was
reissued in expanded form in 1993 as part of Rykodisc's total reworking of
Costello's catalog, and again on Rhino in 2001 in a massive 2-disc edition.

***Television - Marquee Moon***

How it got here: defeating Boz Scaggs - Down Two Then Left, Crosby, Stills, &
Nash - CSN, Billy Joel - The Stranger, Talking Heads - Talking Heads: 77, Queen
- News of the World, and Jethro Tull - Songs from the Wood.

Largely unnoticed by the masses at the time of its release (the album never
dented the Billboard charts), Marquee Moon was instantly the definition of a
critics' darling (#3 in the Village Voice 1977 Critics' poll, #5 on NME) but
has grown a significant popular following in the intervening years (currently
ranked #5 for the year on the Rateyourmusic.com site). Though often lumped in
with punk and new wave of the era, Marquee Moon is really unclassifiable, with
aspects of new wave, art rock, '70s twin-guitar heroics, and psychedelia.

Rolling Stone's Ken Tucker reviewed the album alongside Blondie's first and the
Ramones' second:

". . . Marquee Moon, Television's debut album, is the most interesting and
audacious of this triad, and the most unsettling. Leader Tom Verlaine wrote all
the songs, coproduced with Andy Johns, plays lead guitar in a harrowingly
mesmerizing stream-of-nightmare style and sings all his verses like an
intelligent chicken being strangled: clearly, he dominates this quartet.
Television is his vehicle for the portrayal of an arid, despairing sensibility,
musically rendered by loud, stark repetitive guitar riffs that build in every
one of Marquee Moon's eight songs to nearly out-of-control climaxes."

The album was re-released in remastered and expanded form in the fall of this
year, adding 5 alternate takes and b-sides to the original 8 cuts.

***Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols***

How it got here: defeating Nils Lofgren - I Came to Dance, Kate and Anna
McGarrigle - Dancer with Bruised Knees, David Bowie - Low, David Bowie -
Heroes, Eric Clapton - Slowhand, and Ramones - Rocket to Russia.

The Ramones (whose sophomore effort Rocket to Russia was barely edged by this
album in the quarterfinals) may have put it to LP first, but the worldwide
controversy spawned by the singles "Anarchy in the UK" and "God Save the
Queeen" made this the first blast of punk to hit the public awareness. This is
the only unadulterated punk album left of all the survivors. The critics
recognized the impact of this album immediately: in end of year critics' polls,
Bollocks was rated #1 by on the Village Voice Pazz/Jop issue and #4 on the NME
rankings for the year. The album is consistently cited as one of the ten most
important and influential albums ever, and was ranked #2 on Rolling Stone's top
100 albums of 1967-1987 ten years after its release.

Paul Nelson wrote for Rolling Stone:

"(. . .)the rock wars of the Seventies have begun, and the Sex Pistols, the
most incendiary rock & roll band since the Rolling Stones and the Who, have
just dropped the Big One on both the sociopolitical aridity of their native
England and most of the music from which they and we were artistically and
philosophically formed.
(. . .)
This band still takes rock & roll personally, as a matter of honor and
necessity, and they play with an energy and conviction that is positively
transcendent in its madness and fever. Their music isn't pretty-indeed, it
often sounds like two subway trains crashing together under forty feet of mud,
victims screaming-but it has an Ahab-versus-Moby Dick power that can shake you
like no other music today can."

Released in October of '77, and containing several singles that had scandalized
the UK and generated huge sales (despite being banned from the airwaves) during
the preceding year, the album received little attention in the US until the
early part of '78, when it dented the Billboard pop albums chart at a top
position of #106.

***Pink Floyd -- Animals***

How it got here: defeating Alice Cooper - Lace and Whiskey, Roger Daltrey - One
of the Boys, Cheap Trick - In Color, Peter Tosh - Equal Rights, Pete Townshend
& Ronnie Lane - Rough Mix, and Steve Miller Band - Book of Dreams.

Critically, this is clearly the, er, black sheep of the group, not making the
NME or Village Voice polls for the year, and placing a middling #29 on Dave
Marsh's 1981 retrospective ranking. However it's also by far the most popular
and best selling album of the final four, having reached #3 on the Billboard
pop albums chart in the US with similar sales success overseas. It places at
#10 for the year on Rateyourmusic.com, behind Elvis and Television but ahead of
the Pistols.

The original Rolling Stone review by Frank was quite negative (though, oddly
enough, it stands as a 4-star out of 5 review), excerpt:

"Like all Floyd records, this one absorbs like a sponge, but you can still hear
the gooey screams of listeners who put up a fight. What's the problem? For
starters, the sax that warmed Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here has
been replaced by a succession of David Gilmour guitar solos-thin, brittle and a
sorry substitute indeed. The singing is more wooden than ever. The sound is
more complex, but it lacks real depth; there's nothing to match the incredible
intro to Dark Side of the Moon, for example, with its hypnotic chorus of cash
registers recalling the mechanical doom that was Fritz Lang's vision in
Metropolis. Somehow you get the impression that this band is being
metamorphosed into a noodle factory.
(. . . )
The 1977 Floyd has turned bitter and morose. They complain about the duplicity
of human behavior (and then title their songs after animals-get it?)."

A more positive take on the album comes from Stephen Thomas Erlewine on the All
Music Guide:

"Animals is all extended pieces, yet it never drifts - it slowly, ominously
works its way toward its destination. For an album that so clearly is Waters',
David Gilmour's guitar dominates thoroughly, with Richard Wright's keyboards
rarely rising above a mood-setting background (such as on the intro to
"Sheep"). This gives the music, on occasion, immediacy and actually heightens
the dark mood by giving it muscle. It also makes Animals as accessible as it
possibly could be, since it surges with bold blues-rock guitar lines and
hypnotic space rock textures. Through it all, though, the utter blackness of
Waters' spirit holds true and since there are no vocal hooks or melodies,
everything rests on the mood, the near-nihilistic lyrics, and Gilmour's
guitar."

***

Of course, what counts here is not what critics think, or chart positions, but
which albums the voters feel should survive! Matchups will be announced soon.

savoybg

That doesn't make it good.

Adolph Hitler was the most influential human being of the 20th century, does
that make him good?


MY LISTS - http://hometown.aol.com/savoybg/myhomepage/index.html
SURVEYS - http://hometown.aol.com/savoybg1/myhomepage/index.html

jgmclean0

Wow, a single-post Godwinization of the thread.

It does strike me, however, that this final four is an amazingly cynical and
dark set of albums, especially in a year popularly dominated by
if-it-feels-good-do-it disco and upbeat pop. In fact, looking back over the
last couple of rounds of voting, it seems like the darker the album the more
chance it had of succeeding -- even the Pistols' victory against the poppier
and more jokey Ramones can be seen in this light.

I wonder what it is about our collective memory of 1977 that leads to this
preference for cynical, angry material?

JGM

savoybg

Probably the fact that the voters are all a bunch of misfits :-).

If we all had been getting laid instead of listening to our records alone in
our rooms, the championship would have been "Rumors" against "Saturday Night
Fever."


MY LISTS - http://hometown.aol.com/savoybg/myhomepage/index.html
SURVEYS - http://hometown.aol.com/savoybg1/myhomepage/index.html

brett a. pasternack

Wow, so all three top finishers in the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll
from that year made our Final Four? Amazing. That either means that the
critics were extremely accurate, or that they have way too much
influence on us music geeks. You make the call. B^)

Out of curiosity, does anyone know what came in fourth, or even have a
link to the whole list?

savoybg

In this group, it's definitely the latter.


MY LISTS - http://hometown.aol.com/savoybg/myhomepage/index.html
SURVEYS - http://hometown.aol.com/savoybg1/myhomepage/index.html

mike g.

You can find all the old lists on the Village Voice site. Or at least,
the top finishers.

The 1977 list (the extra numbers are the point tallies):

1 The Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols
Warner Bros. 412
2 Elvis Costello My Aim is True Columbia 367
3 Television Marquee Moon Elektra 327
4 Fleetwood Mac Rumours Warner Bros. 318
5 Steely Dan Aja ABC 266
6 The Ramones Rocket to Russia Sire 238
7 Talking Heads 77 Sire 170
8 Randy Newman Little Criminals Warner Bros. 160
9 Garland Jeffreys Ghost Writer A&M 153
10 Cheap Trick In Color Epic 121
11 Jackson Browne Running on Empty Asylum 113
12 Pete Townshend/Ronnie Lane Rough Mix MCA 105
13 Kate & Anna McGarrigle Dancer Knees Warner Bros. 104
14 Al Green The Belle Album Hi 89
15 Ornette Coleman Dancing in Your Head Horizon 83
16 Bryan Ferry In Your Mind Atlantic 80
17 Peter Gabriel Peter Gabriel Atco 75
18 The Kinks Sleepwalker Arista 74
19 Graham Parker & the Rumour Stick to Me Mercury 72
20 Neil Young American Stars 'n Bars Reprise 69
21 David Bowie Heroes RCA 66
22 The Persuasions Chirpin' Elektra 63
23 The Jam In the City Polydor 61
23 James Taylor JT Columbia 61
25 The Beatles The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl Capitol 60
25 The Ramones Ramones Leave Home Sire 60
27 Linda Ronstadt Simple Dreams Asylum 59
28 The Beach Boys Love You Brother / Reprise 59
29 Mink DeVille Mink DeVille Capitol 57
30 Kraftwerk Trans-Europe Express Bruised Capitol 55

dianee

Wow, there's a name you don't hear any more. Look how high he's ranked!


I bought this and regretted it, didn't like it at all...he was in transition.


Yeah! I discovered acappella in the 70s, though it had started out much earlier.


Okay, I guess *somebody* in America had heard of them. Not me, though.


LOL!!!!! The Village Voice! James Taylor! Priceless!


I remember seeing them on TV once. Willie was *so* affected, came out with
2 earrings (very unusual on a guy back then), smoking a cigarette, chewing
gum, and singing, all at the same time....but I liked the sound then and I
still like it now. Recently I heard some "Willie DeVille Acoustic Blues
Trio" stuff, recorded in Europe (Germany, I think?) not too long ago.
Thought it was awful, unfortunately. Really wanted to like it but it was
IMO embarrassingly bad. Affected doesn't work for you when you're doing
acoustic blues.

DianeE

louvin2

From www.RobertChristgau.com

The 1977 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll

Albums
1. Sex Pistols: Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols
(Warner Bros.) 412 (32)
2. Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True (Columbia) 367 (33)
3. Television: Marquee Moon (Elektra) 327 (26)
4. Fleetwood Mac: Rumours (Warner Bros.) 318 (26)
5. Steely Dan: Aja (ABC) 266 (23)
6. Ramones: Rocket to Russia (Sire) 238 (23)
7. Talking Heads: Talking Heads: 77 (Sire) 170 (17)
8. Randy Newman: Little Criminals (Warner Bros.) 160 (16)
9. Garland Jeffreys: Ghost Writer (A&M) 153 (15)
10. Cheap Trick: In Color (Epic) 121 (11)
11. Jackson Browne: Running on Empty (Asylum) 113 (9)
12. Pete Townshend & Ronnie Lane: Rough Mix (MCA) 105 (10)
13. Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Dancer with Bruised Knees (Warner Bros.)
104 (12)
14. Al Green: The Belle Album (Hi) 89 (10)
15. Ornette Coleman: Dancing in Your Head (Horizon) 83 (8)
16. Bryan Ferry: In Your Mind (Atlantic) 80 (9)
17. Peter Gabriel: Peter Gabriel (Atco) 75 (6)
18. The Kinks: Sleepwalker (Arista) 74 (8)
19. Graham Parker & the Rumour: Stick to Me (Mercury) 72 (10)
20. Neil Young: American Stars 'n Bars (Reprise) 69 (8)
21. David Bowie: Heroes (RCA) 66 (7)
22. The Persuasions: Chirpin' (Elektra) 63 (7)
23. James Taylor: JT (Columbia) 61 (7)
24. The Jam: In the City (Polydor) 61 (6)
25. Ramones: Ramones Leave Home (Sire) 60 (8)
26. The Beatles: The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl (Capitol) 60 (7)
27. Linda Ronstadt: Simple Dreams (Asylum) 59 (7)
28. The Beach Boys: Love You (Brother/Reprise) 59 (6)
29. Mink DeVille: Mink DeVille (Capitol) 57 (5)
30. Kraftwerk: Trans-Europe Express (Capitol) 55 (4)

Village Voice, Jan. 23, 1978


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