Friday, 11 December 2009
1975 - A Vintage Year?
It is a truth universally acknowledged by music journalists of the rockular variety (as parodied brilliantly here by Brit) that 1975 was the pits, the year the music all but died in a welter of guitar noodling, before Punk came along in 1976, applied the electrodes and restored rock to life. Well, I have a friend who believes that, au contraire, 1975 was the greatest year ever (never mind that she was only 10 at the time and is a Led Zep fan). I decided to examine the evidence - and what do you know, she could be right! 1975 was the year in which Dylan released what many regard as his greatest album, Blood on the Tracks, and Patti Smith produced the still astounding Horses. Emmylou Harris released not one but two great albums, Pieces of the Sky and Elite Hotel. Paul Simon came up with Still Crazy After All These Years, Tom Waits released Nighthawks at the Diner, John Cale treated us to Slow Dazzle (the one with his version of Heartbreak Hotel on it)... There must be more in the way of great 1975 albums - but what clinches it for the year is that this song reached number 2 in the singles charts. There - now you'll be humming it all day. But you'll be smiling...
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I smiled went the movie came out first time around. A classic, and the singing on a par with Gerry Collona's Carry me Back to Old Virgineee.
ReplyDelete1975 was like those phoney war days in 1939, we new somethink should happen but didn't know what it was.
The Floyd's Wish You Were Here was 1975. And Led Zep released Physical Graffiti, but that's a mite overrated.
ReplyDeleteWell done for getting "noodling" in there, btw.
ReplyDeleteAh Brit - I was trying to ignore both of those, but yes I suppose they're classics of a kind...
ReplyDelete'Wish you were here' is self-indulgent noodling at its best.
ReplyDeleteYes Nige - but all of those stellar albums have to tip the hat to what was, unbelievably, a first album by an unknown pair of Canadian sisters who, until that moment in '75 had busked in and around Montreal (the saintly Joni had been doing the same in Toronto, and in '75 released Hissing of the Summer Lawns, another masterwork).
ReplyDeleteThe McGarrigles, though not blessed with Joni's extraordinary song writing ability, were cut from the music tree - musical all the way to the middle, and that eponymous first album has not a weak moment on it. Saw them on a bitter November evening at the Croydon Fairfield, and I don't remember getting home.
Brit beat me to it on 'Wish You Were Here'. High noodling indeed, but that's the problem with essentialist critiques. A very fine piece of work.
ReplyDeleteOh yes Mahlerman! How could I have forgotten that one? And I was at the Fairfield Halls that night!!
ReplyDeletelooking at the No.1's that year, you had Steve Harley and the Cockney Rebel, David Bowie' Space Oddity, and Bohemian Rhapsody.
ReplyDeleteThere was also David Essex and Hold Me close, and Windsor Davies and Don Estelle with Whispering Grass.
To add to the other choices for 1975: Bongo Fury - Zappa was on top form at this time, the Cap'n perhaps past his best (imho). Blood on the Tracks strikes me as one of the greatest albums of all time and some of those songs will still be appreciated, perhaps, long after Pink Floyd and other jet-set noodlers have been consigned to dusty old boxes in attics and junk shops. This was also the year in which the late, great Ali Farka Toure started recording what would become Radio Mali. Oh well, back to Jingle Bells down the High Street.
ReplyDelete... long after Pink Floyd and other jet-set noodlers have been consigned to dusty old boxes in attics and junk shops.
ReplyDeleteThis is the sort of thing that tickles me about music journalism/commentary: the combative element.
I was minus 2 when Wish You Were Here came out, yet I know every note. The Floyd and other noodlers will live on for as long as there are cerebral, spotty teenage boys with dank bedrooms who grow up with a sense of nostalgia.
Shame on you all, Deuteronomy 4:23..lest ye forget, Barry be among you...1975 gave us Mandy, be honest, you hum the thing at least once a week.
ReplyDeleteFor 1975 and Dylan, I prefer The Basement Tapes (although since it was recorded much earlier it may not fit your intent).
ReplyDeleteI've turned on several of my favorites of the time (Born to Run, Fleetwood Mac and Katy Lied), still listen to some (Zuma, Tonight's the Night, Natty Dread, Siren and Country Life), and appreciate (now) releases like Toots & The Maytals' Funky Kingston and Harold Melvin's To be True.