1978 – 'Cause the power, you're supplying. It's electrifying!

As 1977 became ’78, the musical landscape changed again. Punk changed. Ironically, as a band supposedly so anti- the old rock’n’roll brigade, The Sex Pistols became a rock’n’roll tribute act with the permanently spaced-out Sid Vicious replacing Johnny Rotten on vocals on hits like ‘My Way’, ‘Something Else’ and ‘C’mon Everybody’ before his final, fatal, overdose. Elsewhere, Punk grew up.

Mr Rotten himself matured as John Lydon, fronting the acclaimed Public Image Limited. It turned out that he wasn’t anti everything after all. A polio-afflicted, gravelly-voiced London geezer called Ian Dury enjoyed rave reviews for the ‘New Boots and Panties’ album, and we all loved the lyrics to ‘What a Waste’. For example:

“I could be a writer with a growing reputation
I could be the ticket-man at Fulham Broadway station”

Elvis Costello & the Attractions and The Boomtown Rats each had a string of top twenty singles, becoming more interesting with each new release. By the autumn, Bob Geldof had become a household name, and his effortless TOTP performance propelled ‘Rat Trap’ all the way to the top: the first ‘New Wave’ number one. The clear words of working class desperation were also new to the upper echelons of the charts. I’d never heard anything like it!

Siouxsie and the Banshees fused punk with the Orient in the absorbing ‘Hong Kong Garden’ and The Buzzcocks began a run of great little singles with a fast and furious love song - love song! – called ‘Ever Fallen in Love’. Unlike Siouxsie and Pete Shelley, Poly Styrene had a terrible voice. However, when her band X-Ray Spex produced the glorious ‘slowie’ ‘Germ-free Adolescents’, it didn’t really matter. Intriguing lyrics and smooth production were added to Poly’s unique persona and I really enjoyed the result. It only reached 18 but the song remains a personal favourite.

American New Wave artists also had some limited success over here. Blondie’s ‘Denis’ leapt to two, and Debbie Harry’s appearance made an impact on a lot of teenage boys, including me! The rockier ‘Hanging on the Telephone’ was another hit. Note Clem Burke’s manic drumming performance in this live clip!

I quite liked the Patti Smith Group’s ‘Because the Night’, too, although the rest of her material was a bit too arty-farty for me. The Cars also ascended to three with ‘My Best Friend’s Girl’, a student-friendly guitar record. Their Eighties hit ‘Drive’ became their signature tune but for me the original post-Punk material was even better.

A lot of ‘New Wave’ was pretty earnest stuff. Nothing wrong with that, but there were some artists in the genre who brought some light relief. Sham 69 burst onto our screens in April when Jimmy Pursey, at the start of ‘Angels with Dirty Faces’, exclaimed: “Ello, Mum. Who’s on Toppa the Pops?!” His eyebrows had lives of their own but he sang live and actually seemed to enjoy himself. It was all pretty basic punk rock, but hits like ‘Hersham Boys’ and ‘Hurry Up Harry’ not only made you want to dance but also to smile. ‘If the Kids are United’ – or at least versions of it - can still be heard on football terraces today. Pursey may not have achieved a career as either a solo artist or loveable ‘Cocker-nee’ TV presenter but his charming chants live on. Sham 69 and Dury proved that New Wave could be fun!

Two others caught up in the New Wave pop scene sparked conversations at school, again more in jest than as serious musical critique. Plastic Bertrand’s ‘Ca Plane Pour Moi’ was an extraordinary top ten hit. I did French ‘O’ level, but the title – along the rest of the lyrics – defied translation. The backing track was punk-lite but not the ‘woo-oo-oo-ooo’s! On TOTP, Plastic pogo-ed around as if Johnny Rotten had had a lobotomy and hefty dose of laughing gas. Mad! Still, for good or ill, the song is embedded in my brain and Plastic Bertrand will always crop up in (the very short) lists of famous Belgians.

Then there was Jilted John. Starting in the sixth form that September, we noted that John’s TOTP performance injected some much needed humour into the top ten. Officially the song was also called ‘Jilted John’ but we all knew it as ‘Gordon is a Moron’. Graham Fellows has gone on to Radio 4 legendary status with another musical creation John Shuttleworth, but for me he’ll forever be associated with the hapless John, jilted by his beloved Julie. It also consigned Gordon to history as a boy’s name. Thank God he didn’t use Michael instead. I’d have done more than cry “all the way to the chip shop”! Patti Smith or Paul Weller would never have come up with lines like:-

“I ought to smash his face in
Yeah, but he's bigger than me. In't he?
I know, I'll get my mate Barry to hit him. He'd flatten him.
Yeah but Barry's a mate of Gordon's in'e?”

Perhaps they should….

For all the efforts of New Wave and fledgling labels like Stiff Records, the 1978 charts were total dominated by songs from just two musicals. ‘Evita’ paled into insignificance compared with the power of movies which catapulted ‘Saturday Night Fever’ and ‘Grease’ into the global cultural stratosphere. Needless to say, I saw neither in the cinema. Not just because Billericay didn’t have one, necessitating a lift or bus ride into Basildon or Brentwood. It was just that we never went as a family and I wasn’t part of a bunch of friends who did that sort of thing. Even as 17 year-olds, no sixth formers in those days had a car. In any case, SNF was ‘X-rated’, officially inaccessible to schoolkids like me. I didn’t feel I was missing out. After all, the songs were simply everywhere. 

Once my fave group, The Bee Gees had grown their hair, exposed their chests and gone falsetto. They were no longer just kings of the beautiful ballad; they were now disco gods. Fortunately I still enjoyed what they were putting out. ‘How Deep is Love?’ had done well the previous Christmas, but not with me. ‘Staying Alive’ was something else. That relentless rhythm, Maurice’s bass intro and Barry’s vocals had the world dancing, but in the UK, it was only ‘Night Fever’ which topped the chart. It was also my favourite track from the show. 

Grease may have played second fiddle to Saturday Night Fever in album sales, but the 1978 singles charts became almost the personal fiefdom of Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta. ‘You’re the One That I Want’ was number one for nine weeks that summer. The same clip from the film became boring. If that wasn’t enough, ‘Summer Nights’ held the top spot for a further seven weeks. Of course, we have sung and acted it out at discos and weddings a million times since, but “ohhh, those su-u-mmer nigh-hights” really got on my wick! Travolta was, of course the star of both the behemoth movies, and his ‘Sandy’ also made two. In the first week of November, he and Livvy between them had three of the top four singles. They were all good pop songs but by Christmas, I was fully fed up with Grease.

Those two million-selling chart-toppers were truly massive yet neither proved to be the official best-seller of the year. That title went to a Boney M double A-sider. ‘Rivers of Babylon’ bridged the five weeks at number one between ‘Night Fever’ and ‘You’re the One That I Want’ but it was only when stations played the flip side ‘Brown Girl in the Ring’ later that summer when combined sales broke through the two million barrier.

I may be alone in this, but I actually preferred the ludicrous ‘Rasputin’ which in October was held at number two for three weeks by - who else but - John and Olivia. Its grasp of history was perhaps dubious (“Russia’s greatest love machine” –eh??) but a disco era classic and also memorable for Bobby Farrell’s comedy Cossack beard! Nevertheless, the M-sters weren’t finished that year. They gave Harry Belafonte’s Fifties Christmas smash ‘Mary’s Boy Child’ a foot-tapping Caribbean twist and a festive number one was inevitable. Repeat the ‘Rivers of Babylon’ beat and harmonies, wrap the foursome in Santa gear, and the formula was a sure-fire winner. Even now, I think it’s the second biggest-selling Christmas song in UK history. Boney M were never going to win Oscars or Grammies but they were an entertaining part of my teenage years.

Other artists also dipped their toes into the wacky waters of disco.  Even The Rolling Stones slipped into a nifty bass-heavy groove for ‘Miss You’. It may have shocked many of their old fans but I couldn’t help liking it, and a top 3 chart position suggested I wasn’t alone. Meanwhile, ABBA were continuing their outstanding run of number ones with ‘Take a Chance on Me’. At the time, I considered it their best so far. The accompanying video may be a bit naff, memorably lampooned years later by French and Saunders, but the quality of the music was undimmed.

In September, Bjorn and Benny demonstrated their versatility by releasing ‘Summertime City’. Unashamedly disco, it failed to make the top four. Maybe the world wasn’t ready for a new ABBA sound, but it wasn’t really such a giant leap. The rest of the formula was mercifully intact. Nevertheless, it did pave the way for their 1979 album ‘Voulez-Vous’ which had more danceable stuff.

Even Rod Stewart abandoned his ballad-heavy mode to inflict disco-lite ‘D’Ya Think I’m Sexy?’ on us all. Confession time: I actually quite liked it. Reaching number one briefly in December, I reckon it’s a guilty pleasure for many of my contemporaries. However, my abiding memory of the record is not Rod himself. Instead it was Kenny Everett’s typically irreverent piss-take of the Stewart strut, complete with ever-inflating leopardskin derriere!

The Motors weren’t disco by any stretch of the imagination, but their top four single ‘Airport’ was in my opinion one of the best records of the year. It’s one of those examples of a record which didn’t fit into a particular pigeonhole, but made an impression in an otherwise mediocre summer of music. While the synth intro is instantly recognisable, I particularly loved the keyboard bridge before the final chorus.

Reggae was back en vogue, claiming an improbable pair of number one singles. A pair of Jamaican teenagers, Althia and Donna, came from nowhere in January with ‘Uptown Top Ranking’. None of us knew what the words were, let alone meant, but it caught a mood. There was some light reggae from 10cc, too, in September. With Graham Gouldman taking lead vocals, it proved to be not only the group’s last chart-topper but their last top 30 single. It wasn’t their finest hour but some of the lyrics endure. For example, Angie may enjoy repeating the line “I don’t like cricket” but I just trot out the next line, “I love it!”

A genuine reggae superstar was also making his mark on me for the first time. Bob Marley had made the Top 20 before but ‘Jamming’ was the first song I remember hearing, and certainly enjoying. His impressive dreadlocks and voice were so distinctive, but he seemed to marry the traditional off-beat with melody. Upsetting to think that within three years he was dead.

Earlier I ‘dissed’ the saxophone in pop, but in ’78 came a sax solo that even I could rave about. Gerry Rafferty’s face looked vaguely familiar, and it was his voice I’d heard on ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ but ‘Baker Street’ was something else entirely. It had rock guitar, keyboards, that sax, and a unique vibe all of its own. He followed it the next year with ‘Night Owl’, at least as good in my opinion, and ‘Get it Right Next Time’ but it’s the number three hit in 1978 which made him hugely successful on both sides of the Atlantic.  Rafferty’s laconic drawl and half-shut eyes indicated either a real cool customer or someone under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Sadly, we were to discover it was probably the former. I don’t know if there was an issue with one-night stands but taking the words of his greatest hit, he distressingly failed to “give up the booze”.

I’ve never been an aficionado of soul. Its exponents don’t crop up very often in this memoir. But in early ’78, Bill Withers flew to number seven with ‘Lovely Day’ and it was to be one of my musical highlights of the year. That bassline and smooth groove throughout the song haven’t dated one iota. I reckon that had it come out in the summer, it would have been even bigger. Withers is my kind of soul singer. None of that melodramatic emoting. You can imagine him sitting down by the mic, cup of coffee at his side, just letting the lyrics flow. Another contemporary favourite of mine also started with a distinctive bass intro and beautiful shuffling rhythm. I hadn’t heard of John Paul Young before and can’t recall hearing of him since, but ‘Love is in the Air’ was a joyous record in a genre of its own.

I wouldn’t call Andrew Gold a soul singer, nor even a Seventies superstar. However, his luxuriant ginger locks were at odds with the conventional Californian look, and he did produce the gorgeous ‘Never Let Her Slip Away’ that year. That, and Genesis’ ‘Follow You, Follow Me’ prove to the world that I’m just a big softie, really. The latter even made my all-time Top 50 when I wrote it in 1985! Not sure it’ll be there now, but for me it was a stunning introduction to the work of Genesis. It would be another two years before they’d finally submit to the lure (or peril?) of TOTP exposure and consequent singles success.

Yes, I can be a romantic, but don’t expect me to love The Commodores’ ‘Three Times a Lady’. It may be a wedding dance staple, but it didn’t ‘alf drone on at the top in August. It was enough to make anyone long for Travolta and Newton-John to take over once more. I now appreciate Lionel Richie for the consummate entertainer he is, but back then, his afro seemed better than his songs.

At least the Commodores were superior to Father Abraham and the Smurfs. ‘The Smurf Song’ famously languished at number two for six weeks. Its inanity drove me almost to insanity! Like Brian and Michael’s ode to LS Lowry, ‘Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs’, it was a huge hit I couldn’t avoid, however hard I tried. I could have happily strangled every one of the irritating little blue b*st*rds….

ELO were nothing if not consistent in 1978. Despite several years in the charts, their USP of well-crafted records with a prominent string section had remained – well – U! Co-founder Roy Wood had long since departed to form Wizzard, but drummer Bev Bevan and singer-writer-guitarist-producer-everything-else-er Jeff Lynne were still around to keep us entertained. ‘Out of the Blue’ was a double album, and its signature logo of colourful flying saucer was everywhere that year. Their concerts became more elaborate and technical and, while I didn’t see them live, those performances became a feature of TOTP appearances.

‘Sweet Talking Woman’, ‘Wild West Hero’ and ‘Mr Blue Sky’ each peaked at six in ’78, and there was plenty more still to come. Even better, Jeff Lynne is still going! Although somewhat shrunken since the Out of the Blue era, the trademark frizz is intact, as is, despite all those years in the States, the Brummie accent Why he isn’t Sir Jeff is a mystery, a knighthood long overdue. If the PM or Queen needs convincing, she should simply watch the clip above.

For all ELO’s singles chart consistency, and the tenacious tentacles of the Grease stars, it was another, considerably less famous act which enjoyed no fewer than four top three hits in 1978. No, not Showaddywaddy, although they were still churning out the crap rock’n’roll covers. No, it was Darts. They, too, boasted plenty of members and harked back to a different era, but their blend of doo-wop and R’n’B was in stark contrast to the Leicester boys. ‘Daddy Cool’, ‘Come Back, My Love’, ‘Boy from New York City’ (my favourite) and ‘It’s Raining’ featured different lead vocalists and slightly different styles but Darts managed to carry it off. The wild-eyed Den Hegarty seemed out of synch with his bandmates but when he left in mid-year, they lost their way and the hits vanished as quickly as they had appeared. 

A review of my musical tastes in 1978 could never have been complete without mentioning the extraordinary force of nature that was, and is, Kate Bush. When the shy teenager first appeared on TOTP in February, waving her arms around and squealing what sounded like “Out on the wild and windy moors” in such a ridiculously high register, I and my friends didn’t know what to make of her. It was easiest to simply make fun. Yet ‘Wuthering Heights’ made Kate the first woman to write and sing a UK number one song.  

But bald statistics don’t do it justice. While I indubitably enjoyed ‘Wuthering Heights’ at the time, it seems to sound even better with every passing year. Kate’s vocals, the arty dance moves, the piano, stunning minor chords and rock guitar ‘outro’ together form surely one of the two or three greatest records in history. A work of genius – and she was only nineteen! 

And, blow me, she then goes and releases another mind-blowing single just months later. ‘The Man with the Child in His Eyes’ was another mature product of a young girl’s amazing imagination. It had been recorded three years earlier with that flowing piano and orchestra, but it was worth the wait. When I listen to it now I become the man with the tears in his eyes. When the horn echoes Kate’s voice near the end before that final lingering chord it’s monumentally moving.

Of course, Kate Bush enjoyed plenty more hits in the years to come but if she had disappeared into a black hole in 1979, her legacy of these 1978 masterpieces from ‘The Kick Inside’ would have been enough for any artist. The rush of renewed fascination with the Bush back catalogue when she stepped back into the spotlight with her first gigs in 35 years made me realise that she had been years ahead of her time. I didn’t appreciate a lot of her pretentious material. Indeed, I didn’t like many of her later hits. However, the world of music would be a lot poorer had Dave Gilmour not indulged young Kate in the mid-70s and set her on that road to success.  

Was she merely a Prog rocker, to be pigeonholed with Yes and the Floyd? No, she was unique, a one-off. Certainly progressive, her music full of intelligence. However, I reckon she had more melody than any of the much-maligned groups, and her wondrous love of movement took her onto a different plane entirely.