The story of Elvis Costello, one of the most gifted songwriters in English pop history, started 40 years ago with ‘My Aim Is True’.
One of the most commercially successful albums of first-wave British punk, The Stranglers’ debut ‘Rattus Norvegicus’ turns 40 years old.
Forty years after its release, we examine the enduring importance of Kraftwerk’s 1977 album ‘Trans-Europe Express’.
Iggy Pop was on the scrapheap in the mid-1970s but, with the help of his friend David Bowie, reinvented himself with his debut solo album ‘The Idiot’, which presaged the soul of post-punk.
Television’s 1977 debut ‘Marquee Moon’ helped change the course of guitar music’s evolution, with its jazzy, nocturnal feel and disregard for blues tunings.
40 years on, Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’ is arguably more relevant and beloved than ever before.
Arguably the most radical reinvention of David Bowie’s chameleonic career, ‘Low’ is one of the very finest artistic achievements of the 1970s.
by Ed Biggs Although they’re one of the most iconic and important guitar bands of all time, Ramones sold way more shirts than they ever did records. As Stereogum pointed out in 2015, if everyone who owns a Ramones T-shirt had instead bought one of their albums, they’d be one of the biggest bands in history.
by Ed Biggs Station To Station is noteworthy in Bowie’s discography in as much that it serves to represent a transition between eras, from the Ziggy Stardust… / plastic soul of the early 1970s to the experimental electronica of his so-called ‘Berlin Trilogy’ of 1977-1979. We therefore catch a glimpse of the inner workings of Bowie’s psyche and creative process, and it makes for fascinating listening.
by Ed Biggs Though Bob Dylan’s reputation and power is inextricably bound up with the 1960s, the middle of the next decade saw him briefly recapture his peak form with back-to-back classics. 1975’s Blood On The Tracks is regarded by more than a few Dylan fans as his very best album, but that record’s reputation often overshadows that of its successor. While neither as special nor as iconic as …Tracks, Desire
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