The year when disco went splat had the acts below jiggling in a danse macabre. Credit stagflation, the audience, drugs, and their personal stages, for Talking Heads, Michael Jackson, Marianne Faithfull, Blondie, Van Morrison, and many others went as bonkers as Lindsey Buckingham did on Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk (and he had to ply his bandmates with champagne and caviar). Donna Summer released her third or fourth double album, and, thanks to a pair of indomitable, undeniable #1 singles, the rock-disco fusion essayed on Bad Girls finally won critics over. Did they miss the ballad side? Summer had released at least three albums better than Bad Girls but no matter. Portending a turn in commercial radio as evanescent as the pet rock craze, Get The Knack knocked Summer out of the top spot for its own six-week stay. The album that knocked it out? In Through the Out Door. Followed by The Long Run. The industry plays for keeps, man.
For now, I’ll give the thumbs up to Off The Wall, which boasts enough burps, squeaks, and yelps to satisfy Lene Lovich fans if the mass audience and the Lovich claque had overlapped. Maybe they did: 1979 was like that. It’s not impossible to imagine a Specs Records and Tapes showing off its inaugural “New Wave” section with Get the Knack and Stateless in prominent display.
Let me respond to readers who want me to record new experiences. Familiar with “Lucky Number” and “New Toy,” the guitars lighting lamps in unexplored corners, the drums taking their cues from Lovich’s exquisite (no other word for the likes of “Telepathy”), I expected a “quirky” New Wave album from Stateless. I got instead a record as surprising as The B-52′s. This is an album I imagine its fans hugging close and loving for the rest of their lives; this is an album deserving a 33 1/3, from which cults emerged.
This may be the last time in these surveys when neither Meh nor The Hague get nominations. Readers will quibble. Elvis Costello and Graham Parker were already squeezing sparks out from increasingly un-fissile stores of revenge, Costello in particular (he’d bounce back with Get Happy! and Trust). Lived-in, ebullient, and focused like success can do when it hasn’t spoiled you, Pirates is Rickie Lee Jones’ great album, not her good debut.
Sound, Solid
Iggy Pop – New Values
David Johansen – In Style
Elvis Costello and the Attractions – Armed Forces
Graham Parker – Squeezing Out Sparks
Rickie Lee Jones – Rickie Lee Jones
Dave Edmunds – Repeat When Necessary
Good to Great
Michael Jackson – Off the Wall
The B-52s – The B-52s
Blondie – Eat to the Beat
Chic – Risque
Neil Young – Rust Never Sleeps
Lene Lovich – Stateless
David Bowie – Lodger
Donna Summer – Bad Girls
Talking Heads – Fear of Music
Fleetwood Mack – Tusk
The Clash – The Clash
Van Morrison – Into the Music
Buzzcocks- Singles Going Steady
Pere Ubu – Dub Housing
Joe Jackson – Look Sharp!
Tom Verlaine – Tom Verlaine
Linton Kwesi Johnson – Forces of Victory
Roxy Music – Manifesto
Marianne Faithfull: Broken English
Nick Lowe – Labour of Lust
The Slits – Cut
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Damn the Torpedoes
The Roches – The Roches
Neil Young with Crazy Horse – Live Rust
The Jury’s Out
Ry Cooder – Bop ‘Til You Drop
Art Ensemble of Chicago – Nice Guys
Humanizing The Vacuum 
Another great year. I was homeless for a good part of it but man, did I ever dance! like ALL NIGHT LONG every night that entire summer. Eating tacos at 4 am sitting on the curb & sleeping on friends sofas. Not sure I would want to relive that but I’m glad I did it once upon a time.