UK Album Charts 1977 Poll

television

That bass in "Dreams" is like being swaddled in black velvet. I get flashbacks to my childhood of laying in the backseat of my grandfather's Lincoln Continental hearing that song and gazing at blue sky and white clouds through the window. However aside from "You Make Loving Fun" and "Gold Dust Woman," the rest of Rumours leaves me cold. I'd argue that artists like Fleetwood Mac made less consistent albums than some of the punk/art rock crowd.

It's interesting how Jean Michel Jarre was so much more popular, even though Oxygene is arguably not as accessible as Kraftwerk's Trans-Europe Express. I have the album but don't know much about his story or how his electronic stuff got so popular.

If there was a similar piece done in 1977 about music from 40 years previously, that would be 1937. Yikes.

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I own so many of these. '77 was Peak LP. Even for punk*

*not punk

This is hard. Animals or Low? Two amazing albums. I think I'll go for Animals which I listened to at the time. Low which was more modern and more innovative I discovered much later. Both are my fave albums by the artists.

My two most-played at that time were probably Rumours and Plastic Letters, but is the latter really 1977? Wiki says it was released in February, 1978. Was it released earlier in Britain?

Sorry, a couple sources like Trouserpress said 1977, which is what I thought for the past 30 years -- a few of the 1977 releases didn't chart until '78, and I thought that was the case for Plastic Letters. My bad.

I only remembered because I had the Plastic Letters poster on my wall in summer of '78. Crazy that they released Plastic Letters and Parallel Lines about a half year apart.

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One of these, leaning towards Bowie, but Elvis is making a push.

Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
David Bowie - Low
Steely Dan - Aja
The Clash - The Clash
Elvis Costello And The Attractions - My Aim Is True

At the time, Out of the Blue and News of the World were my jams, especially "It's Late."

https://youtu.be/0PItMuGp39Q?list=RDuyd6OLyhPJo

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Voted for Television in the end.

Naturally!

"Heroes" (my favourite Bowie album), narrowly over Aja. This is a really good list although it's badly in need of some disco and reggae (and the first two Cheap Trick albums).

Apologies, I missed Chic's Dance Dance Dance, which did peak at #6 in 1978. I think I caught all the reggae that made the charts.

It's a testament to how good 1977 was in that it's hard to argue against even mainstream favorites, and there's a lot of good stuff in there despite not including most of my favorites (The Congos, Fela Kuti, Wire, George Faith, The Saints, Culture, Richard Hell & the Voidoids, Pere Ubu, Junior Murvin, The Heptones, Peter Tosh, The Damned, Dennis Brown, Third World, Radio Birdman, Augustus Pablo, Bob Andy, Horace Andy).

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

"Out of the Blue" is my pick of these, an album I discovered through the ILM '70s poll.

voted exodus, it's his best album imo

or my favorite, whatever

Wow, Out of the Blue in fifth! And even a bigger surprise, Leo Sayer in sixth. Very interesting, would love to hear from the voters talk about him.

High five to the other Darts voter

High five!

Heh, correction, it's a four-way tie for 6th between Darts, Sayer, Heroes and The Clash. "Boy From New York City" gives me flashbacks to Manhattan Transfer's version, which I kind of enjoyed, and then kind of hated.

Also, I was wrong, "Dance Dance Dance" was on the singles chart. Chic's self-titled debut album did not chart. C'Est Chic, however, did peak at #2 and spent 24 weeks on the chart in 1979. Giorgio Moroder's groundbreaking From Here To Eternity did not make the charts. John Martyn's interesting One World just peeked into 54 for one week in 1978.