1977: Was it really that great of a year for music?

What if it had never happened? No Steely Dan's 'Aja,' no Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours,' no Elvis Costello's 'My Aim Is True,' no 'The Clash' and no 'Never Mind the Bollocks.' No Moroder/Summer collaboration like "I Feel Love." No 'Heroes' and no 'Low.' What if "Stayin' Alive" and "Margaritaville" were the whole of 1977's legacy? Because I imagine they are to a lot of people. What's it like to be those people?

(Also, this thread is for pointing out great shit from 1977 nobody ever writes or talks about.)

You forgot Suicide and the Star Wars soundtrack

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71JxCGwe9cL._SL1500_.jpg

What if it had never happened? No Steely Dan's 'Aja,' no Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours,' no Elvis Costello's 'My Aim Is True,' no 'The Clash' and no 'Never Mind the Bollocks.' No Moroder/Summer collaboration like "I Feel Love." No 'Heroes' and no 'Low.' What if "Stayin' Alive" and "Margaritaville" were the whole of 1977's legacy? Because I imagine they are to a lot of people. What's it like to be those people?

It doesn't bear thinking about, without these we would have had to have spent each day minding the bollocks and that can take a lot out of a persons day

If somebody asked me, I would probably be able to remember/guess that both Rumours, Aja, The Clash and Low were released in 1977, but I very rarely think about music in specific years, tend to think more in periods and decades (but these days I mostly think about artists anyway).

I love the EOY-poll but that's just because it's a celebration of music and a great way of discovering new sounds.

But maybe these threads are more like music trivia threads?

i do listen to a lot of music from '77 - honestly for whatever reason i'll listen to damn near anything from the '70s, and '77 was particularly a good year after '75 and '76, which were fairly weak, at least for albums & rock. here's a sampler of the stuff i have tagged as '77:

abafana bomjovo - badonse memela/phinda futhi
abba - the album
anonymous - inside the shadow
v/a - new music for electronic and recorded media
archaia - s/t
armand schaubroeck steals - live at the holiday inn
v/a - saturday night fever
billy joel - the stranger
bob marley - exodus
the boys - s/t
brian eno - before and after science
chainsaw - see saw
cheap trick - s/t
circus - movin' on
david bowie - low, heroes
the dead boys - young, loud, & snotty
dennis wilson - pacific ocean blue
eddie hazel - games, dames, and guitar thangs
the equals - mystic syster
feliu i joan albert - s/t
gazoline - sally
gentiane - musique d'auvergne
the george-edwards group - 38:38
gianni safred and his electronic instruments - music scene-electronic designs
goblin - suspiria
half japanese - calling all girls
heart - little queen
the heptones - party time
iggy pop - the idiot/lust for life
jacques brel - les marquises
jethro tull - songs from the wood
john cale - guts
greaves/blegvad - kew rhone
kamuran akkor - alaturka
le mystere jazz de tombouctou - s/t
libra - schock
locanda delle fate - forse le lucciole non si amano piu
mccoy tyner - supertrios
michael finnissy - english country-tunes
miriam backhouse - gypsy without a road
morita doji - a boy
the mystery kindaichi band - adventure of kohsuke kindaichi
neon hearts - venus eccentric/regulations!
ocarinah - premiere vision de l'etrange
parliament - funkentelechy vs. the placebo syndrome
pat patrick & the baritone saxophone revue - sound advice
pere ubu - the modern dance
peter gabriel - s/t
peter hammill - over
pink floyd - animals
rail band - rail band mory kante
renato zero - zerofobia
richard hell and the voidoids - blank generation
rosebud - discoballs: a tribute to pink floyd
santana - moonflower
sensations' fix - boxes paradise
shitan - disco shitan
som nosso de cada dia - som nosso
sparks - introducing
steely dan - aja
stephen whynott - from philly to tablas
talking heads - '77
television - marquee moon
tim blake - crystal machine
unaio black - s/t
wire - pink flag
yochk'o seffer - ima
yosuke yamashita trio - may 23, 1977
ziad al rabhani - bil afrah
zoldar & clark - s/t

I tend to believe that rock music peaked 1969-74, so I was surprised to find so many albums from 1977 that I love:

Muddy Waters, Hard Again
Ramones, Leave Home
David Bowie, Low and "Heroes"
Pink Floyd, Animals
Iggy Pop, The Idiot and Lust For Life
AC/DC, Let There Be Rock
Kraftwerk, Trans-Europe Express
The Clash, s/t
Judas Priest, Sin After Sin
Ted Nugent, Cat Scratch Fever
UFO, Lights Out
Dr. Feelgood, Sneakin' Suspicion
Yes, Going For The One
Elvis Presley, Moody Blue
Radio Birdman, Radios Appear
Foghat, Foghat Live
Motörhead, s/t
Jean-Luc Ponty, Enigmatic Ocean
Steely Dan, Aja
Kansas, Point Of Know Return
Earth, Wind & Fire, All 'n All
Blue Öyster Cult, Spectres
Aerosmith, Draw The Line
Scorpions, Taken By Force
Miles Davis, Dark Magus
Al DiMeola, Elegant Gypsy
George Thorogood & The Destroyers, s/t

overlooked 1977 albums by artists from Edinburgh:

Pat McGlynn's Scotties - Pat McGlynn's Scotties
Pilot - Two's A Crowd

overlooked 1977 albums by artists from Liverpool:

Buster - Buster
Deaf School - Don't Stop The World
Ringo Starr - Ringo The 4th

Well, here's my 26 hour 1977 Spotify playlist.

77 is gonna be heaven:

Television - Marquee Moon
David Bowie - Low / "Heroes"
Kraftwerk - Trans Europe Express
Wire - Pink Flag
Brian Eno - Before And After Science
Iggy Pop - The Idiot / Lust For Life
Sex Pistols - you know the one
Radio Birdman - Radios Appear
The Saints - (I'm) Stranded
The Damned - Damned Damned Damned
The Stranglers - Stranglers IV / No More Heroes
Billy Joel - The Stranger (first album I bought for myself!)
John Greaves, Peter Blegvad and Lisa Herman - Kew. Rhone.
Ultravox! - Ultravox! / Ha! Ha! Ha!
The Jam - In The City
Cluster & Eno - s/t
The Outsiders - Calling On Youth
Buzzcocks - Spiral Scratch EP
John Cale - Animal Justice EP
Nick Lowe - Bowi EP
XTC - 3D EP

And a crapton of amazing singles from The Soft Boys, Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers, Ian Dury, Ramones, Peter Gabriel, Richard Hell, Elvis Costello, The Clash, Devo, The Adverts, Heartbreakers, Dead Boys, Wreckless Eric, Blondie, Talking Heads, Plastic Bertrand, Avengers, The Real Kids, Pere Ubu, The Dils, Mink DeVille, The Kinks, Penetration, The Rezillos, Tom Robinson Band, The Tubes, The Only Ones and more.

And I did quite like the pop chart stuff from Fleetwood Mac, Abba, Supertramp and others.

Black Vinyl Shoes is also '77, although just 1,000 copies--it was reissued the following year. That's sort of the Never Mind the Bollocks of power-pop (if you count Big Star as the Stooges or Velvet Underground of the genre...).

What if "Stayin' Alive" and "Margaritaville" were the whole of 1977's legacy?

The world would be a much less interesting place, probably.

My favourite 1977 album that no one ever talks about is Willie Wright's Telling the Truth, but at the time that album had a circulation entirely limited to what he sold at shows.

MX-80 Sound's "Hard Attack" and "I Feel Love" are enough to enshrined the year in my personal hall of fame. (Beatles at the Star Club is another revelatory 1977 release I've only discovered recently, but there's no '77 music on it, of course.)

are we just naming great music from 77? cos if so this is going to be a long and boring thread

I was kinda hoping people would share underheard lost favorites, but I don't even know what's underheard on ILM anymore. Everyone seems into everything, but also very specifically their own things.

Anyway, my favorite oldie discovery of the past couple weeks is from 1977 (not why I began the thread, but I appreciate the coincidence).

Recorded in Muscle Shoals, but extremely smooth California (even includes a "Desperado" cover), is this one off collabo album by LeBlanc & Carr called Midnight Light. Kinda like the Willie Wright album mentioned above, I'm not sure how widely released it was. I've never seen it a lot in the bins, anyway. If you aren't into Poco and Loggins & Messina and Still Crazy-era Paul Simon, then you'd probably not be into this, but it's one of the finest examples of that kind of thing I've heard in a long time (ever?).

https://i.imgur.com/taNbBVj.jpg

My favourite album of 1977 is Brian Eno's "Before and After Science" such a fascinating Janus-faced record.

Not yet mentioned:
Jacques Brel - Les Marquises
Joni Mitchell - Don Juan's Reckless Daughter
Weather Report - Heavy Weather
Leonard Cohen - Death of a Ladies' Man

Btw Pere Ubu's "The Modern Dance" just missed 1977, it was released in January 1978!

Favorites not yet mentioned: ELO Out of the Blue and Claude Bolling Suite for Violin and Jazz Piano Trio, but I suspect a strong case could be made just based on punk and new wave singles, as Gerald M suggested. Makes me want to dig out my copy of the No Thanks anthology.

Fave 1977 album not mentioned yet: Chrome's Alien Soundtracks

I was just about to mention Chrome, yeah, and Crime's 'Frustration / Murder By Guitar' 7 inch. First two Devo singles came out in 77.

"Not yet mentioned:
Jacques Brel - Les Marquises"

*ahem*

but yeah the joni mitchell is great. i just go by my tags, which are often wrong and incomplete!

johnny fever: how do you feel about '77's "natural progressions" by leadon-georgiades? might not be a million miles from leblanc and carr.

Gonna check into it, thanks!

Ooops. Completely forgot to add Heldon's Interface - probably my fave Pinhas release.

Peter Hammill's Over is a great choice – my favourite out of all his 40-odd solo albums. And I'd add Van der Graaf's The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome.

You know it really does not surprise me one bit that you all missed out on Waylon Jennings, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Willie Nelson. You also got Johnny Paycheck, Merle Haggard, and Billy Joe Shavar.

I suppose it doesn't amount to one hill of beans to all of you all. 1977 was the best year for country music.

A bit judgy, but ok. You missed Joe Ely's first album btw.

1977 was the best year for country music.

Which albums by the artists you named are you talking about? Cause I like Haggard's material from 65-71 or so MUCH better than his late 70s stuff. Same for Jennings, same for Nelson.

contender for peak year of disco

There was still some great prog coming out in 1977 ... Going for the One, Animals, Rain Dances ...

Uh, Songs from the Wood ... A Farewell to Kings ...

anthony braxton / richard teitelbaum - time zones.

Seems like half the time I listen to an album from 1977, its Heart of the Congos.

Can't believe no-one's mentioned Genesis Seconds Out yet. The performances are so great and it's effectively a greatest hits album played live, to the extent that it's pretty much my first choice whenever I want to listen to some Genesis.