Declining standards of living, labor disputes, wars and conflicts: between the 1970s and today there are parallels in society as a whole. So it makes sense to take a closer look at the music of the second half of the decade. It consisted of more than disco.
The disco year 1978
Village People’s album MACHO MAN was released on February 27, 1978. In November, Earth Wind And Fire followed with the hit “September”.
The year is in the midst of the heyday of popular disco music, at which point it has arrived in the mainstream: The Bee Gees win a Grammy, ABBA lay the foundation for their subsequent album VOULEZ-VOUS with “Summer Night City”, Nile Rodgers plays the Guitar on “Le Freak” and icons Gloria Gaynor and Sylvester sing “I Will Survive” and “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” respectively. The list can be continued immeasurably. Even the Rolling Stones tried their hand at disco with “Miss You” on their record SOME GIRLS, released that same year.
1978 & 2023: Parallel Lines
But the music year 1978 was also marked by other omens. In spring, the music magazine “Sounds” first mentioned “post-punk” to describe bands like Siouxsie And The Banshees or Wire. The “New Musical Express” also took up the concept, which was still in its infancy. From 1979, the paper was to turn its content to socialism as a reaction to Maggie Thatcher’s assumption of office. The music scene, including bands like The Clash, has been an important part of denouncing socioeconomic conditions. “I will not be treated as property/It’s not a game of Monopoly,” sang Johnny Rotten on Public Image. Great Britain experienced the Winter of Discount with numerous strikes and labor disputes. The starting point was the standard of living in the United Kingdom, which had fallen for the first time since the Second World War in 1977.
And today? In 2022, real wages reached their sharpest decline since then. The British healthcare system NHS has existed since 1948 and has never been in such a bad state as it was three years after Brexit. NHS England alone is missing over 130,000 staff, including more than 45,000 nurses. 10 percent of positions in the healthcare system are vacant. Ambulance queues in front of the hospitals are not uncommon. The system doesn’t seem to have learned a thing over the past 45 years, and one inevitably wonders where its enduring raison d’être comes from. “The change will do you good/I always knew it would,” said Gang Of Four singer Jon King in their debut single “Damaged Goods.”
At that time, the population in the USA was struggling with the consequences of the first oil price crisis, and the second was to follow a year later. After Jimmy Carter’s election in 1977, the USA sought a change of direction in foreign policy by not resuming a new war in Indochina, but the Cold War was still going on, the USA and the USSR were in conflict over fighter jet supplies to Cuba and the The looming NATO double-track decision provided a sad climax in the conflict. “I don’t like politics/I don’t like communists” on The Ramones’ “I’m Against It” sums up opposition to the arms race quite well. Since the collapse of the Eastern bloc, the tension between the West and Russia has not been as omnipresent as it has been since Putin’s terrible war of aggression in Ukraine, which also does not shy away from war crimes.
In the western part of society, a fundamental anti-Russia attitude spread last year, which at times assumed absurd proportions, for example in the form of discussions about removing Russian literary works such as Dostoyevsky from the curriculum at universities and attacks on fellow Russians and restaurants. On the Russian side, the anti-Western propaganda machine is swinging like a wrecking ball, smashing every opposition figure to rubble. And in the news, nuclear weapons discussions are part of daily politics.
In addition, homosexuals, blacks and women were far from the end of their emancipatory struggles against oppression, as Patti Smith’s “Till Victory” affirms. The ratification period of the Equal Rights Amendment was imminent, since 1977 35 of the required 38 states voted for the amendment, which should guarantee women the same rights as men. In the end, absurdly enough, it didn’t come about in 1982.
From today’s perspective, parallels to 1978 can inevitably be drawn in society as a whole. The uncertainty and, above all, dissatisfaction that formed the punk movement in the mid-1970s and manifested itself in the second half of the historic decade can still be felt today. In recent years, a new post-punk front has formed around bands like Fontaine’s DC, the IDLES or the Viagra Boys, but the movement had a much broader scope in the late ’70s.
On this occasion, it seems obvious to recap which songs were released far from disco music and thus give the year a cultural framework from a slightly different perspective: 45 (post) punk songs, all of which were released 45 years ago. You can find it here and below Spotify playlist.
1978-2023: 45 (post) punk songs released 45 years ago
- The B-52’s – Rock Lobster (B-52’S)
- Blondie-Detroit 442 (PLASTIC LETTERS)
- Blondie – Youth Nabbed As Sniper (PLASTIC LETTERS)
- Buzzcocks – Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve?) (LOVE BITS)
- Buzzcocks – Fiction Romance (ANOTHER MUSIC IN A DIFFERENT KITCHEN)
- The Clash – Tommy Gun (GIVE ‘EM ENOUGH ROPE)
- The Cure – Killing An Arab (Single)
- DEVO – Mongoloid (re-recorded Q: ARE WE NOT MEN? A: WE ARE DEVO!)
- Elvis Costello & The Attractions – Night Rally (THIS YEAR’S MODEL)
- The Fall – It’s the New Thing (Single)
- Gang Of Four – Damaged Goods (Single)
- The Jam – ‘A’ Bomb In Wardour Street (ALL MODS CONS)
- The Jam – Billy Hunt (ALL MODS CONS)
- Joy Division – Digital/Glass (A FACTORY SAMPLER)
- Joy Division – Warsaw (AN IDEAL FOR LIVING)
- The Killjoys – Johnny Won’t Get To Heaven (re-recorded single)
- Magazine – The Light Pours Out Of Me (REAL LIFE)
- Magazine – Shot By Both Sides (REAL LIFE)
- Martha and the Muffins – Insect Love (Single)
- The Only Ones – Another Girl Another Planet (THE ONLY ONES)
- The Only Ones – Lovers Of Today (SPECIAL VIEW)
- Patti Smith – Till Victory (EASTER)
- Penetration – Don’t Dictate (MOVING TARGETS)
- public image ltd – PUBLIC IMAGE
- public image ltd – Religion II (PUBLIC IMAGE)
- Ramones – I’m Against It (ROAD TO RUIN)
- Ramones – I Wanna Be Sedated (ROAD TO RUIN)
- Richard Hell – The Kid with the Replaceable Head (Single)
- The Saints – Lost and Found (Single)
- The Saints – Swing for the Crime (PREHISTORIC SOUND)
- Screamers – Magazine Love (LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO ’78)
- Screamers – Punish or Be Damned (LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO ’78)
- Siouxsie and the Banshees – Hong Kong Garden (THE SCREAM)
- Siouxsie and the Banshees – Jigsaw Feeling (THE SCREAM)
- Stiff Little Fingers – Suspect Device (Single)
- The Stranglers – Walk On By (BLACK AND WHITE)
- The Stranglers – Shut Up (BLACK AND WHITE)
- Television – Foxhole (ADVENTURE)
- Ultravox – I Can’t Stay Long (SYSTEM OF ROMANCE)
- Ultravox – Slow Motion (SYSTEM OF ROMANCE)
- The Undertones – Teenage Kicks (Single)
- Wire – I Am the Fly (CHAIRS MISSING)
- Wire – Too Late (CHAIRS MISSING)
- X-Ray-Spex – Art-I-Ficial (GERM FREE ADOLESCENTS)
- X-Ray Spex – Identity (GERM FREE ADOLESCENTS)