Max Picks …songs from 1977

1977

This is the year I became aware of sports, news, and politics. This year is an eclectic bunch of songs. You have punk, reggae, pub rock, rock, and pop/rock.

I didn’t get into the Sex Pistols at the time they came out. They were not as big over here as they were in the UK. I did find them later on. I can’t say I’m a huge fan but I do recognize the importance of the Punk rock movement… and they stirred up the rock music industry when it needed stirring up.

This was originally called “No Future.” The band played it live and recorded a demo version with that title, but changed it when lead singer Johnny Rotten got the idea to mock the British monarchy.

I got into Bob Marley and the Wailers a little later but better late than never. Jammin’ is on their ninth studio album Exodus. In Jamaica, the word “jamming” refers to getting together for a celebration. Although it can also mean an impromptu musical session.

Marley wrote the song in exile in Nassau after the 1976 attempt on his life.

The song was written by David Bowie and Brian Eno and was on the Heroes album released in 1977. After burnout because of touring Bowie moved to Berlin and rented a cheap apartment above an auto-repair shop, which is where he wrote the album.

I was walking through a drug store in the late seventies as a kid and I saw this album cover…I thought what??? another person named Elvis? Who is this skinny guy? While at the drug store, the guy was playing this album and I heard Alison… That was the first thing I ever heard from Elvis. The album peaked at #32 in the Billboard Album Charts in 1978. His songs were different than a lot of the radio hits of the day…with different, I mean better.

Fleetwood Mac released Rumours and it was the album of the year. An incredible four singles were pulled off of this album plus the other songs that would become FM classics. Personally, my favorite two are Second Hand News and Never Going Back Again but I do like Go Your On Way.

Lindsey Buckingham showed that less was more in this solo…he used very few notes and used sustain.

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

43 thoughts on “Max Picks …songs from 1977”

  2. Not much from this year that appealed to me. Since I’m an old fart (and blues lover) you can probably guess that I think Fleetwood Mac’s best years were well behind them by now. While this era made them rich, Peter Green was a magician with soul who could put more into a single note than many guitarists can put into an extended solo, and that era was by far the best in my mind. By ’77 they were just a pop band. 1977 was the year of Terrapin Station by the Grateful Dead, with an actual composition (not just extended improvisation) that took up an album side. “Estimated Prophet” and “Passenger” were two songs on that I think are under-appreciated. And how could we leave out Meat Loaf’s epic “Paradise by the Dashboard Light”? (though it didn’t chart as a single until the next year).

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    1. Meatloaf is one that I wanted to get in there… like Frampton with the last year…. I also like the Peter Green years as well.
      I will be getting more Dead in…probably with something on their Go To Heaven album.

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  4. Oh man, what a great set of tunes! I didn’t hear the Pistols for the first time until ’82 (I was only 9 in ’77!) but that band completely changed my perspective on music. Forever. One of the bands I was in back in the day used to play “Jammin” as a warm up while everyone was noodling around, getting set up… Elvis C?!? What can I say, a freaking legend, that guy! Saw him live just a couple years ago and he’s still got it! Never was much of a Fleetwood Mac fan, but Go Your Own Way was a song that holds a special place in my heart – not because of FM, but one of the best local bands around these parts used to play an “alt rock” rendition of it that would blow the roof off the place. Thanks for the memories this morning!

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    1. Thank you for reading…well we are almost the same age. Starting with this year…my memories are clear because this is when I started to pay more attention to the radio besides just listening to albums at home.

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  5. A year of change in the music world…and you capture some of the winds of change and variety. ‘Rumours’ was definitely the album , to me, and I guess record-sellers, don’t know what my favorite song off it is -perhaps ‘Gold Dust Woman’ – but there isn’t a weak song on it. I get you on the Sex Pistols – nowadays, they would be nowhere near my top5 of that year but they sure did turn the biz upside down. Even though I may not have heard the record in ’77… probably was about 1979 when I heard it at a friend’s place, I was well aware of them and what a threat they were seen as,especially in the anarchy-not-loving UK!

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    1. I thought you would like this one. I tried to get a little bit of everything in this one. Meatloaf is one I wish I could have fit in…I tried to represent most in this one.

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      1. yep, MeatLoaf was huge in every sense of the word in ’77… he and Boston still rank as probably the two biggest debut albums in the rock world. ‘Bat out of Hell’ back then was a favorite,now an interesting album that I’ll listen to now and again and appreciate more for camp value and nostalgia rather than the music itself though, as you also note, ‘Two out of Three Ain’t Bad’ is actually a good song that stands the test of time.

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    1. Thanks John! Yea this is the first year I was listening to the radio by myself…my sister had married at this point…so it was the first time I really noticed.

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  8. A year of change fer sure. ‘Heroes’ would be my fave Bowie song. Bob was huge here then. The Pistols tried so hard in their bad schoolboyish way to piss everybody off, but in end they had little to really say. They said it LOUDLY and obnoxiously though! And, as been said, the music scene needed something new and those gobspittling a**holes couldn’t be ignored. Elvis’s ‘Allison’ probably would not have been heard if he hadn’t been lumped in as ‘punk.’

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      1. Since everything was getting branded as disco or punk (or new wave, a bit later, which is what I heard those 3 called), they had to call Elvis something and he sure wasn’t disco. I remember parties becoming disco vs punk battles at the turntable. Eventually someone would put on Motown or Stax/Volt and folks would settle down and dance instead of fighting.

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  10. Pingback: My favorite Radio Hits from 1977 – Tao Talk

  11. Elvis C and Fleetwood Mac tunes are my favorites of those here but no discounting the importance of the other two in their political importance. Instead of listing mine, I just posted mine, with a link in your comments. Hope you don’t mind?

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  12. A fine selection of songs! I know very little about The Sex Pistols, though I had heard of “God Save the Queen” and the BBC ban, which of course only boosted sales! To me Bob Marley was to reggae what Chuck Berry was to rock & roll – always loved him! Another longtime favorite among your picks is Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way,” as much overexposed as that song has been!

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    1. I’ll never forget seeing that EC album in a drugstore and that was it…I was hooked. I kept thinking…what do you mean Elvis? Thats not Elvis lol.

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  15. That was an awesome list, but the only one I heard on the radio in my area that year was Fleetwood Mac. I did love Go Your Own Way. Other than that, it was Andy Gibb, Abba, Kiss, … you get the idea. It was the one year we lived in a different town, and different it was. I was glad to move back to the university town. Then I heard the songs on your list.

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  16. Great time for great music. Bowie’s Heroes is one of my all-time favorite songs, and Go Your Own Way is probably my #1. Boston came out with their debut album around this time, and I remember “More Than A Feeling” playing more than once in my home!

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    1. Hey Bruce! It’s good to see you again. I was going to comment on one of your old posts a few weeks ago to see if you were ok…it’s good to see you again!
      Yea it was hard leaving Boston off of there.

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  17. cant grumble about the choices here, all key recordings. Reminds me of the old gag which everyone must have heard by now, but needs repeating in a Northern British accent: How did Bob Marley like his doughnuts? Wi’ Jam in.

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