I've often felt that 1972/73 were incredible years: Eagles, Zeppelin, Yes, ELP, America, Elton John, Pink Floyd, Neil Young, Deep Purple, Allmans, Genesis, Stevie Wonder, Chicago, Jethro Tull, Steely Dan, David Bowie, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Todd Rundgren, Wings, ... so many amazing albums in those two years!!!
I finished high school in Australia in 1978 as a 17 year old. After my final Year 12 exam I was driving home from school for the last time, feeling strange and wondering where life would lead me. On that drive home feeling those emotions I was listening to the radio, when suddenly this newly released record started playing........ it was Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty. That haunting sax and melody, searing lead guitar and Gerry's soothing vocals, perfectly melded with my mood, my feelings, my sense of wonder. It was perfect! To this day, whenever I here Baker Street, I'm suddenly 17 again driving home from school for the last time, out into the big, wide world.......
What's even more amazing was that Gerry Rafferty was in a band called "Stealer's Wheel" and they came out with a classic called "stuck in the middle with you" in 1972
When I first saw Van Halen, as the support act to Black Sabbath, at the Birmingham Odeon in England in 1978 it changed my life. The excitement, sound, raw talent, American swagger… it was unbelievable. I still love Van Halen in my sixties. What a time to be alive. Thank you. 👍🇬🇧
I always tell kids today they have no idea how amazing it was to grow up listening to the music of the 70s. Seeing all the great albums come out chronologically, one band trying to outdo each other, and all the different genres! The music is timeless and will live on forever!
I tell my son who is 26 now all the time he’ll never know how great it was going to a record store and getting one of your favorite bands albums/cassettes. Even taking hours going through the bins looking for new bands to listen to.
I’m 64 and had the privilege of having a brother five years older than me. He introduced me to the scene very early. He took me to my first show in 1972 Three Dog Night at a local high school first time. I also smoked weed. How many of y’all can member Height Ashbury summer of love 67 and how many great bands came out of there. I’ve been in the Height Ashbury area numerous times last time being roughly 3 years ago so sad the way it is now. No more “California Dreaming” for me. ✌️❤️ 🎸
So you're the one! They deeply resent us, you know. We keep telling them about how great being a teenager in the mid-to-late 70's was and they have deep FOMO. So much so, that they hate hearing it anymore. They've been finding the music by themselves, and many of them are looking for a simpler time within their own time. It's not fair to them. They have life so much rougher than we do in many respects.
1978: The year when music was produced by people with tape machines capturing other people playing real instruments all together in a room. The sound of those records is phenomenal while today's people try to simulate sounds with computers and yet are mostly failing to achieve that level of musicality. Awesome compilation, thank you Rick!
There's a theory that art is a process that often works best when the artists are struggling against limitations--impending deafness, old and worn tape decks, planes flying overhead getting onto the recording, you name it. I think sometimes it can be true. And by making equipment better, maybe sometimes we've let artistry take a back seat?
It's the industry and market more than the tools. In the 70s (and before and after) the instruments and vocals were isolated or even recorded one at a time, the best guitar solo or vocal or snippet from many recordings could be used, a musician could accompany themself, and tape loops and drum machines were used. Often, a session musician with superior skills to an actual band member would substitute for the recording and some particularly brilliant and/or egotistical musicians would record every part themselves and then only use the band for touring. I think the mediocrity of popular music today has more to do to the age of the music listener. As baby boomers matured, they remained the core music customer because there were so many of them. Bands in the 70s and 80s were catering the sophisticated late teens and twenty somethings, not the teenyboppers who dominate the market in the 00s and 10s. There is also massive splintering of the market due to radio being less relevant. Amazing music is still being made, but little of it charts.
Dire Straights were known to record tiny bits of guitar solos and string them together and were scorned for their perfectionism. But they sounded amazing on record or live, so they could really play it.
I think you're correct. It's just really hard work to find the good stuff. The stuff on the charts is beyond horrific. No wonder there are record numbers of drug overdoses and suicides today.
Oh yes, there's some REALLY good stuff out there. And I find some if it on YT to be fair--everything from classical guitar to Joe Public playing boogie-woogie on the upright piano in a London railway station! Seems to me that the big music publishers don't have a soul, so they don't notice when they knock it out of the music. My usual rant is What I Am, by Edie Brickell. V good album, too. When it was covered with Emma Bunton, all the notes were there spot-on (from memory), but it just felt a but too robotic. It made more money in the cover version :-(
It was a genuinely great year in a great time in music. Blondie's Parallel Lines, Springsteen's Darkness, Patti Smith's Easter, Elvis Costello's This Year's Model, and one of the best live albums ever Little Feat's Waiting for Columbus. Also Foreigner's second record, Double Vision. (Great call on Don't Look Back. Solid record that doesn't get enough love.)
Same age as Rick. From the ones he played I have Dire Straits, Kate Bush, Devo, Rolling Stones and Brian Eno (though I only got it a few years ago). From the ones you named I have Blondie, Patti Smith and Elvis Costello. What a year!
Also, Journey's Infinity album came out in 1978. Songs like "Feeling That Way" "Lights" and "Wheel In the Sky" were on that album. Good catch with Double Vision too.
Agree, Great year in a great time in music. Blondie's "Parallel Lines"... Yes. Very glad someone else here recognizes Little Feat's "Waiting For Columbus," agreeing "One of the best live albums ever."
There was a ridiculous amount of great music in 78. To add, This Years Model, Parallel Lines, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Blue Valentine, Heaven Tonight, C'est Chic, Queens 'Jazz', The Pat Metheny Group, Kenny Wheeler's 'Dear Wan'….....what an abundance of greatness
Oh man, the genius of that Cars album, especially Let the Good Times Roll and Just What I Needed. Fuses all the best elements of pop, rock'n'roll and new wave into a single heavy sound.
There just wasn't as much good stuff overall. Plus radio was really bad. I'm pretty certain I'm emotionally scared from all the crap I heard in the 80s. Little girls must have been phoning the stations and swamping the suggestion in box or something. Huey Lewis and the News and that type of thing. Ugh. Women started wearing the pants and controlling the music. I'm 59 but if I lived my life over again I'd never have listened to radio after 1980. Today I never do but I have a phone loaded up when on the go and almost everything ever recorded at home, so it's easy to say that now. I guess I wanted to keep up with what was new. By the late 80s they had classic rock radio that played the same stuff over and over until you hated even that. Then alternative rock came and it was a blessing for a while. Now the artists and industry have married Satan or something. It's so bad. Testicles are shrinking throughout the west, maybe, probably.
The Man with the Child in His Eyes gives me goosebumps, even after so many years. So glad you included Kate. 78 really was a great music year. So many amazing albums.
Everyones list ( yours and mine included) is as correct as anyone else's. And certainly music critics/reviewers opinions are no more valid than yours or mine. Who is ANYONE to tell anyone else what THAT person is hearing.
I was five years old in 1978. The Cars was the first album I fell in love with. I'd come home from a bad day of being bullied at school, and put The Cars on. It really cheered me up. It spoke to me of good times and the endless possibilities of music.
As much as I was a metalhead at the time, I've loved the first DEVO album since it was released. Amazing album front to back- funny, paranoid, spastic, bizarre, kick ass, melodic, and poignant all at the same time. And nothing has sounded like it before or since. I still listen to it regularly. Also just to add the Toto's debut was also 1978.
I was driving down a hill close to my home when Devo's "Beautiful world" came on the radio, Also being a hard rock/ early metalhead, I was surprised just how good it sounded. I seem to remember exactly where I was when I heard memorable songs. It's kinda cool, a real trip down memory lane....
I read in some Devo video that when they were in school they got beat up for wearing Devo t-shirts . What is worse is they got beat up by kids wearing Van Halen t-shirts . I don't think Eddie Van Halen would like that . He never had anything against music that wasn't his genre .
True.... Rick Beato could do a video only on this, late 70s, early 80s production sound is so warm, tech makes things easier, but you miss something more natural...
if you listen to a nice analog recording right after a modern "punchy" recording it almost always sounds "quieter" but there is so much more warmth and actual punch to the dynamics, provided you have a good source+sound system.
Just to be clear (and to explain Rick's omission of these), the official release dates for Rumours and Aja are in 1977, and for Hotel California in 1976. But man are you right-"what a year for music indeed!"
@@Ianmackable A legendary tour I think a lot of people would wish they had seen. Thin Lizzy was my first live show, but on their farewell tour with John Sykes. Still great.
@@delorangeade oh absolutely! I just love it for the line about going to the cinema and always getting chocolate stains on his pants 😂 It cracks me up every time. I was born mid 80s so wasn't lucky enough to see them, but have photos with the statue of Phil in Dublin.
Joe Jackson's debut single, "Is She Really Going Out With Him" was released in the fall of 1978. His debut album, Look Sharp followed a few months later in 1979.
My theory is it’s partly due to the loss of Music class in primary education. So many of us got a musical leg up by learning how to play an instrument.
Van Halen, too. Never heard anything like EVH before, probably still haven't. I guess hearing Sweet Child 'o Mine and Slash for the first time was powerful, Tom Morello for the first time too; but EVH was in a completely different category. I guess I forgot that Dire Straits was also '78, but the guitar part in Sultans still resonates. I've seen Knopfler talk about it, how he recorded it finger-picking style, no pick, and how he never plays it the same on stage.
As much as VH shocked us with “eruption”…I felt the same about the Boston records…I had never heard a guitar tone like that before in my life…and I was mesmerized 👍
After Boston released their debut album, all the kids playing guitar tried to get that sound on their guitar... right until Van Halen out. And then that was that...
1991. The list of great albums was great. I was born on 79’ I know I’m biased by the 90’s. But was a great year IMHO, even in South America, there was a lot happening that year
@@gregkrupski6054agree, it was really anti rock and a deliberate 3 chord departure from the technique of glam bands guitar virtuosos to basic almost punk level
@@gregkrupski6054Grunge is far closer to rock than Billy Joel , or the Rolling Stones, or The Cars, or Devo. Truth is, grunge is far more guitar-based, riff-laden, loud music (aka "rock") than a lot of what came out in 1978.
“Infinity” was their first album with Steve Perry. Perry had never recorded in a proper studio, so if you consider “Infinity” as Perry’s debut album, it belongs in this list.
Every time I hear names like journey Boston or kansas it just give me vibes if cheesy over produced mainstream us rock. Which is the best album that's not too cheesy or over produced.
From 1965 to 1985. Led Zeppelin debut album was 1968 or '69, that was so groundbreaking. Cream was pre 1970, Gorden Lightfoot and Neil Young, Buffalo Springfield. Hell, Woodstock was '69.
I love the fact that Rick is about all types of music. Who else juxtaposes Eno’s Ambient 1 with the Stones, Earth Wind and Fire and Devo? Love it. Don’t forget Grease. And yes, 1978 was a fantastic music year. Best ever.
@@treff9226the internet changed everything forever, a lot of people want to be like other ppl and alot of originality and creativity vanished, plus cocaine was really prevalent around that time so that made music better
@@johnwick-ii6qq The big debate - do drugs contribute to creativity in art? I'd say in certain instances they do, and you're damn right about the internet and the negative effects it's had on music and other arts. A lot of my time spent on the internet is used to criticize the internet! Lol!
@reXdownham I had no idea how classic my music would become. Don't know about you, but I didn't have the equivalent of Dad Rock. I did have good FM radio, skip transmission for distant AM stations at night, and friends whose older siblings could afford to buy Zep, Yes, ELP, Pink Floyd, Steve Miller, Warren Zevon, Grand Funk, BS&T, Motown out my ears ... I have to stop now because the potential list is soo long and I have stuff to get done! Lucky us with so many excellent choices that have stood the test of time. 🎶🎶🎶😁🎶🎶🎶
When I get down on myself I'll play Boston's "Man I'll Never Be" and Steely Dan's "Deacon Blues" and quickly realize nobody but me can turn things around, think to myself "I'm better than this moment", pick myself up and go forward. Truly inspirational music. 💓
Thank you for giving Devo some love, totally under appreciated as to how they influenced music. Another influencer, Kraftwerk released Man Machine in 1978. Two other notables are Funkadelic’s One Nation Under a Groove and BOC’s Some Enchanted Evening
I was born in 1989, but I've noticed that 80 - 90% of the music I listen to was recorded somwhere between 1968 and 1980. I like a lot of newer and older stuff too, but the 70s kids got to experience the greatest music ever recorded IMO. Thankfully, I still can too. That is the beautiful thing about recordings. Cool video Rick!
My Son was born 2000 but he also love the music, that we hear...late 70´s and 80´s Rock...today the music industry is so fast....you can get on top fast and fall down the ladder even faster....beside that imho todays even the bands are grouped around the singer...in old days mostly all band members were stars...and not just replacable faces behind their instruments...today no one who wants to sell records would do a 1 min intro in a song....everything have to be fast on the point...
I turned 15 the summer of '78 and I was blown away by Dire Straits first album. To this day Sultans of Swing is my all-time favourite song. So much great music from the 70's!
1978 and I was 18! What a great time for rock! WORJ in Orlando played whole albums every Saturday night and we couldn't wait! Also the drinking age was 18 then too!
Most of what's been good ever since really wasn't rock 'n' roll. Heck, most of what was good in the seventies really wasn't, either. It was more of a marketing label than anything that was actually being produced.
In '78 I had two young children who I introduced to all of this music. To this day they appreciate how lucky they were to be a part of such a unique moment in musical history.
This is proof that music is a time traveling machine. Every clip he played took me back to a specific time and place where I first heard it. I was12 years old and the Sultans of Swing took me back with my dad and me going to pick up a pontoon boat on a rainy Saturday. The Cars Just What I Needed took me to my aunts living room where I was listening to that album on her Pioneer stereo. And on and on. Just spent the last 5 minutes with chills...
In 1978. it was easily the Jam's All Mod Cons that caught my ear. I was already a fan, but the huge stylistic leap they made after their second record, Modern World was simply astounding. They'd made a record that could comfortably sit with the best works of their inspirations, The Who and Kinks. A classic.
1978... I can really only add a few more. Heart releases what is probably their most complete album - Dog & Butterfly. Blondie - Parallel Lines with "Hanging on the Telephone", "One Way Or Another", "Fade Away and Radiate", and of course "Heart of Glass". Foreigner - Double Vision. Growing up, it seamed that '76 was a stand-out year that I remember most at the ripe old age of 11, but there certainly was great music all during that time for quite a few years.
Agree for sure about Blondie. As to Heart, Dog & Butterfly may be more complete in song type, but I lost interest in them at that album and thereafter. I sort of liked it when they were a Canadian Led Zeppelin with two good women singers, driving and stomping their way through songs. I was in HS then and all my music loving friends agreed about Dog & Butterfly, it was inevitable after Barracuda, Crazy on You, Magic Man from the first 2 albums, those songs were great and even non-music-geek people loved them.
I first saw groups live like Cheap Trick, UFO, Pat Travers Band, Van Halen, Blue Oyster Cult, DEVO and the B-52s all in that year. Remember The Knack with My Sharona? The following year.
Great call out, I listened to Hanging on the Telephone one of the great covers from that album. Scream was the birth effectively of both post punk and gothic rock and Siouxsie is still out there performing.
There was no decade that produced as genre-diverse and flat out fantastic music as the 1970s in my opinion. I graduated HS in 1978 and feel so lucky to have experienced that decade first hand. I remember the early 70s listening to AM radio where all of the "Top 40" was being played because FM radio hadn't really taken hold yet. We had great TV shows like The Midnight Special, Soul Train, American Bandstand and all of the "variety shows" where you could see music groups performing. It was truly a wonderful decade to be a teenager!!! Keep rockin'
‘The Man With The Child In His Eyes’ has to be one of the most timelessly beautiful songs ever written. Still as stunning now as it was on it’s release.
Yep. Wuthering heights was (and I suppose still is) my all-time favourite song of this my all-time favourite year. Then I rediscovered this song when I said goodbye to my father. There is no direct connection but it brings me to tears almost every time I hear it.
@@imranqqq7307unbelievable how many talented musicians there were at the same time. Kate Bush is a treasure. It’s hard to fathom how much talent converged at once, compared to the drought today…
Van Halen's debut alone makes this one of the most important years in modern music history. 2 other great albums released in 78 was REO Speedwagon's "You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish" and Journey's "Infinity"
I was in my first band in 1978 and can remember hearing Van Halen's Eruption. No one I knew had any idea what was going on. What a great player Eddie was!
I'm still trying to work it out! (I don't play guitar enough to say much more). I mean he's playing arpeggios, and I thought at first maybe he's just using one string and using the frets very cleanly. But the arpeggios cover about an octave, so I don't get it... Whatever he did, he was the first I heard doing it :-) And is it just me, or does Van Halen give a nod to classical composition style in that fantastic solo?
Rick just keeps on giving us golden treasures. I was 10 years old in 1970, home alone watching tv, film comes on, its Gene krupa. Blown away, out comes the knitting needles and tin pots, later got some drums. 78 was a great year to be in my first band covering some of the amazing songs of the day.
I reckon 1971 was also extraordinary: Gordon Lightfoot "If You Could Read My Mind" Janis Joplin "Me and Bobby McGee" Ike & Tina Turner "Proud Mary" Jethro Tull "Aqualung", “Locomotive Breath” Marvin Gaye "What's Going On" Three Dog Night "Joy To The World" Rolling Stones "Brown Sugar" Rock Opera "Jesus Christ Superstar" Carole King "It's Too Late, Baby" Ringo Starr "It Don't Come Easy" Carly Simon "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" Emerson Lake & Palmer "Tarkus" and we’re only up to June! James Taylor "You've Got A Friend" The Concert For Bangladesh The Who "Won't Get Fooled Again" Bill Withers "Ain't No Sunshine" Rod Stewart "Maggie May", “Reason to Believe” Isaac Hayes "Theme From Shaft" John Lennon "Imagine", “Jealous Guy” Yes "Roundabout" Led Zeppelin "Stairway To Heaven" Sly & The Family Stone "Family Affair" David Bowie ”Changes”, “Oh You Pretty Things” and “Life on Mars”
@@petergambino2129 MUCH rather listen to Toto, and I don't want to hear a single note of nickleback. But that is still an interesting comparison not without merit - the two bands compare in more of a commercial sense, than musically, to me though. I wasn't big on Toto in their heyday, but I sure didn't dislike them. Steve Lukather has received and earned more accolades as a guitar player, than did nickleback's guitar player - and I blindly say that confidently, without looking it up or knowing what I'm talking about. I have no idea - maybe he is a modern guitar god too.
This brought back so many great high school music memories! Dire Straits is an album I own on vinyl, cd, and iTunes. I still like listening to it from beginning to end.
It’s so cool that we can say that we were there and listening to these albums as they came out!! There are people my age (I’m 63) who don’t understand why we still love this music. My reply, just listen. It’s epic music and seriously you will never see anything like it again!!
I turned 28 in 1978. After a few years not playing in live bands I started up again. What a year! As a guitarist I’d have to say that Van Halen was the true game changer band of the era.
@@Me4-gc8qs It's a meme to post this on all songs or videos about songs from the last millennium. I don't disagree with it, but you can't play any old song on RUclips without one of the top comments complaining about auto-tune, fake instruments, etc, in modern music.
Just 100 takes in the studio until you get enough bits and pieces of the singer actually being in the right key that you can splice it all together, add some reverb, delay, double up the tracks. Totally natural. Right? Because that's how it's been done for a very long time. I think auto tune is crap but let's not pretend that most of the bands you like spent a lot of time in the studio polishing the sound before it ever got released.
Oh yes, 1978! Such a rich year of music. There was Warren Zevon, Molly Hatchet’s debut album and can’t forget Cheap Trick Live at Budokan. JUST missing, recorded in October 78 and released on January 2, 1979 my favorite live LP, UFO Strangers in the Night.
Molly Hatchet, The Outlaws, and some of the other Southern Rock "guitar armies" will always be a guilty pleasure of mine. When a DJ cued up 'Green Grass and High Tides" or "Dreams I'll Never See", you knew for sure he was taking a potty break.
Being a bit older (76 in a souple of days), my mind bending year for new music releases was likely 1965. However, your post re 1978 must be lauded as one of your best. The enthusiasm and wonder are magnificent! And, of course, getting to re-visit many of those tracks was a joy. There is much about the Internet that is negative but discovering your channel several years ago has been a truly positive expereince. Thank you.
My senior year of high school began in the fall of 1978. All of these records resonate heavily with me. Hemispheres for the progressive win, "I Wanna Be Sedated" and AC/DC for the straight ahead power rock, "The Kick Inside" to give this guy insight into the female mind. There is so much more, and the recording technology had advanced to amaze me that a needle in a groove could sound so good. The artwork on album covers, lyrics on some, double albums to clean the stems & seeds. Lucky we were to come of age in the explosion of musical creativity that happened then.
The fact that 52nd Steeet was released only 1 year after The Stranger is truly amazing. And so many good tracks besides Big Shot. There was Half a Mile Away, Honesty, Zanzibar, and so many others!
@@DonaldMains Depending on what day you ask me, that could be my answer. But there are so many good tracks, my opinion on which is the best constantly changes.
1978 the height of disco, and these bands that would be the soundtrack to my life in the 80's releasing their first hits, Van Halen, The Police, The Cars, Dire Straits. WOW
'78 was Great! The year I graduated high school (with a black-eye at my graduation ceremony 😵), got my first full-time job, my first serious relationship, my first car (albeit a '72 green Vega), my first apartment, and the best music ever! Wow, I didn't realize all of the killer jams that came out that year, I just took it for granted, and was living and diggin' the moment. Thank you, Rick, for reminding me, and all of us, of what incredible music was released in 1978.
It also happened in 1991: Nirvana Nevermind, RHCP Blood Sugar Sex Magic, Pearl Jam Ten, Smashing Pumpkins Gish, U2 Actung Baby, Soundgarden Badmotorfinger, REM Out of Time, Guns N Roses Use Your Illusion I & II, Temple of the Dog, and the Metallica Black Album. 🤘🏻
Also, 1977 weren't too shoddy either. Rumours, The Clash Eponymous, Marquee Moon, Heroes & Low, Trans-Europe Express, Lust for Life, The Idiot, Pink Flag, The Stranger... What a couple of years to be a music fan!
When I saw the title, my first thought was "THE CARS!!!!" It's a landmark release and I'm glad you devoted a good amount of time to it. Another 1978 debut album that you didn't mention--Nick Lowe's Jesus of Cool.
So glad I came of age in the late 70s/early 80s. The amount of fabulous music. And I have to say, at the time, we kind of took it for granted. Because we were surround by so much greatness. Yes you left you a bunch, but you were spoiled for choice!
As a young 13 year old in 1978 my parents owned a bar in northern MN. I was able to convince them to give me 10 slots in the jukebox working with the record vendor we filled slots with what the people of the day wanted, many of the bands you mentioned. My dad hated it... but he liked selling beer and making money more. needless to say the polka songs disappeared.
I have to say, simultaneously while enjoying these songs, I really enjoyed this restaurant on interstate 70 out east of Aurora, Colorado during those same years, that consistently have great live polka bands throughout lunch and dinner. Incredible food too! There was one time they didn't have the polka but instead had and all day tribute to Bobby Vinton, and I fell in love with him too.
Powerage is such an incredible rock album. It’s my favorite AC/DC album even though Highway and Black are amazing. Highway probably has more of my favorites but Powerage is so gritty, just has that raw stripped down clean loudness.
Liked for the air guitar.. As a guitarist born in '69, Rick and I could have totally been best friends, he's SO on target. What a trip down memory lane of all my favs!!
What I love most about Rick is how much he loves music.
For the greatest precision in air guitar virtuosity, there's none better
@@ironymatt Air-Guitar Hero.....
Agee! 🙂🙂🙂
He's the fan in all of us, but with immense musical knowledge
I like his shirt
I've often felt that 1972/73 were incredible years: Eagles, Zeppelin, Yes, ELP, America, Elton John, Pink Floyd, Neil Young, Deep Purple, Allmans, Genesis, Stevie Wonder, Chicago, Jethro Tull, Steely Dan, David Bowie, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Todd Rundgren, Wings, ... so many amazing albums in those two years!!!
Agree - much better than Rick's list.
@@RicG. not much better. In my opinion they are equally good
Certainly an emphasis on more progressive rock in that list, and more diverse for sure. Like that list, lots of my favorites!
Debut records.........
The seventies were the pinnacle in terms of music production.
This man is the living personification of "The joy of music"
I finished high school in Australia in 1978 as a 17 year old. After my final Year 12 exam I was driving home from school for the last time, feeling strange and wondering where life would lead me. On that drive home feeling those emotions I was listening to the radio, when suddenly this newly released record started playing........ it was Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty. That haunting sax and melody, searing lead guitar and Gerry's soothing vocals, perfectly melded with my mood, my feelings, my sense of wonder. It was perfect! To this day, whenever I here Baker Street, I'm suddenly 17 again driving home from school for the last time, out into the big, wide world.......
I'm an Aussie too, 15 in 1978, Baker Street is still legendary.... What a song....
Gerry Rafferty’s city to city was a brilliant album!
Such contrast between the sax hook and his vocals... Incredible song! Rick should do a 'what makes this song great'.
What's even more amazing was that Gerry Rafferty was in a band called "Stealer's Wheel" and they came out with a classic called "stuck in the middle with you" in 1972
Same age as you, doing HSC the same year. Never forget Baker Street. And on the home front: The Angels and Cold Chisel!
That Cars debut album is practically perfect. From start to finish it sound so good then once it ends you have to play it through again.
Cars debut album is like a Greatest Hits.
With headphones......
That album was a welcome salve to 17-year old angsty me. It was my introduction to "new wave" and remains in my top 10.
Candy O is one of the greatest second albums of all time
I played that album until everybody else was sick of hearing it, then I played it some more ;) Great album.
The Cars debut album is brilliant from start to finish. Simply epic.
First time I heard it in 1989, I played it for a week straight.
It's like a greatest hits album. And every Elliot Easton lead is not only brilliant, but perfectly appropriate for each song. Love it to this day.
I had the first album a few months before it started to get airplay when they played it to death I can't stand the Cars to this day.
YES! I jumped up when it popped up on the screen! hahahaa!
@@fishvondoom3063 Underrated player for sure.
When I first saw Van Halen, as the support act to Black Sabbath, at the Birmingham Odeon in England in 1978 it changed my life. The excitement, sound, raw talent, American swagger… it was unbelievable. I still love Van Halen in my sixties. What a time to be alive. Thank you. 👍🇬🇧
saw that tour at the Hammersmith Odeon.
I saw them open for Black Sabbath as well in Amarillo Tx!
I first saw them opening up for Sabbath in '78 as well. The world was never the same.
I always tell kids today they have no idea how amazing it was to grow up listening to the music of the 70s. Seeing all the great albums come out chronologically, one band trying to outdo each other, and all the different genres! The music is timeless and will live on forever!
I love the music of that time!! I wish I was alive then! Thank goodness my mom and dad played it a lot when I was growing up!!
I tell my son who is 26 now all the time he’ll never know how great it was going to a record store and getting one of your favorite bands albums/cassettes. Even taking hours going through the bins looking for new bands to listen to.
@@davidlarsen-tj4tn ahhhhh would love that!! I love doing that now to the old record stores!! Guess I’m an old soul!
I’m 64 and had the privilege of having a brother five years older than me. He introduced me to the scene very early. He took me to my first show in 1972 Three Dog Night at a local high school first time. I also smoked weed. How many of y’all can member Height Ashbury summer of love 67 and how many great bands came out of there. I’ve been in the Height Ashbury area numerous times last time being roughly 3 years ago so sad the way it is now. No more “California Dreaming” for me. ✌️❤️ 🎸
So you're the one! They deeply resent us, you know. We keep telling them about how great being a teenager in the mid-to-late 70's was and they have deep FOMO. So much so, that they hate hearing it anymore. They've been finding the music by themselves, and many of them are looking for a simpler time within their own time. It's not fair to them. They have life so much rougher than we do in many respects.
1978: The year when music was produced by people with tape machines capturing other people playing real instruments all together in a room. The sound of those records is phenomenal while today's people try to simulate sounds with computers and yet are mostly failing to achieve that level of musicality. Awesome compilation, thank you Rick!
There's a theory that art is a process that often works best when the artists are struggling against limitations--impending deafness, old and worn tape decks, planes flying overhead getting onto the recording, you name it.
I think sometimes it can be true. And by making equipment better, maybe sometimes we've let artistry take a back seat?
It's the industry and market more than the tools.
In the 70s (and before and after) the instruments and vocals were isolated or even recorded one at a time, the best guitar solo or vocal or snippet from many recordings could be used, a musician could accompany themself, and tape loops and drum machines were used. Often, a session musician with superior skills to an actual band member would substitute for the recording and some particularly brilliant and/or egotistical musicians would record every part themselves and then only use the band for touring.
I think the mediocrity of popular music today has more to do to the age of the music listener. As baby boomers matured, they remained the core music customer because there were so many of them. Bands in the 70s and 80s were catering the sophisticated late teens and twenty somethings, not the teenyboppers who dominate the market in the 00s and 10s. There is also massive splintering of the market due to radio being less relevant. Amazing music is still being made, but little of it charts.
Dire Straights were known to record tiny bits of guitar solos and string them together and were scorned for their perfectionism. But they sounded amazing on record or live, so they could really play it.
I think you're correct. It's just really hard work to find the good stuff. The stuff on the charts is beyond horrific. No wonder there are record numbers of drug overdoses and suicides today.
Oh yes, there's some REALLY good stuff out there. And I find some if it on YT to be fair--everything from classical guitar to Joe Public playing boogie-woogie on the upright piano in a London railway station!
Seems to me that the big music publishers don't have a soul, so they don't notice when they knock it out of the music.
My usual rant is What I Am, by Edie Brickell. V good album, too. When it was covered with Emma Bunton, all the notes were there spot-on (from memory), but it just felt a but too robotic. It made more money in the cover version :-(
Hemispheres is just a technical masterpiece - I never tire of listening to that album.
I thought of this album too, lol!
I was holding my breath waiting for it and Rick never disappoints!🧠🤘
@@analogkid4557 I was 17 in 1978, and the only thing that mattered to me was RUSH and the fact that I never had been on a date!
Hemispheres was my introduction to Rush as a 10 year old in 81. I will never forget that moment
That album is *still* one of the best albums in my collection.
It was a genuinely great year in a great time in music. Blondie's Parallel Lines, Springsteen's Darkness, Patti Smith's Easter, Elvis Costello's This Year's Model, and one of the best live albums ever Little Feat's Waiting for Columbus. Also Foreigner's second record, Double Vision. (Great call on Don't Look Back. Solid record that doesn't get enough love.)
Same age as Rick. From the ones he played I have Dire Straits, Kate Bush, Devo, Rolling Stones and Brian Eno (though I only got it a few years ago). From the ones you named I have Blondie, Patti Smith and Elvis Costello. What a year!
Also, Journey's Infinity album came out in 1978. Songs like "Feeling That Way" "Lights" and "Wheel In the Sky" were on that album.
Good catch with Double Vision too.
Agree, Great year in a great time in music. Blondie's "Parallel Lines"... Yes. Very glad someone else here recognizes Little Feat's "Waiting For Columbus," agreeing "One of the best live albums ever."
@@gregd2838 That's a GREAT one. That is when Journey became the version that most people know.
@@gregd2838 Classic albums
There was a ridiculous amount of great music in 78. To add, This Years Model, Parallel Lines, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Blue Valentine, Heaven Tonight, C'est Chic, Queens 'Jazz', The Pat Metheny Group, Kenny Wheeler's 'Dear Wan'….....what an abundance of greatness
All Great Albums As Well!!!
Oh man, the genius of that Cars album, especially Let the Good Times Roll and Just What I Needed. Fuses all the best elements of pop, rock'n'roll and new wave into a single heavy sound.
You could pick any year in the 70's and come up with tons of great music.
Best era of music ever. No auto tune no junk just pure voices and pure music!!! And it has stood the test of time!!!
You also didn't need to look fancy for videos yet
There just wasn't as much good stuff overall. Plus radio was really bad. I'm pretty certain I'm emotionally scared from all the crap I heard in the 80s. Little girls must have been phoning the stations and swamping the suggestion in box or something. Huey Lewis and the News and that type of thing. Ugh. Women started wearing the pants and controlling the music.
I'm 59 but if I lived my life over again I'd never have listened to radio after 1980. Today I never do but I have a phone loaded up when on the go and almost everything ever recorded at home, so it's easy to say that now.
I guess I wanted to keep up with what was new. By the late 80s they had classic rock radio that played the same stuff over and over until you hated even that. Then alternative rock came and it was a blessing for a while. Now the artists and industry have married Satan or something. It's so bad. Testicles are shrinking throughout the west, maybe, probably.
Remember the hair spray epidemic of the late 80s? Steel Panther, yeah!
The Man with the Child in His Eyes gives me goosebumps, even after so many years. So glad you included Kate. 78 really was a great music year. So many amazing albums.
She will be inducted this year (2023) into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. She deserves it. My fave album by her is The Dreaming, but they're all good.
I think she was only 13 when she wrote that. Astonishing.
I would also consider Kate Bush as "one in a million." Her imitators (Tori Amos) never equaled the output of Kate.
The whole period from 78 through 82 in ridiculously stacked with great music. Hard to pick a winner, but this isn't a bad shout.
The trouble with commercial radio of the time was that it played all the lackluster imitations and not the originals.
Everyones list ( yours and mine included) is as correct as anyone else's. And certainly music critics/reviewers opinions are no more valid than yours or mine.
Who is ANYONE to tell anyone else what THAT person is hearing.
@jonathancrews2866 Yes, that's fair enough. I was probably highlighting people get confused here with the terminology "The Best" vs "Their Favourite".
Best years of my high school career first car, cruising with these tunes... on 8 track. Boy did we tear it up.
.
1984 was best 80s year.
Joe Jackson's debut just missed the cut, releasing in January of 79. One of my favorites.
Big JJ fan.Body and sole.
Did Joe ever find out if she was really going out with him? 🤣 Honestly, I preferred the 1982 release of Night and Day by Joe Jackson.
@@islandtime1402 turns out she was his number two. Funny I bought night and day today. 1982 sealed, well it's not sealed anymore. Sounds great.
@@TonyLovell Especially the bass.
I was five years old in 1978. The Cars was the first album I fell in love with. I'd come home from a bad day of being bullied at school, and put The Cars on. It really cheered me up. It spoke to me of good times and the endless possibilities of music.
As much as I was a metalhead at the time, I've loved the first DEVO album since it was released. Amazing album front to back- funny, paranoid, spastic, bizarre, kick ass, melodic, and poignant all at the same time. And nothing has sounded like it before or since. I still listen to it regularly. Also just to add the Toto's debut was also 1978.
I was driving down a hill close to my home when Devo's "Beautiful world" came on the radio, Also being a hard rock/ early metalhead, I was surprised just how good it sounded. I seem to remember exactly where I was when I heard memorable songs. It's kinda cool, a real trip down memory lane....
I read in some Devo video that when they were in school they got beat up for wearing Devo t-shirts . What is worse is they got beat up by kids wearing Van Halen t-shirts . I don't think Eddie Van Halen would like that . He never had anything against music that wasn't his genre .
Your air guitar is iconic, but your air drumming is underrated, Rick.
😂😂😂
@@alagarswamyingersoll He really should do tutorials on air guitar & drumming.
He loses a couple of points for using an air pick for a Mark Knopfler part though.
@@macleadgat the same time?
@@theditto69 Yes! lol
The sound of those records in 1978 was just phenomenal... love 70s production... so warm...
True.... Rick Beato could do a video only on this, late 70s, early 80s production sound is so warm, tech makes things easier, but you miss something more natural...
What is the difference? Audio engineers? Facilities? Budget? You would think today’s equipment would be as good or better with advances…
@@ericcire7709digital interfaces, quantization, auto tune and other modern conveniences make contemporary music sound too sterile.
if you listen to a nice analog recording right after a modern "punchy" recording it almost always sounds "quieter" but there is so much more warmth and actual punch to the dynamics, provided you have a good source+sound system.
@@ericcire7709
Cocaine.
High
Grade
George Jung-style
COCAINE.
And Rumours won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1978, beating out Hotel California and Aja! What a year for music indeed!
We thought new great music would be released like the rising of the sun. From the 70s all the way through the 90s
Just to be clear (and to explain Rick's omission of these), the official release dates for Rumours and Aja are in 1977, and for Hotel California in 1976. But man are you right-"what a year for music indeed!"
Rumours was a pile of dross
@@johnholmes912 Oh yeah??? Well... John Holms was a pornographic film actor.
Of course he can't play Beagles because they block like a #@!#%. I think Slowwood do also.
The first albums by Boston and The Cars were GREAT. Two of the very best.
Sadly ignored in these parts, but Thin Lizzy released Live and Dangerous in 1978, and that was the album that changed everything for me.
I ADORE Thin Lizzy. So good! Dancing in the Moonlight is one of my all time favourite songs.
I was lucky enough to see them in '77, opening for Queen, with Gary Moore on co-lead guitar. They pretty much stole the show.
@@CatAndBearone One of their best, but they had so many great songs across a range of genres.
@@Ianmackable A legendary tour I think a lot of people would wish they had seen. Thin Lizzy was my first live show, but on their farewell tour with John Sykes. Still great.
@@delorangeade oh absolutely! I just love it for the line about going to the cinema and always getting chocolate stains on his pants 😂 It cracks me up every time. I was born mid 80s so wasn't lucky enough to see them, but have photos with the statue of Phil in Dublin.
Joe Jackson's debut single, "Is She Really Going Out With Him" was released in the fall of 1978. His debut album, Look Sharp followed a few months later in 1979.
Great memory! I love the music of Joe Jackson.
@Diane Caldwell Do you recall a gorgeous song by him called, 'Always something breaking us in two", from February 1983?
Instant Mash is great, both albums are stylistically similar and brilliant.
Look Sharp!
I'm the Man
I discovered that album when I figured out that Anthrax had covered Got The Time.
I think The Cars and Van Halen are *the* bookends for all the amazing debuts ’78 bestowed on music lovers.
How on earth could we have gone from this type of truly creative, artistic music to where the radio is today??
Mind boggling!
My theory is it’s partly due to the loss of Music class in primary education. So many of us got a musical leg up by learning how to play an instrument.
Yeah It's severely messed up.
Theres still radio???
You went from music people trying to run a business to business people trying to make music.
"we are DEVO", that's how
I was born in 1978. The solo of Mark Knoplfer in Sultans of Swing is just PERFECTION
The seventies in general was an amazing decade for great music. I am so glad I was a teenager during that period.
The debuts from Cars, Police and Dire Straits were all huge. Great albums, each sounded different from anything we’d heard before.
Van Halen, too. Never heard anything like EVH before, probably still haven't. I guess hearing Sweet Child 'o Mine and Slash for the first time was powerful, Tom Morello for the first time too; but EVH was in a completely different category.
I guess I forgot that Dire Straits was also '78, but the guitar part in Sultans still resonates. I've seen Knopfler talk about it, how he recorded it finger-picking style, no pick, and how he never plays it the same on stage.
All those and VH sounded like totally cool new rock ideas. Then DEVO showed up. It was so weird I had to listen.
I was in a bed sit in London belting out Dire Straits every night . Then people in the house started asking me who were the band I was playing .
As much as VH shocked us with “eruption”…I felt the same about the Boston records…I had never heard a guitar tone like that before in my life…and I was mesmerized 👍
boston were SUPER ahead of their time, but nobody talks about it
After Boston released their debut album, all the kids playing guitar tried to get that sound on their guitar... right until Van Halen out. And then that was that...
Trying to mimic Boston’s debut album, I saved all my money for a 12 string guitar
Tom Shultz's "ROCKMAN" GUITAR tone is hands down my favorite guitar tone. A friend bought a ROCKMAN and when I got to use it "I wanted one"
They say that Mutt Lange created Def Leppard's entire sound (career?) from the Tom Shultz "Rockman."
1991. The list of great albums was great. I was born on 79’ I know I’m biased by the 90’s. But was a great year IMHO, even in South America, there was a lot happening that year
I agree
I think that 91 goes to grunge not Rock.
@@gregkrupski6054 The Black Album, Use Your Illusion, Loveless and the Teenage FanClub album weren't Grunge
@@gregkrupski6054agree, it was really anti rock and a deliberate 3 chord departure from the technique of glam bands guitar virtuosos to basic almost punk level
@@gregkrupski6054Grunge is far closer to rock than Billy Joel , or the Rolling Stones, or The Cars, or Devo. Truth is, grunge is far more guitar-based, riff-laden, loud music (aka "rock") than a lot of what came out in 1978.
Don’t forget that Journey released their Infinity album in 1978. It was huge.
“Infinity” was their first album with Steve Perry. Perry had never recorded in a proper studio, so if you consider “Infinity” as Perry’s debut album, it belongs in this list.
Every time I hear names like journey Boston or kansas it just give me vibes if cheesy over produced mainstream us rock. Which is the best album that's not too cheesy or over produced.
There will never be a decade for music like we had in the 70’s.
Covers a ton of ground from 60's blues-inspired rock to the 80's new wave/pop. Punk mixed in there. The diversity of the decade is beyond compare.
Without the disco
Just wait for Justin Bieber new record to get released.
From 1965 to 1985. Led Zeppelin debut album was 1968 or '69, that was so groundbreaking. Cream was pre 1970, Gorden Lightfoot and Neil Young, Buffalo Springfield.
Hell, Woodstock was '69.
@@DianeLake-sw3ymSome disco was OK. BeeGees, Donna Summer.
I love the fact that Rick is about all types of music. Who else juxtaposes Eno’s Ambient 1 with the Stones, Earth Wind and Fire and Devo? Love it.
Don’t forget Grease.
And yes, 1978 was a fantastic music year. Best ever.
1978 an incredible year for Rock. You forgot to mention Toto's debut album, one the greatest band ever.
My favorite band… since always
I was thinking the same thing! I know “Hold the Line” came out that year. ❤ Toto ❤️
@@donnafields2271Hold The Line I still believe was their best song ever.
Fortunately got to see them this year. Did not disappoint. Liked them much more that Journeys current lineup hat they opened for.
Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street"
Well, this is a walk down memory lane, grinning for the duration of the whole video, made me grateful to have lived through it all...thank you😊
Rick has a way of connecting you back to when you first heard those songs. Many of his videos have brought me to tears.
Exactly! The 70s were such a great decade for music! It was the best drug around, euphoria and transcendence being its only side effects.
Being old sucks, but at least we still have all that great music!
Yeah, but we still got to live 70s music when it happened. I won't trade that for ten years more of youth.
I'd rather be old than cold. Cherish music from the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and early 2000's. Sad that music went out of business after that.
@@treff9226the internet changed everything forever, a lot of people want to be like other ppl and alot of originality and creativity vanished, plus cocaine was really prevalent around that time so that made music better
@@johnwick-ii6qq The big debate - do drugs contribute to creativity in art? I'd say in certain instances they do, and you're damn right about the internet and the negative effects it's had on music and other arts. A lot of my time spent on the internet is used to criticize the internet! Lol!
Rick is still 16 all these years later and that’s awesome !
Rick is a man with the child in his eyes.
reverse those numbers
The 70s were a music explosion extraordinaire. I feel lucky to have experienced it first hand. I'm still experiencing it!
We knew how great it was while it was happening, but didn’t realize how much it would improve with age!
Great comment & I agree.
It was a weird mix of amazing and horrific. Side by side you had muskrat love and Moby Dick, you had Roundabout and Tony Orlando and Dawn
@reXdownham I had no idea how classic my music would become. Don't know about you, but I didn't have the equivalent of Dad Rock. I did have good FM radio, skip transmission for distant AM stations at night, and friends whose older siblings could afford to buy Zep, Yes, ELP, Pink Floyd, Steve Miller, Warren Zevon, Grand Funk, BS&T, Motown out my ears ...
I have to stop now because the potential list is soo long and I have stuff to get done!
Lucky us with so many excellent choices that have stood the test of time. 🎶🎶🎶😁🎶🎶🎶
Not a lot of distractions and a lot longer attention spans.
Doesn't matter how many times I listen to it, Boston's harmonies ==goosebumps!
you men Brad Delp's harmonies with himself!
When I get down on myself I'll play Boston's "Man I'll Never Be" and Steely Dan's "Deacon Blues" and quickly realize nobody but me can turn things around, think to myself "I'm better than this moment", pick myself up and go forward. Truly inspirational music. 💓
The Kick Inside is a great album and seems to be a little forgotten even amongst the current Katemania. "Moving" is absolutely stunning.
I love The Sensual World too.
Thank you for giving Devo some love, totally under appreciated as to how they influenced music. Another influencer, Kraftwerk released Man Machine in 1978. Two other notables are Funkadelic’s One Nation Under a Groove and BOC’s Some Enchanted Evening
Right on, my man. Didn't think he'd mention Devo. Space Junk is such a great song, the whole album is great.
I was born in 1989, but I've noticed that 80 - 90% of the music I listen to was recorded somwhere between 1968 and 1980. I like a lot of newer and older stuff too, but the 70s kids got to experience the greatest music ever recorded IMO. Thankfully, I still can too. That is the beautiful thing about recordings. Cool video Rick!
My Son was born 2000 but he also love the music, that we hear...late 70´s and 80´s Rock...today the music industry is so fast....you can get on top fast and fall down the ladder even faster....beside that imho todays even the bands are grouped around the singer...in old days mostly all band members were stars...and not just replacable faces behind their instruments...today no one who wants to sell records would do a 1 min intro in a song....everything have to be fast on the point...
I turned 15 the summer of '78 and I was blown away by Dire Straits first album. To this day Sultans of Swing is my all-time favourite song. So much great music from the 70's!
1978 and I was 18! What a great time for rock! WORJ in Orlando played whole albums every Saturday night and we couldn't wait! Also the drinking age was 18 then too!
70s was rock artistry at its peak. Amazing.
Most of what's been good ever since really wasn't rock 'n' roll. Heck, most of what was good in the seventies really wasn't, either. It was more of a marketing label than anything that was actually being produced.
Rock.
That Boston Don't' Look Back album I wore out. A Man I'll Never Be, so majestically magnificent. Incredible rock ballad.
In '78 I had two young children who I introduced to all of this music. To this day they appreciate how lucky they were to be a part of such a unique moment in musical history.
This is proof that music is a time traveling machine. Every clip he played took me back to a specific time and place where I first heard it. I was12 years old and the Sultans of Swing took me back with my dad and me going to pick up a pontoon boat on a rainy Saturday. The Cars Just What I Needed took me to my aunts living room where I was listening to that album on her Pioneer stereo. And on and on. Just spent the last 5 minutes with chills...
8:15 "A Man I'll Never Be" is my favorite Boston song, and one of the most melancholy lyrics on depression for such a beautiful, upbeat song.
In 1978. it was easily the Jam's All Mod Cons that caught my ear. I was already a fan, but the huge stylistic leap they made after their second record, Modern World was simply astounding. They'd made a record that could comfortably sit with the best works of their inspirations, The Who and Kinks. A classic.
1978... I can really only add a few more.
Heart releases what is probably their most complete album - Dog & Butterfly.
Blondie - Parallel Lines with "Hanging on the Telephone", "One Way Or Another", "Fade Away and Radiate", and of course "Heart of Glass".
Foreigner - Double Vision.
Growing up, it seamed that '76 was a stand-out year that I remember most at the ripe old age of 11, but there certainly was great music all during that time for quite a few years.
Agree for sure about Blondie. As to Heart, Dog & Butterfly may be more complete in song type, but I lost interest in them at that album and thereafter. I sort of liked it when they were a Canadian Led Zeppelin with two good women singers, driving and stomping their way through songs. I was in HS then and all my music loving friends agreed about Dog & Butterfly, it was inevitable after Barracuda, Crazy on You, Magic Man from the first 2 albums, those songs were great and even non-music-geek people loved them.
I first saw groups live like Cheap Trick, UFO, Pat Travers Band, Van Halen, Blue Oyster Cult, DEVO and the B-52s all in that year. Remember The Knack with My Sharona? The following year.
@@seanoneil277 Except they weren't a Canadian band. Heart formed in Seatle Washington
Yes, I thought Blondie too. I see that it wasn't their first record release in 78 but Parallel Lines was definitely their Breakout album.
@@robertgreen6433 No Canadians? Roger Fisher from USA?
The Scream by Siouxsie and the Banshees is another debut album worth mentioning, and Parallel Lines by Blondie is also a classic album from that year.
Great call out, I listened to Hanging on the Telephone one of the great covers from that album. Scream was the birth effectively of both post punk and gothic rock and Siouxsie is still out there performing.
Magazine's debut album Real Life was released in 1978.
There was no decade that produced as genre-diverse and flat out fantastic music as the 1970s in my opinion. I graduated HS in 1978 and feel so lucky to have experienced that decade first hand. I remember the early 70s listening to AM radio where all of the "Top 40" was being played because FM radio hadn't really taken hold yet. We had great TV shows like The Midnight Special, Soul Train, American Bandstand and all of the "variety shows" where you could see music groups performing. It was truly a wonderful decade to be a teenager!!! Keep rockin'
‘The Man With The Child In His Eyes’ has to be one of the most timelessly beautiful songs ever written. Still as stunning now as it was on it’s release.
And it's amazing Kate was only 13 when she wrote it, and 16 when she recorded it (co-produced by David Gilmour).
No, it's more stunning. We were spoiled back then. Now it's water for us in this musical desert.
Yep. Wuthering heights was (and I suppose still is)
my all-time favourite song of this my all-time favourite year. Then I rediscovered this song when I said goodbye to my father. There is no direct connection but it brings me to tears almost every time I hear it.
Her whole discography is staggeringly great.
@@imranqqq7307unbelievable how many talented musicians there were at the same time. Kate Bush is a treasure. It’s hard to fathom how much talent converged at once, compared to the drought today…
Van Halen's debut alone makes this one of the most important years in modern music history. 2 other great albums released in 78 was REO Speedwagon's "You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish" and Journey's "Infinity"
2 amazing albums!
Bon Jovi
@@lawdogwales5921 Bon Jovi's first album wasn't until 1984.
I was in my first band in 1978 and can remember hearing Van Halen's Eruption. No one I knew had any idea what was going on. What a great player Eddie was!
I'm still trying to work it out! (I don't play guitar enough to say much more).
I mean he's playing arpeggios, and I thought at first maybe he's just using one string and using the frets very cleanly. But the arpeggios cover about an octave, so I don't get it...
Whatever he did, he was the first I heard doing it :-)
And is it just me, or does Van Halen give a nod to classical composition style in that fantastic solo?
Rick just keeps on giving us golden treasures. I was 10 years old in 1970, home alone watching tv, film comes on, its Gene krupa. Blown away, out comes the knitting needles and tin pots, later got some drums. 78 was a great year to be in my first band covering some of the amazing songs of the day.
Having lived through that as a teenager ... I (we) took all this for granted. In hindsight: WOW. What a year.
Don: We took a lot more than music for granted.
@@notbraindead7298 Ain't that the truth.
I reckon 1971 was also extraordinary:
Gordon Lightfoot "If You Could Read My Mind"
Janis Joplin "Me and Bobby McGee"
Ike & Tina Turner "Proud Mary"
Jethro Tull "Aqualung", “Locomotive Breath”
Marvin Gaye "What's Going On"
Three Dog Night "Joy To The World"
Rolling Stones "Brown Sugar"
Rock Opera "Jesus Christ Superstar"
Carole King "It's Too Late, Baby"
Ringo Starr "It Don't Come Easy"
Carly Simon "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be"
Emerson Lake & Palmer "Tarkus"
and we’re only up to June!
James Taylor "You've Got A Friend"
The Concert For Bangladesh
The Who "Won't Get Fooled Again"
Bill Withers "Ain't No Sunshine"
Rod Stewart "Maggie May", “Reason to Believe”
Isaac Hayes "Theme From Shaft"
John Lennon "Imagine", “Jealous Guy”
Yes "Roundabout"
Led Zeppelin "Stairway To Heaven"
Sly & The Family Stone "Family Affair"
David Bowie ”Changes”, “Oh You Pretty Things” and “Life on Mars”
@@Gottenhimfella Yes, that was an extraordinary year.
How could you forget Toto's debut? I graduated in '78, so much great stuff!
toto the nickleback of the 70's yuck
Huge miss. Toto are stellar musicians. Nickelback my arse lol
@@petergambino2129 MUCH rather listen to Toto, and I don't want to hear a single note of nickleback. But that is still an interesting comparison not without merit - the two bands compare in more of a commercial sense, than musically, to me though. I wasn't big on Toto in their heyday, but I sure didn't dislike them.
Steve Lukather has received and earned more accolades as a guitar player, than did nickleback's guitar player - and I blindly say that confidently, without looking it up or knowing what I'm talking about. I have no idea - maybe he is a modern guitar god too.
And Cheap Trick
@@petergambino2129 the dumbest thing I'll read this week.
So glad I was a young musician in the 70's and 80's. There will never be a moment in music like that again.
Yeah me too. I was 16 in my first band. Just so much great music and styles in the late 70's early 80's. Was mostly obsessed with RUSH.
@@MultiSkyman1 Ambrosia, Emerson Lake And Palmer, Electric Light Orchestra... Too many to mention.
1978 ushered in Major Hard Rock, Punk, New Wave and killed Disco. The happiest time of my entire life. Music was our religion. Well done Mr. Beato!
What a year! High School! Playing in bands. What a time to be alive!
This brought back so many great high school music memories! Dire Straits is an album I own on vinyl, cd, and iTunes. I still like listening to it from beginning to end.
MK is the man. One of my favorites
It’s so cool that we can say that we were there and listening to these albums as they came out!! There are people my age (I’m 63) who don’t understand why we still love this music. My reply, just listen. It’s epic music and seriously you will never see anything like it again!!
I turned 28 in 1978. After a few years not playing in live bands I started up again. What a year! As a guitarist I’d have to say that Van Halen was the true game changer band of the era.
And BTW, I’ll still playing live and recording music, at 71. I retired at 60 and play blues and jazz now. It’s easier on my ears!
Roxanne is such an amazing song, as soon as it comes on you just have to groove with Copland. What a brilliant melody too!
What a wonderful reminder of how lucky I was to grow up in an era were so much amazing music was written. Love this video, Rick!
Great to see a nod given to “A Man I’ll Never Be”…incredible, beautiful song, as powerful as any of their better-known hits.
Totally agree! I graduated high school in 1978. So many great albums and concerts!
Please Rick! This gotta become a new thing!! Do more videos like this from other years! That'd be pretty cool! I found it very entertaining!!
No auto-tune, no samples, just great songs!
you are joking right?
@@Me4-gc8qs It's a meme to post this on all songs or videos about songs from the last millennium. I don't disagree with it, but you can't play any old song on RUclips without one of the top comments complaining about auto-tune, fake instruments, etc, in modern music.
Just 100 takes in the studio until you get enough bits and pieces of the singer actually being in the right key that you can splice it all together, add some reverb, delay, double up the tracks. Totally natural. Right? Because that's how it's been done for a very long time.
I think auto tune is crap but let's not pretend that most of the bands you like spent a lot of time in the studio polishing the sound before it ever got released.
Yes, you are correct, just talent and hard work. It's a meme because it's true.
@@Fektthis real music made by real people with real talent.
I was nine years old and that was the year I first started discovering music. What a great year.
I love and respect the breadth of Rick's musical taste.
This would make a great series, showing the most iconic debuts/moments of a particular year
Agreed!
Professor of rock already doing this on youtube.
@@rolloman667 I watch him as well lol. I watch Rick beato, professor of rock and Doug Helvering.
Oh yes, 1978! Such a rich year of music. There was Warren Zevon, Molly Hatchet’s debut album and can’t forget Cheap Trick Live at Budokan. JUST missing, recorded in October 78 and released on January 2, 1979 my favorite live LP, UFO Strangers in the Night.
Strangers is the best live album. Period.
Love Strangers, Schenker's a guitar god. Also love Zevon's When Johnny Strikes Up the Band.
Molly Hatchet, The Outlaws, and some of the other Southern Rock "guitar armies" will always be a guilty pleasure of mine. When a DJ cued up 'Green Grass and High Tides" or "Dreams I'll Never See", you knew for sure he was taking a potty break.
Being a bit older (76 in a souple of days), my mind bending year for new music releases was likely 1965. However, your post re 1978 must be lauded as one of your best. The enthusiasm and wonder are magnificent! And, of course, getting to re-visit many of those tracks was a joy. There is much about the Internet that is negative but discovering your channel several years ago has been a truly positive expereince. Thank you.
Wasn't 1965 the same year that Dylan went electric?
Cheap Trick's Heaven Tonight 1978. I was 15 and they soon became my favorite band and still are.
How lucky were we to hear these when they came out, in 1978. What a wonderful time to be alive.
My college years...76 to 80....so much great music!
What an excellent time to be at college
1972-1976….incredible music to not study by.
Not to mention For You by Prince (debut) & Parallel Lines by Blondie! I hadn't thought about how significant 1978 was. Rick crushin' it agaaaain!
My senior year of high school began in the fall of 1978. All of these records resonate heavily with me. Hemispheres for the progressive win, "I Wanna Be Sedated" and AC/DC for the straight ahead power rock, "The Kick Inside" to give this guy insight into the female mind. There is so much more, and the recording technology had advanced to amaze me that a needle in a groove could sound so good. The artwork on album covers, lyrics on some, double albums to clean the stems & seeds. Lucky we were to come of age in the explosion of musical creativity that happened then.
I'm so happy you mentioned Hemispheres. That's my favorite Rush album!
The fact that 52nd Steeet was released only 1 year after The Stranger is truly amazing. And so many good tracks besides Big Shot. There was Half a Mile Away, Honesty, Zanzibar, and so many others!
Until the Night is the best song on 52nd Street.
@@DonaldMains Depending on what day you ask me, that could be my answer. But there are so many good tracks, my opinion on which is the best constantly changes.
Don't forget Stiletto
so good to mention The Kick Inside and especially the man with the child in his eyes- truly amazing songwriting
Co-produced by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd
1978 the height of disco, and these bands that would be the soundtrack to my life in the 80's releasing their first hits, Van Halen, The Police, The Cars, Dire Straits. WOW
'78 was Great! The year I graduated high school (with a black-eye at my graduation ceremony 😵), got my first full-time job, my first serious relationship, my first car (albeit a '72 green Vega), my first apartment, and the best music ever! Wow, I didn't realize all of the killer jams that came out that year, I just took it for granted, and was living and diggin' the moment. Thank you, Rick, for reminding me, and all of us, of what incredible music was released in 1978.
That Dire Straits record was solid from start to finish, no wasted tracks at all.
It really is. Great album.
Soundtrack of my youth
From that first chord on Down to the Waterline you know you’re listening to something completely new and completely amazing.
Dire Straights was a good palette cleanser to VH 1 so different but both groundbreaking. 1978 was the year where the most LPs were sold
Damn right mate - I regularly listen to that whole album. Never gets old.
It also happened in 1991: Nirvana Nevermind, RHCP Blood Sugar Sex Magic, Pearl Jam Ten, Smashing Pumpkins Gish, U2 Actung Baby, Soundgarden Badmotorfinger, REM Out of Time, Guns N Roses Use Your Illusion I & II, Temple of the Dog, and the Metallica Black Album. 🤘🏻
Great point! I feel I was able to enjoy both times of rock and roll excellence…and shortly after came Nirvana and STP!
Also, 1977 weren't too shoddy either. Rumours, The Clash Eponymous, Marquee Moon, Heroes & Low, Trans-Europe Express, Lust for Life, The Idiot, Pink Flag, The Stranger...
What a couple of years to be a music fan!
also Van Halen F.U.C.K was released in 1991
Not even in the same ballpark. 78' was Major Leagues and 91' was Class A ball
@@juanesara4870and a return to form for Ozzy with No More Tears
I was in 7th grade in 1978. Man, I remember every single one of these songs when they came out 😁
The joy of music by Rick Beato…. It’s contagious
When I saw the title, my first thought was "THE CARS!!!!" It's a landmark release and I'm glad you devoted a good amount of time to it. Another 1978 debut album that you didn't mention--Nick Lowe's Jesus of Cool.
Siouxsie and the Banshees The Scream came out that year. Jesus does her voice arouse me as a man.
Sometimes its great to be old and remember al these great bands and songs.
So glad I came of age in the late 70s/early 80s. The amount of fabulous music. And I have to say, at the time, we kind of took it for granted. Because we were surround by so much greatness. Yes you left you a bunch, but you were spoiled for choice!
As a young 13 year old in 1978 my parents owned a bar in northern MN. I was able to convince them to give me 10 slots in the jukebox working with the record vendor we filled slots with what the people of the day wanted, many of the bands you mentioned. My dad hated it... but he liked selling beer and making money more. needless to say the polka songs disappeared.
hillarious
I have to say, simultaneously while enjoying these songs, I really enjoyed this restaurant on interstate 70 out east of Aurora, Colorado during those same years, that consistently have great live polka bands throughout lunch and dinner. Incredible food too! There was one time they didn't have the polka but instead had and all day tribute to Bobby Vinton, and I fell in love with him too.
I was also 13 years old that year, one of the best of my life!
Classic. "My dad hated it, but he loved selling beer and making money more." You're kinda saying he "sold out." LoL.
@@rynes.rai7er993 Sold out a lot of Beer Barrels! 😉
I remember that year well. One notable omission- Heaven Tonight by Cheap Trick. So much great, new-sounding rock music was being made then.
OHHHHH. that is a good one!
Powerage is such an incredible rock album. It’s my favorite AC/DC album even though Highway and Black are amazing. Highway probably has more of my favorites but Powerage is so gritty, just has that raw stripped down clean loudness.
Sin City
Agreed love that whole album my favorite AC DC album
Liked for the air guitar.. As a guitarist born in '69, Rick and I could have totally been best friends, he's SO on target. What a trip down memory lane of all my favs!!