Did 1977 save music?
Sunday morning then, thanks for dropping in to the blog. If you’re of similar vintage to me and grew up in the UK and most of Europe I presume you probably remember Sunday being the sleepiest day of the week. Now it’s a bit like a watered down version of a Saturday isn’t it? In the 1970′s in England the only places open were newsagents in the morning so shopping wasn’t an option, there wasn’t any football and generally it was a day to do little other than bring the paper to the pub for a in-depth read and probably end up with a roast dinner. It was almost seemingly designed for a recovery from a late Saturday night but even that was usually not that extremely late as the pubs closed at 11pm. Seems like a very different world that spawned punk and The Clash in 1976 but when you see old video footage of practically anything from that era (try this for example) the fashion, the hair and every aspect of life looks like the hangover from the 1960′s resulted in a soupy mess of stagnation.
When you add to that the fact that the economy was entering a downward cycle the breeding ground for something new and exciting was especially fertile, particularly for youth. Inner city life had long since lost the ‘swing’ of the 1960′s and with grim job prospects and it being harder to afford a place to live made cities like London, Manchester and Liverpool perfectly positioned to support a new movement for young kids. With that said though it’s not as if punk rock in the UK replaced pop music and that hundreds of thousands were buying the earliest singles by The Sex Pistols, The Clash or The Damned. It remained a fringe scene for the better part of 12 months until the media decided it posed a huge threat to the existing morals of society. The turning point was probably The Sex Pistols appearance on the Bill Grundy show on December 1st 1976 which resulted in the daily newspapers finding a new danger to rally against and it was punk rock. You have to remember that more than television or gossip and long before the internet nothing shaped public opinion in the 1970′s like the daily paper. It’s very reasonable to assume that prior to ‘The Filth and The Fury’ headlines that 90% of UK adults had never heard of punk rock as they cuddled up to their latest ELO or Wings album and suddenly their children had to be protected from something more sinister than they could comprehend. The truth was that small punk scenes only existed in a handful of cities around the UK at that time, if you lived in Exeter or Norwich, Stoke or Bradford no such scene had even formed. Early audiences at concerts by The Clash and others outside of London were more likely to be attended by aging rockers, the curious or the local drunks than someone who already owned the first few Ramones albums. The scene came later as did the inspiration, by the second half of 1977 and into 1978 every town in the country had a new band who realised that anyone could make a record and it all fell under the umbrella of punk. A lot of crap was recorded under the banner of punk but there were also dozens of excellent new bands that realised that if you could master 4 or 5 guitar chords and get a pub willing to put on a gig a local scene could begin. For me personally, a huge ratio of the bands that have meant so much over the years formed between the start ’77 and the end of ’78. Not every band would legitimately be considered punk in sound (any more so than London Calling was) but punk in terms of attitude and creativity for sure. The biggest and best legacy of the era is what changed compared to previous- new bands on small labels became the norm and not the exception. Record labels were set up in small offices and garages and with the help of people like John Peel and the fanzine culture bands could get heard with little or no financial backing.
I think it also ushered in the most exciting spell of music we’ve yet to see as punk merged into post punk and then what was to be become ‘indie’ 1979-1987 saw a fantastic variety of bands on labels that didn’t even previously exist and the catalyst for all of this was punk. Just for fun I looked at the best selling singles in England in August 1976 and it simply demonstrates just how much punk was needed and how close music was becoming (had become?) to being a non factor for all of us. Below is a look at the top 20 at that time:
As you can see there is hardly a ‘guitar band’ in that list and most of it wouldn’t look out of place in a collection of singles for someone aged over 25 (35?) even at that time. Who were the kids of 1976 supposed to be inspired by? Elton John was top of the charts and at age 29 had ended his run of albums that were vaguely monumental, Dr Hook were soft American pop by guys in their late 30′s. David Dundas was a one hit wonder from Oxford, Tavares were a bland R&B band in their late 30′s, Jimmy James was more insipid R&B from a chap pushing 40. Even the relative excitement of Glam Rock was all but dead with the art rock of Bryan Ferry being as near to ‘alternative’ as this chart offers even those he was 31 by then. The lack of a young guitar band in that list is almost painful when you think that a decade earlier the charts were dominated by The Beatles, The Animals, The Rolling Stones and The Who – each of whom were populated by young men at that time. By 1976 it was like the sixties had never even happened, the charts were as safe as they were in 1956. The door was wide open for something fresh to happen and the impact was genuine, a year later the 40 top selling singles in August 1977 included The Stranglers, The Sex Pistols, The Jam, Television and The Ramones – none of whom would have got a look in just 12 months earlier. Not quite sure what got me started on this today but it’s important to note that beyond The Clash you could suggest that the seeds planted in 1977 saved music and by 1978 and 1979 (I’ll write about those later) the difference was incredible.
