1978’s Rock Rookies Lived Parallel Lives

So today’s question is, why did every big new rock band that put out a debut album in 1978 wind up having exactly the same career — or at least, more or less the same trajectory over their first several years? At least four of 1978’s hottest rookie bands led off with what wound up…

The Unbearable Whiteness of Trousers

Just learned this week in The New Yorker, of all places, that Ira Robbins is self-publishing a best-of anthology of Trouser Press, the new wave-identified music magazine he founded a half-century ago as a teenage Brooklyn Polytechnic electrical engineering student. It’s due out in March, and sounds like something I’d want to put on my…

150 Best Albums of 1970/’71

I was alive in 1970/’71, but almost a decade away from being cognizant as to what was going on the wide world of music. So I’ve been catching up ever since, and continued to do so up to the last minute while putting this list together. The top 11 or so actually strike me as…

150 Best Albums of 1977

No Elvis*, Beatles or Stones in 1977. At least not here. (One of them died!) These are my 150 favorite LPs of the year. I’ve spent the past four years or so re-listening to my entire LP and CD (even cassette) collection, then resorted to streaming several albums I can’t physically touch. I’m ready to…