Dec. 31, 1975 review: Top 10 albums of the year

 

Despite my pessimistic purview, a pretty potent Top 10. 

Dec. 27, 1975

A Throw-Away Time for Pop Discs 

TO GET THE PICTURE of the excitement in 1975’s pop records, imagine a single flash of heat lightning over an endless sea of churning commercial mediocrity.

          With that, let’s bid a hearty good riddance to what’s been pretty much a throw-away year. No deposit, no return.

          The flash, of course, was Bruce Springsteen. His energetic and skillful renderings of inflated early ‘60s sensibilities were enough to raise visions of a new messiah on the covers of two leading news magazines.

          But beyond Springsteen’s borrowed inspirations, the pickings got pretty slim. To paraphrase one of the folks on this list, everybody was making hay or else expecting rain.

* * *

THE WINNING track was tried and true – Elton John hit it every time without even sweating. Anyone who could get together a good disco beat or a bouncy, sappy romance had it made all the way to the bank. But no further.

          Applying a personal yardstick to the lowered expectations of the year of Barry Manilow and KC & the Sunshine Band was pretty discouraging.

          The records the measure up best are ones which broke artists into a higher plane of importance. That’s pretty much the Top 10 here.

          It’s also why there’s no mention of Joni Mitchell, the Allman Brothers, the Who, Pink Floyd or Paul Simon.

          1 – David Bowie, “Young Americans.” A year ago, could anyone imagine this androgynous wizard with a soul hit? Then along came “Fame.” In retrospect, this disdaining opus is the most subtle and best-crafted disco album to date. There’s something in it for just about everyone.

          2 – Janis Ian, “Between the Lines.” “At Seventeen” was the strongest statement of female enlightenment on record all year. Ian struck a special nerve in every lady who ever agonized over relationships and stereotypes.

3 – Bruce Springsteen, “Born to Run.” Harness Roy Orbison, Phil Spector and the raw humanity of cheap-thrill nights in North Jersey, rev ‘em up as high as they’ll go and let out the clutch. Wham! The truest evocation of rock ‘n roll spirit all year.

4 – Isley Brothers, “The Heat Is On.” The disco boom subverted Black artists the most, but the Isleys took it in stride so well you hardly noticed the accompanying creative shortwindedness. Bet Gil Scott-Heron wishes he’d written “Fight the Power.”

5 – Bob Dylan, “Blood on the Tracks” and “The Basement Tapes.” “Tangled Up in Blue” recertified Dylan as a presence in the ‘70s, but it’s a muted form, pastel in the light of the eight-years-hidden collection of Big Pink visions with The Band, burning at the edge of mortality.

6 – Fleetwood Mac, “Fleetwood Mac.” Group renewal at its finest. The addition of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham improved the fluidity of their harmonies and their cozy, ethereal romanticism as well.

7 – Wet Willie, “Dixie Rock.” The Willies are to the South what J. Geils is to Boston – a hard-kicking, blues-based, good-time band – but without the histrionics. Full of fun and rocking righteousness, they’re the only group this year to evoke the Dixie flavor without getting tiresome or pompous.

8 – Pointer Sisters, “Steppin’.” Can human beings really sing “How Long (Betcha Got a Chick on the Side)” as fast as the three remaining Pointers do? An incredible performance. No wonder the fourth sister retired from exhaustion.

9 – Neil Sedaka, “The Hungry Years.” A comeback that has less to do with nostalgia than with an extraordinary skill at writing songs that catch without being sticky. Where Barry Manilow spreads it thick, Sedaka keeps things sensitive, as if there were just the two of you there.

10 – Roxy Music, “Country Life” and “Siren.” These two brought Roxy out of the shadows and into culthood, refining Bryan Ferry’s world-weary self-awareness and the band’s scarcely-controlled harshness into gems of anomie like “The Thrill of It All” and “Love Is the Drug.”