When I started this little side project, I naively expected to dig up a few interesting and overlooked tracks, dust them off, and say, “Hey, look what was hiding under the radio hits.” Simple enough.
That is not what happened.
I go into these collections with zero intent. I don’t start with a thesis, a mood board, or a desire to prove that any given year was secretly haunted. The process feels more like a tarot reading: shuffle the deck, let the cards fall, and see what story they insist on telling.
So far, the cards have been dark. Borderline disturbing, actually.
No…let me correct that. 1979 was a straight-up creepfest.
Now, as I move backward into 1978, I keep expecting things to lighten. After all, we were repeatedly told that the past was simpler, cleaner, and more innocent – usually by people selling nostalgia in bulk packaging. But two years into this backward excavation, the music business underbelly has maintained its dark little spell.
Maybe this will change as the time machine keeps grinding in reverse. Maybe the earlier years really will reveal something sunnier, freer, or less psychologically sticky.
Or maybe the deeper we dig, the clearer it becomes that the darkness was never an accident. It was simply better dressed.
Diving Deeper: 1978 – Playlist Commentary
1. “Atomic Punk” – Van Halen
A perfect opening blast: swagger, mutation, ego, electricity, and suburban menace. Van Halen sound less like a band arriving politely in 1978 and more like something kicked open the garage door from the inside. “I am a victim of the science age. A child of the storm”
2. “Auf Wiedersehen” – Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick bring the sneer, the hooks, and the cheerful threat of collapse. This is power pop with a cigarette burn on its sleeve: catchy enough to smile, nasty enough to make the smile suspicious. “There are many here among us, who feel that life is a joke. And for you we sing this final song. For you there is no hope”
3. “Billy Hunt” – The Jam
A sharp little portrait of frustrated youth and fantasy masculinity. The Jam compress ordinary dissatisfaction into two minutes of clenched teeth and mod agitation. “No one pushes Billy Hunt around. Well they do, but not for long. When I get fit and grow bionic arms, the whole world’s gonna wish you weren’t born”
4. “Statue of Liberty” – XTC
XTC turn lust, patriotism, and absurd imagery into twitchy new-wave theater. It is playful, but it also sounds like a mind already starting to short-circuit under too many symbols. “A billion lovers with their cameras, snap to look. And in my fantasy I sail beneath your skirt”
5. “Fiction Romance” – Buzzcocks
Romance gets reduced to nervous systems, bad timing, and emotional static. Buzzcocks make confusion sound catchy, which may be one of punk’s more useful public services. “A fiction romance on magazine pages, that never seems to feature in my life”
6. “Warning Sign” – Talking Heads
Here the playlist starts getting colder. Talking Heads take anxiety out of the street and relocate it inside the body, where the real machinery is apparently malfunctioning. “Warning sign of things to come. It happened before, it will happen again”
7. “Moving in Stereo” – The Cars
Sleek, numb, and oddly erotic, this song feels like being trapped inside a showroom mannequin’s dream. The Cars bring the future, but it is a very refrigerated future. “Life’s the same. It’s all inside you”
8. “Privilege (Set Me Free)” – Patti Smith Group
Patti Smith turns the demand for freedom into something ragged and ritualistic. It is not escape as comfort; it is escape as exorcism. “Give me something. Give me something to give. Oh God, give me something. A reason to live”
9. “Religion” – Public Image Ltd.
A brutal midpoint. Johnny Rotten is no longer just attacking rock decorum; he is aiming at institutions, language, belief, and anything else that smells like control. This is not pleasant, but it is necessary unpleasantness. “Fat pig priest. Sanctimonious smiles. He takes the money. You take the lies”
10. “White Shadow” – Peter Gabriel
Gabriel brings dread with better lighting. “White Shadow” feels like identity dissolving under observation…paranoid, elegant, and deeply suited to a year already suspicious of its own reflection. “Hang on inside, they know they must. Hanging on the green-backed words “In God We Trust”
11. “Kite” – Kate Bush
After all that male agitation and institutional rot, Kate Bush opens a stranger door. “Kite” is whimsical on the surface, but underneath it is about release, transformation, and the danger of floating away entirely. “I look at eye level, it isn’t good enough. And then I find out when I take a good look up. There’s a hole in the sky. With a big eyeball calling me”
12. “Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)” – Bob Dylan
Dylan wanders into the desert with prophecy stuck to his boots. The song feels half Western, half fever dream, as if history itself is trying to remember where it left the bodies. “Let’s overturn these tables, disconnect these cables. This place don’t make sense to me no more. Can you tell me what we’re waiting for Senor?”
13. “Music Must Change” – The Who
The title sounds like a manifesto, but the song feels more like exhaustion realizing it has become wisdom. The Who seem to understand that the old rock machinery is still powerful, but no longer innocent. “Death always leads into life. But the street fighter swallows the knife. Am I so crazy to feel that it’s here prearranged?”
14. “Stiletto” – Billy Joel
Billy Joel enters with a surprisingly sharp little blade. Beneath the slick surface is a nasty portrait of attraction, manipulation, and emotional self-harm dressed up in nightclub confidence. “You’ve been bought. You’ve been sold. You’ve been locked outside the door. But you stand there pleadin’ with your insides bleedin’ cause you deep down want some more”
15. “Girl Goodbye” – Toto
Toto bring polish, speed, and a darker edge than their reputation usually suggests. The musicianship is immaculate, but the mood is not soft; this is studio precision with getaway-car energy. “I’m so sorry for what I’ve done. And I say it not in fun. When I tell you that there’s no one, Lord, left here inside me”
16. “Gone Shootin’” – AC/DC
AC/DC strip everything down to groove, appetite, and bad intentions. The song does not explain itself because it does not need to; it just leans against the wall and looks guilty. “I took an offer in another town. She took another pill. She was runnin’ on overdrive. A victim of overkill”
17. “When the Whip Comes Down” – The Rolling Stones
The Stones sound dirty, urban, and weirdly revitalized. It is not moral clarity they offer here, but survival instinct…the old predators adapting to a rougher street. “When the shit hits the fan, I’ll be sitting on the can”
18. “To Be Someone” – The Jam
The fantasy of fame curdles almost immediately. The Jam understand that wanting to “be someone” often means wanting the costume before understanding the cost. “I realize I should have stuck to my guns. Instead of shit out to be one of the bastard sons. And lose myself”
19. “In the Gallery” – Dire Straits
A bitter, observant character study about art, commerce, and who gets ignored until it is too late. Dire Straits cool the tempo but sharpen the critique. “And then you get an artist, says he doesn’t want to paint at all. Just takes an empty canvas, sticks it on a wall. Birds of a feather. All the phonies and all of the fakes. While the dealers, they get together. And they decide who gets the breaks”
20. “The Ark” – Gerry Rafferty
A surprisingly graceful closer. After all the static, swagger, dread, and disillusionment, Rafferty offers something like passage…not easy salvation, but the possibility of carrying what remains into quieter water. “The time has come to trust that guiding light. And leavin’ all the rest behind. We’ll take the road that leads down to the waterside. And set out on the journey. Find a ship to take us on the way“
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