Sometimes I Feel So Lonely (1977 cont.)

Reading all those 1977 retrospectives – and maybe even Monday’s Ghost post - you could be forgiven for thinking that the year was all Sod The Jubilee (UK) and CBGB heaven (US), but the fact is that, for the most part, the album charts on both sides of the Atlantic were dominated by The Eagles’ Hotel California (released in late 76), Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, the live double Wings Over America and Stevie Wonder’s Songs In The Key Of Life.

Singing cop David Soul was HUGE in Britain - and the 12 year old me was very much enjoying ABBA’s Arrival, thank you very much.

But ask me thirty years on for two albums I’d take from 1977 and I’d pick a perilous path through the burgeoning punk/new wave releases (debuts this year from The Clash, Pistols, Elvis Costello, Wire, The Jam and The Damned) and the mass market mega sellers (look out! It’s ELO’s Out Of The Blue!) to David Bowie’s Low and Steely Dan’s Aja.

We’ll return to the Dan in future posts if we may, because they seem to me to be one of the most widely misunderstood and criminally under appreciated acts of the era and I’m engaged in a sort of haphazard campaign to get 2007 people listening to them, but for now - to Mr Bowie (and Mr Eno…)…

Phew! Does this album INVENT the bloody 1980s or what?! In a really good way I mean – doom laden synth, existential angst, coke-wasted emptiness, urban alienation...would Ultravox, Japan, Gary Numan, JOY DIVISION!!! have had careers without it???

A masterpiece. As I expect you know.

Sadly (and perversely) the 90s CD reissue with its excellent bonus tracks is no longer available, but fear not, The Ghost is here to help.

Buy the original track-listed version here and sample a couple of those extras on us...

David Bowie - 'All Saints'
David Bowie - 'Some Are'

As they said at the time - 'There's new wave, there's old wave - and there's David Bowie' (thanks Alex).