1979
The end of the decade as far as the heavy rock scene went, was quite simply best put as ‘The Eve of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal’ which would burst onto the scene the following year and change the parameters of the heavy metal genre in sound, image, power and overall aggression. The end of an era had already come for the likes of Led Zeppelin who finally folded with the death of John Bonham after a couple of below-par albums, Deep Purple had already been no more for a couple of years and Black Sabbath who after losing Ozzy in 1978, and then replacing him with Dave Walker, then reclaimed Ozzy and produced their dullest album to date! Other bands weren’t faring much better either, such as early pioneers like Budgie and the Blue Oyster Cult two bands that would never quite find the same fire again as their earlier output. Also bands like UFO who were primed to take over from the big three, had failed to take the huge popularity mantle that they should’ve done. Luckily though a crop of bands carried the torch forward to the bitter end and these were not only good bands, but they were all selling by the bucketload as well and these included AC/DC, Thin Lizzy, Scorpions and the mighty metal flagbearing Judas Priest. Stateside things didn’t get much bigger than Aerosmith or Kiss and newbies Van Halen were making this a trilogy of US giants by the end of the decade, with lesser lights such as bands like Riot busily furrowing away. 1979 as a whole was probably on a par with the previous 1978 in terms of overall quality in regards to the top end of my list and again like 1978 it suffers from some quality holes at its bottom end, thus making it neither a great year or bad year overall. There are no huge surprises at the top of the list with the likes of AC/DC, Scorpions and Thin Lizzy all placing highly, with other albums of note being the Van Halen sophomore, Rainbow going more commercially AOR and Motorhead finally bursting onto the UK scene. 1979 was a year where I have a lot of memories which range from the huge amount of quality new-wave, post-punk and Ska albums that were around in the UK at this time and these albums were very much balanced by some of the zanier acts and AOR standards that were fully established in the USA, and these contrasts certainly made the year a rich and diverse listen overall for the music listener. With this being the final year of the decade, it is the final year review that I plan to do in the current format, as from 1980 onwards I plan to revamp things a bit due to the greater expansion of the scene overall.