Just to remind you, ‘Track 16’ of ‘Challenge 69’ will be released this Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 April. All remaining episodes will now pop into your inboxes at 9am, matching the story’s mismatched timeline (as it moves back out of BST).
Stuart’s early ‘musings’ in this upcoming chapter centre on three albums I remember buying in 1979, and treasure to this day, but the editing process also made me realise just how much …
… will always be a seminal year for me. Not just down to leaving home (never to return), but as a marker of the moment the music I still love today found its feet.
The much needed ‘punk revolution’ may have taken place earlier, ridding us of the muso pomposity of ‘prog rock’, but the very foundations of that insurgency (with its adrenaline rush of attitude over aptitude) were starting to become a straitjacket of their own until, in 1979, the smarter ‘post-punk’s realised that now, with the shackles removed, they were simply free to make whatever music they wanted to.
I’ve just spent a very pleasurable thirty-seven minutes listening to my favourite tracks from ten classic albums released that year (carefully avoiding the three in ‘Track 16’) …
… which still (to my ears at least) sound as fresh today. I defy any reader who dips in not to spot a whole host of influences, forty-four years on, that can still be heard playing out in much of the best ‘alternative’ music of the 2020s.
So do yourself a favour, take another listen to 1979!
PS I do realise this post/playlist has the potential to mark me out as a delusional old git, but, if so, then I’m one who is both happy in his delusion and convinced I’m right!
Remember, it’s 9am on Saturday for the next instalment of ‘Challenge 69’.