1976 was all about the Bicentennial, but for me it was the Summer of "The Bird". Yes, that was the year Detroit Tigers rookie phenom Mark Fidrych was the talk of baseball. A few years ago, my favorite songwriter, Will Johnson, did a painting of Mark Fidrych and I bought a copy. I remember him shutting out the Yankees on Monday Night Baseball 1-0. He finished the season 19-9. He could have won 20 games, except he lost his last start against the Indians. That is all recollection on my part, I didn't go back and research it, but I'm pretty sure that's all correct. 1976 was also a pretty good year for albums. My list isn't huge, but it's high quality. The albums that didn't make the cut are: Boz Scaggs Silk Degrees, Steely Dan Royal Scam, Thin Lizzy Jailbreak, The Ramones self-titled, Stevie Wonder Songs in the Key of Life, ELO New World Record, Kiss Destroyer and the debut by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Not bad.
If I were to be honest, my number two album was really my number one at the time. So, my revisionist number one is The Modern Lovers. I discovered "Roadrunner" late in life thanks to my fandom of John Hodgman. This lead me to check out the album and it is tremendous. Once again, I have posted on this previously, so please go back and check it out. The songwriting is great and the album is a really fun listen.
If you were to hop into the Wayback Machine and return to 1976, the debut album from Boston would have been everywhere. To this day, you will hear every song from this album played on classic rock radio. It is so good. Back in the day, "More Than a Feeling" ruled the airwaves. I spent hours drawing the Boston Spaceships on anything available for me to draw on. It's hilarious that Bob Pollard named one of his side projects Boston Spaceships. I assume it's a tribute.
Number three is Trick of the Tail by Genesis. This post-Peter Gabriel gem is fantastic. The title track is a great storytelling song about aliens. Even though the songs are more concise, the musical showmanship is still in present on tracks like "Dance On a Volcano" and "Squonk". Also "Ripples" is a beautiful track. Stellar album.
Finally, I included 2112 by RUSH, even though it's only half a great album. As I posted before, the 2112 side is epic and side 2 is hot garbage. However, side one is so musically brilliant I can't keep it off the Mt. Rushmore. Like Billy Corgan, I spent hours in my bedroom as a kid trying to learn 2112 on guitar. I was not as successful as Uncle Fester.
Looking forward to 1975, I have kept my list short because it's a murderer's row. This is probably the most top heavy year since 1995. I'm leaning toward a number one, but it's still up for grabs. I have already noticed that, despite my love of fellow December 30th birthday buddy Jeff Lynne, ELO is going to be my hard luck band of the Seventies. That sucks, but this was the decade of album rock exceptionalism. Peace.
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