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OK: The results are in, we can officially kiss off 1978 and be one year closer to what everyone hopes will be a real decade, the 80's. Right?
Wrong. First you've got to sit still while we, in the best Creem tradition, tell you how half-assed we all are.
First, despite record company and radio apathy, some new music entered the mainstream, or established itself more solidly therein; this is reflected in the polls by Elvis Costello's strong showing, Patti Smith's first Number One (Best New Wave Single), Cheap Trick's rocketing to the #3 album of the year, The Cars coming out of nowhere to become Best New Group, Blondie's strong showing for the first year, Nick Lowe's respectable showings in the Producer and Songwriter categories.
Well, it's about time. And, to give credit, you sure as hell didn't hear them on any but the most enlightened radio stations (WMMS in Cleveland, KSAN in San Francisco — you know who you are). Not until they hit. Typically, radio got on Costello when they knew they had a sure hit; again in 1978, nobody took any chances, nobody gave any but the most established artists a shot.
Simon Frith writes in his column this month of his deepening conviction that American tastes are inexorably set in their MOR ways; we're discouraged too — what, Linda Ronstadt was the best female singer of '78? Compared to what? — but if our poll can show some shift
away from the Kiss/Foreigner/Aerosmith/Styx axis, when it shows that people are buying records and supporting artists other than the bloated supergroups the big guns at the record companies and radio stations are pushing — well, maybe it'll get through to somebody. There are enlightened disc jockeys still programming innovative radio; all you and we can do is support them, support new acts in concert, let the record companies know your tastes can't be bought.
Obviously, Britain being an island, record buyers over there are a smaller, more enlightened group, and new acts break frequently and in a big way. (How many American bands — Blondie, Pere Ubu, Devo, Johnny Thunders — were first established stars in the U.K.?) But the whopping majority of the music is still derived from here. Why can't we appreciate our own heritage? Not just new bands, but overlooked bands, sleepers, genuine comebacks — whatever.
Obviously, in 1979, anything in the groove like Costello or the Cars is going to make it; let's just hope other "outsiders'" are given the chance to blast the apathetic pants off the cocky megagroups playing your local coliseum; let's just hope all of you straight ticket Foreigner/Pablo Cruise/Heart/Queen fans hear some more passion in your music. But if it ain't on your radio, you'll probably stay in your multi-tracked womb. To the Creem loyalists who won't take it any more: Get outta here, we mean it! We love you.
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