November 1980 gave music fans an abundance of choices when it came to the new albums being released. In fact, there were so many good ones that we had to make some tough choices in terms of highlighting only five.
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As a result, popular albums by folks like Neil Young, Rod Stewart, and REO Speedwagon didn’t make the cut. We hope that you’ll understand when you see the outstanding quintet from 45 years ago this month that we chose to highlight.
‘Double Fantasy’ by John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Double Fantasy was intended as a new musical beginning for John Lennon and Yoko Ono. They were artists slightly reinventing themselves in the context of where they were in their lives. The LP is essentially a conversation. For example, Lennon’s “I’m Losing You” gets answered by Ono’s “I’m Moving On”. Lennon’s death ensured that his songs on the record would experience intense scrutiny. Luckily, sweet, subtly moving songs like “(Just Like) Starting Over”, “Watching The Wheels”, and “Woman” were up for the challenge.
‘Autoamerican’ by Blondie
Blondie received serious pushback when they submitted their fifth album to their record company. The execs got a little squirrely when they heard the band branching out into antiquated show tunes, reggae, and even rap. Luckily, Blondie stuck to their guns. The public rewarded them with a pair of No. 1 hits in “The Tide Is High” and “Rapture”, the latter of which helped put hip hop on Top 40 radio for the first time. Elsewhere, the band showed they still had their New Wave chops on excellent tracks like “Live It Up” and “Do The Dark”.
‘Super Trouper’ by ABBA
When you put this record on the needle and you hear the gleaming title track, you think for a moment that it’s just pop candy business as usual for the legendary Swedes. But then the heartbreaking “The Winner Takes It All” follows. That’s when you realize that things were getting darker for the quartet. For every sugar-rush track like “Lay All Your Love On Me”, there’s something pained and pretty like “Happy New Year”. The downcast tracks paved the way for their harrowing final album, The Visitors, a few years later.
‘The Turn Of A Friendly Card’ by The Alan Parsons Project
For years, Eric Woolfson had been pestering Alan Parsons to take more of the lead vocals on the APP’s albums. Parsons relented somewhat on The Turn Of A Friendly Card, and it paid off. Woolfson delivers the aching ballad (and big hit) “Time” and the folky “Nothing Left To Lose”, two of the finest tracks here. Elsewhere, the urgent “Games People Play” shows off some of the band’s old prog rock bona fides, which also come to the fore on the second side’s elongated suite.
‘Gaucho’ by Steely Dan
Nobody knew at the time that Gaucho was going to be the last we heard of Steely Dan in two decades. Maybe Donald Fagen and Walter Becker weren’t 100 percent sure, or else they might have chosen a grander closing statement. As it is, the album kind of breezes by, even with five out of seven songs clocking in at longer than five minutes. “Hey Nineteen” offered a wryly funny look at May-December romances, “Time Out Of Mind” delivers an engagingly smooth rhythmic bed, and “Babylon Sisters” luxuriates in soulful elegance.
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