Critics Roundup 1979

Seventy-nine was a year in which no world-shaking musical revolution took place, but it was a year of great diversity. Disco has practically disappeared up its own backbeat, having milked itself dry with its endless, mindless factory rhythms and lyrics.

A good year for the Irish recording scene as new hopes flicker on all stylistic levels, The Bogey Boys, Freddie White, Scullion and a revitalised Planxty all injected energy-shots into the arm of a slishty, sluggish and sagging recording scenario.

My album of the year is Ry Cooder’s ‘Bop Till You Drop’, encapsulating all that has gone down since 1960 it seems, in one superb album, and is for me a peak statement of West Coast rock’n’roll. As long as Cooder and Co. keep on keeping on, good music has some chance in the rock arena of the ’80s.