September
1978
Willis wanted real words instead of ba-dee-ya; White refused, and the groove outlived any lyric she could have written.
★ 8.3
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1978
Showing 85 works across all media from 1978
Darkness on the Edge of Town
1978
Three years of litigation kept Springsteen out of a studio, and when he got back in he gave away most of the catchy songs.
★ 8.2
I Will SurviveGloria Gaynor
I Will Survive
1978
Buried as a B-side until DJs flipped it, and Gaynor cut the vocal in a back brace after spinal surgery.
★ 8.1
The Deer Hunter
Directed by Michael Cimino
1978
Cimino spends a whole first act on a steel town and a wedding, so that when the war arrives it lands on people you already know by name.
★ 8.0
Heart of Glass
1978
A demo kicked around since the mid-seventies, rebuilt on a Roland drum machine that appalled their punk friends.
★ 7.9
I Wanna Be Sedated
1978 · From Road to Ruin
Joey wrote it stranded in a shut-down London at Christmas, and Johnny's solo is one note, repeated.
★ 7.6
Roxanne
1978 · From Outlandos d'Amour
Copeland turned Sting's bossa nova into a tango, and the piano clang at the top was an accident they kept.
★ 7.6
One Nation Under a Groove
1978 · From One Nation Under a Groove
Clinton, Shider and Junie Morrison cut it at United Sound; six weeks at R&B number one, 1978's longest run.
★ 7.4
White Man in Hammersmith Palais
1978
Strummer expected roots rebellion at an all-night Palais reggae bill, got showbiz, and slipped reggae bass into punk.
★ 7.2
Miss You (The Rolling Stones)
1978 · From Some Girls
Four-on-the-floor from a Billy Preston jam, harmonica by Sugar Blue, found busking in Paris, and their last American number one.
★ 7.1
Kolyma Tales
1978 · 508 pages
Shalamov spent seventeen years in the Kolyma camps. His stories are short, about frostbite and stolen bread and men too weak to lift a shovel, and he insists that suffering teaches nothing.
★ 7.1
Because the Night
1978 · From Easter
Springsteen abandoned the demo, Iovine passed Smith the cassette, and she wrote the verses waiting on a phone call.
★ 7.0
Orientalism
1978 · 394 pages
Western scholarship on the East was never neutral, Said argues: scholars and novelists built an exotic, backward Orient that empire could claim to govern. He upended how the West studies everyone it ruled.
★ 7.0
(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love and Understanding?
1978 · From Armed Forces
Nick Lowe wrote it for a pub-rock flop, produced Costello's B-side version, then got rich when The Bodyguard covered it.
★ 7.0
The Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything...it's Forty-two.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy · 1978