ABBA — The Group Whose Harmonies Ruled the 70s
Do you remember a living room in the 1970s where the record player never seemed to stop? In many homes, the record on the turntable belonged to four Swedes in bright costumes with harmonies so clean they sounded almost impossible. Their name was ABBA, and for much of the decade they were the biggest pop … Read more
Tainted Love
Do you remember the first time you heard a love song that sounded like a warning? It opened with a cold, pulsing synthesizer line, steady as a heartbeat, and then a voice that was dramatic, pleading, almost theatrical, singing about a love that had gone wrong and could not be fixed. It was not warm … Read more
Up Where We Belong
Do you remember walking out of a cinema feeling like you could fly? In 1982, audiences leaving the film An Officer and a Gentleman carried one song out of the theatre with them. It played over the film’s final scenes, as the story’s lovers found each other against all the odds, and it seemed to … Read more
Come On Eileen
Do you remember the spring of 1983, when a song with fiddles in it took over the radio and nobody could stop singing along? It started slowly, almost like a folk ballad, and then it burst open: drums, fiddles sawing away, a vocal full of joy and urgency, and a chorus that entire rooms of … Read more
Don’t Go Breaking My Heart
Do you remember a song so cheerful that it was impossible to hear it without smiling? In the summer of 1976, radios on both sides of the Atlantic were playing a duet that sounded like a party. One voice belonged to Elton John, the piano-playing superstar whose flamboyant costumes and endless run of hits had … Read more
My Sharona
Do you remember the summer of 1979, when one guitar riff seemed to be coming out of every car radio at once? It started with a stuttering drumbeat, then a guitar line that jabbed and danced, and then a voice singing about a girl whose name became the most famous name of the season. The … Read more
December 14, 1977 — The Night Saturday Night Fever Premiered
Picture a cinema in New York on a cold December night in 1977. Outside, the city is already in its Christmas mood. Inside, the audience is about to watch a film about a young man from Brooklyn who works in a paint store by day and lives for Saturday night, when he puts on a … Read more
Video Killed the Radio Star
Do you remember the first time you watched music instead of just listening to it? For many Americans, that moment came on a summer day in 1981, when a brand-new cable channel called MTV flickered onto television screens and promised twenty-four hours of music videos. The first video it played was not by a superstar. … Read more
July 12, 1979 — The Night Disco Demolition Got Out of Hand
Picture a baseball stadium in Chicago on a warm summer night in July 1979. The home team has just finished the first game of a doubleheader, and the crowd is in a cheerful, restless mood. Between the two games, the stadium has promised something unusual: a crate full of disco records, collected from fans at … Read more