A coupla years ago I wrote a post on greatest years for rock and roll ever and included 1979 on it, but based upon the soundtrack to JJ Abrams enormously enjoyable ode to Spielberg, children, sci fi, and E.T.s, well, perhaps it wasn't so hot.
The truth is we remember the top of the top albums, and not the chaff of pop music. Looking at the chaff of pop, 2011 us ALREADY MUCH BETTER than 1979 was. there is no comparison, bad dance beats bad new wave coming towards and going away. Pitbull is ten times better than, and I feel bad because Doug Fieger died last year. then the Knack could ever dream of being.
And why the Knack? Because the boys sit on a fence singing the catchy but dreadful "My Sharona" at one point in the movie.
The boys are filming a movie about zombies and the the make-up guy Joe Lamb (played by the miraculously moving Joel Courtney) is in mourning for his mom who died just four months earlier in a car accident. She was on the road because the leading lady in the zombie movie Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning) father was meant to work the night shift but was too hungover so the mom took his place.
OK so far: anyway, they are filming the movie when a train accident occurs and something is let loose in the town.
There are musical moments all the way through. Chic's "Le Freak" when one character pledges allegiance to disco to get a girl, Blondie's "Heart Of Gold", the Cars "Bye Bye Love" and debatably ELO's worst song ever "Don't Bring me Down".
Anyway, it is an escaped E.T. that is causing havoc and there is a huge chase and the movie has echoes of, well, everything you can imagine: the Goonies, Close Encounters, ET… on and on.
And crappy new wave aplenty.
So remember that next time you dis 2011. The problem with modern music is that it doesn't peak high enough. It is wide enough to reach into outer space.