Before Björk

Nineteen seventy-nine. My favorite year of music. No other year even comes close. Debut albums by the B-52's, the Police, the Pretenders, DEVO, the English Beat, Joe Jackson, Lene Lovich, and so many more. Graham Parker's "Squeezing Out Sparks." The Ramones' "Road to Ruin." Pink Floyd's "The Wall." "Fear of Music" by Talking Heads. Spectacular releases from the Boomtown Rats, Marianne Faithfull, Tom Petty, Ron Wood, Neil Young, Frank Zappa, Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds. And the greatest of all : "London Calling" from the Clash. The other day I was at the House of Records and for some reason decided upon "Stateless" by Lene Lovich. At one time I had it on vinyl. I remembered it as 'quirky.' I recalled that she was from Finland, or some other exotic place where sunlight is often at a premium. Black and white art house music videos. Pretension. The CD was not in stock so I placed a special order for it. It came in a few days later. It is still quirky stuff. But my memory of Lene's origins was a bit off the mark. Her father was Yugoslavian and her mother British. She was born, and spent much of her childhood, in Detroit.