What was the final number one of the 1970s?
All good things must come to an end, and in 1979, that meant the closing of the greatest musical decade in history.
A decade that saw bands continue what The Beatles had started, and push rock into new realms. Be it heavy metal, psychedelic or punk, rock as a concept was flourishing under the decade’s atmosphere of open-mindedness. But let’s not forget what was happening outside of that. Soul was prospering under the guidance of Marvin Gaye, while disco fought through all of its protests to pave the way for the oncoming decades of pop.
While the term “cultural melting pot” gets thrown around wilfully, and most likely has its own index page in every Lonely Planet edition, in the case of the 1970s, its use as an adjective is worth it.
So it would be understandable for there to be a sense of caution amongst music fans in 1979. As permed hair-dos and sharped angled shoulder pads waved at them from the horizon, a confused attitude of futurism stared them in the face. And that showed in the albums released that year.
Joy Division were highlighting the promise of this new decade with Unknown Pleasures, while Led Zeppelin were showing their grand brand of rock was well and truly out with In Through the Out Door. Things felt suitably in flux, and so Pink Floyd decided, among their growing turmoil as a band, that they would be the outfit to do that with their album The Wall.
Tensions between the band, namely Roger Waters and David Gilmour, were running high come 1979, but the latter musician decided to put faith in Waters once more, as he boldly pushed on with this concept vision. While the lofty concept lost the remainder of the band at times, it was the sonic disposition that bothered Gilmour, who simply couldn’t get on board with the idea of genre fusing.
Speaking of a conversation he had with producer Bob Ezrin, Gilmour recalled, “He said to me, ‘Go to a couple of clubs and listen to what’s happening with disco music.’”
Adding, “So I forced myself out and listened to loud, four-to-the-bar bass drums and stuff and thought, ‘Gawd, awful!’ Then we went back and tried to turn one of the parts into one of those so it would be catchy.” But while Gilmour wouldn’t be keen to admit it, it worked.
Did Pink Floyd provide the final number one of 1979?
They did. Something about the appetite for genre-bending futurism in the final decade spoke to an audience with one foot in the 1980s. The song Gilmour’s quote directly refers to ‘Another Brick in the Wall, Pt 2’ was the final number one of the decade.
Reaching the top spot on December 15th, 1979, and staying for a total of five weeks, not only was it the last of the decade, but it was the first of this brand new one. But somewhere within the bricks was the writing for the band, which essentially dissolved midway through the 1980s, with Roger Waters departing in 1985.
