Asylum Records releases Warren Zevon‘s self-titled second album, his first album since 1969. 
Asylum Records releases Warren Zevon‘s self-titled second album, his first album since 1969.
Mushroom Records releases the second Split Enz album, Second Thoughts, much of which is material that already appeared on the band’s debut album.
Electric Light Orchestra‘s sixth album, A New World Record, is released, featuring the singles “Livin’ Thing”, “Telephone Line” and “Rockaria!”; the record goes gold and then platinum by the end of the year. This is the group’s first album to sport artwork with the now-familiar ELO logo, created from a mirrored image of the upper part of a Wurlitzer jukebox; following the post-Star Wars science fiction revival, future albums render this logo as a flying saucer.
RCA Records releases Isao Tomita‘s interpretation of Holst’s The Planets, a new recording of the famous orchestral suite recorded entirely with synthesizers.
Epic Records releases the compilation album The Argent Anthology: A Collection of Greatest Hits, gathering highlights of the group’s output from 1969-74.
Warner Bros. Records releases Fleetwood Mac‘s 11th album, Rumours, featuring the singles “Don’t Stop”, “Dreams”, “Go Your Own Way”, “You Make Loving Fun”, and “The Chain”. The album is an almost instant chart-topper, capitalizing on the huge following from the band’s 1975 album.
Charisma Records releases Peter Gabriel‘s first self-titled solo album, featuring the single “Solsbury Hill”. This is Gabriel’s first album after departing Genesis.
RSO Records releases a double LP of John Williams’ soundtrack from Star Wars, coinciding with the movie’s release. A fold-out poster of publicity artwork of the climactic Death Star dogfight is included. The album becomes a chart-topper by the end of the year, and cover versions by other artists are released even before the year is out. Many listeners become lifelong film score fanatics on the spot.
The Alan Parsons Project releases its second album, I Robot, including the singles “I Wouldn’t Want To Be Like You”, “Breakdown” and “Don’t Let It Show” (the latter of which is covered latered by Pat Benatar). The album is loosely themed around fear of the future and technology, a far cry from the original plan for a concept album built around Isaac Asimov’s story “I, Robot” (though Asimov allows the album’s title since it lacks the comma). This is the Project’s first album on Arista Records.
Casblanca Records releases the Meco album Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk, a disco interpretation of the soundtrack of Star Wars on one side, with original compositions on the second side. The single extracted from the Star Wars medley will reach the top of the charts.
With less than a month to go before the launch of the first of two Voyager unmanned spacecraft, NASA attaches copper phonograph records, encased in lightweight, protective golden casings, to each of the Voyager probes. With participation from Carl Sagan (who led the effort to mount a plaque on the Pioneer probes consisting only of visual information), SETI pioneer Frank Drake, Jon Lomberg and others, the 12″ LP consists of not only sound recordings, but photos and diagrams depicting the diversity and composition of life on Earth. The sounds include various kinds of Earth wildlife, spoken messages from President Jimmy Carter and United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, music from Beethoven and Bach to Chuck Berry (the Beatles decline permission to include “Here Comes The Sun”), and Carl Sagan’s young son Nick delcaring “Greetings from the children of planet Earth.” The outer casing includes a playback mechanism and diagrams for how to use it.
In the decades to come, fictional aliens visiting or invading Earth because they have viewed the Voyager “Golden Record” becomes a staple of science fiction media.
Mercury Records releases 10cc‘s fifth album, Deceptive Bends, the first to be recorded after the departure of founding members Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. The singles “The Things We Do For Love” and “Good Morning Judge” originate from this album.
Sire Records releases the Annie Haslam album Annie In Wonderland, produced by Roy Wood (ELO, Wizzard, The Move).
Mushroom Records releases the third Split Enz album, Dizrythmia, the first of the group’s recorded output to feature frontman Tim Finn’s younger brother Neil as the new guitarist. This is also the first album to feature new recruits Nigel Griggs on bass and drummer Mal Green, both of whom will remain through the band at the peak of its success in the early 1980s.
Produced in the wake of Star Wars mania, Meco Menardo’s disco cover of John Williams’ music from Star Wars tops the Billboard Hot 100 chart for two weeks. A shortened, radio-friendly single is the song certified as #1, although the album version (titled Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk) is an extended suite lasting over 15 minutes and covering most of the movie’s major music themes. Meco would continue to ride the Star Wars train, disco-style, for years to come. 
Electric Light Orchestra‘s seventh album, Out Of The Blue, is released, featuring the singles “Sweet Talkin’ Woman”, “Turn To Stone” and “Mr. Blue Sky”. Perhaps reflecting the now-widespread fascination with science fiction, this is the first ELO album to depict the band’s logo as a giant spaceship, a theme which is carried over into the extravagant set for the world tour that takes up ELO’s schedule for the next year.
Nippon Columbia releases the first volume of Hiroshi Miyagawa’s soundtracks from the TV series Space Battleship Yamato (better known in the western world as Star Blazers).
Arista Records releases, just weeks after the movie’s premiere, John Williams’ soundtrack from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Sales are brisk, bolstered in no small part by the fact that Williams’ music is on the year’s second major science fiction blockbuster.
The Alan Parsons Project releases its third album, Pyramid, including the singles “Can’t Take It With You” and “Pyramania”.
Mars invades Earth again thanks to producer Jeff Wayne, who gathers an unlikely assemblage of prodigious talent around him to create a new musical version of H.G. Wells’ The War Of The Worlds. Featuring Richard Burton, Justin Hayward (of Moody Blues fame), Chris Thompson (Manfred Mann) and others, the double-album becomes an instant classic – a science fiction rock opera.
More about Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War Of The Worlds in Music Reviews
MCA Records releases Stu Phillips‘ soundtrack from the TV and theatrical premiere of Battlestar Galactica on LP. (This album will be reissued on CD in 1993, and the contents of it will appear on numerous compilations of music from this show for years to come; a re-recording of this album with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra will also follow in the ’90s.)
Warner Bros. Records releases a double LP of John Williams’ soundtrack from Superman: The Movie. Now three-and-three for genre blockbusters, Williams’ album again sells well, and will be reissued in several different forms in the years to come.
Mushroom Records releases the fourth Split Enz album, Frenzy, recorded after a long period of unemployment for the band, which went to the UK to find fame and became stranded there, too broke to return home. Most members of the group are dissatisfied with the finished album, feeling that it lacks the spark of demos they recorded during their England downtime, but it yields a genuine hit: Tim Finn’s punk-styled anthem “I See Red”.
Following five years of research and development, Netherlands-based Philips Electronics demonstrates one of the earliest iterations of the compact audio disc, an optical disc in the now-familiar five-inch size which can be read by a CD player with a laser diode. Philips and Sony, who have been developing the new medium in parallel, will later join forces and create a standard for audio compact discs in 1980, introducing the CD as a consumer product in the early 1980s despite resistance from record companies with a vested interest in vinyl LPs (and only a begrudging acceptance of audio cassettes). In addition to higher audio fidelity and a more durable medium (an optical disc encased in a plastic shell, protecting the physical surface that is so often damaged with vinyl), the CD and its player can also compensate for any damage suffered by the disc through error correction.
MCA Records releases Stu Phillips‘ soundtrack from the movie Buck Rogers In The 25th Century. (The movie, as well as its music, will also serve as the first episode of the television series of the same name later in the year.)
Casablanca Records releases Lenny & Squiggy present Lenny and the Squigtones, an album combining spoken-word comedy and ’50s rock pastiches performed by Michael McKean and David Lander in their characters best known to the general public from recurring appearances on Laverne & Shirley.
Electric Light Orchestra‘s eighth album, Discovery, is released, featuring the singles “Don’t Bring Me Down”, “Last Train To London” and “Shine A Little Love”. The album is later criticized for being the point at which ELO became part of the disco fad, and is significant in that it’s the first ELO album without the band’s usual resident trio of string players.
Arista Records releases Frogs, Sprouts, Clogs & Krauts, the first album by The Rumour, best known for being Graham Parker’s backing band.
A&M Records releases the self-titled solo album by Lenny Zakatek, a frequent Alan Parsons Project vocalist.
The Alan Parsons Project releases its fourth album, Eve, including the single “Damned If I Do”.