Marilyn McLeod is best known, if she is known at all, as the songwriter behind hit singles for Diana Ross and Junior Walker.

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The Dead Kennedys made an indelible mark on punk rock with their debut single California Über Alles in the summer of 1979.

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Bob Marley captured the concerning mood of the times with his warning of impending global catastrophe – as relevant today as when he sang it in 1979.

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This nine-minute extravaganza is essentially an extended guitar solo, much like Funkadelic’s extraordinary Maggot Brain. And just as good.

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Jazz-funk was never my thing, conjuring nightmarish visions of George Benson and Level 42, but it did provide a moment of Pleasure in 1979.

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Everything about this song screams “1979” – a transitional year when the first wave of punk was evolving into the New Wave and its various sub-genres: post-punk, power-pop, synth-pop.

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Up The Junction did not just give Squeeze a hit single: it cemented Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook as one of the greatest songwriting partnerships of all time.

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Pop quiz trivia question: what was the real name of ‘M’, the one-hit wonder behind the novelty hit single Pop Muzik? Answer: Robin Scott.

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Excuse the sentimentality but Patti Smith wrote this song as an elegy for a previous Pope, so it seems a suitable epitaph for Francis, who died today.

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The Jones Girls may have come from Detroit but their sweet harmonies made them synonymous with the Philly Sound. And their big breakthrough came after almost a decade when they teamed up with Philly Soul titans Gamble and Huff.

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