Here is Rolling Stone's 1979 review of the Talking Heads' Fear Of Music.
I'm going to spoil the read by quoting the kicker:
For me, Fear of Music's least interesting track is the rock-disco-like "Life during Wartime," which sounds almost live. The problem isn't the production but the song itself. While "Life during Wartime" is both structurally and harmonically conventional, boasts a silly chorus lyric and even adds a conga player to the group, the tune's real trouble is that it lacks Talking Heads' usual counterpoint. On the other hand, some of the words are arresting: "I got three passports, a couple of visas/You don't even know my real name."
Here's a bit from their review of Zeppelin's In Through The Out Door:
As you might suspect, In through the Out Door's best number is the one in which you can understand the least words. This is "In the Evening," a classic Zeppelin orchestral guitar rumble halfway between "When the Levee Breaks" and "In the Light." The only line I was able to understand was "Oh oh I need zoo love." Judging by Plant's convincing orgasmic moans on the rest of it, I would rather guess at the remaining lyrics.
Zoo love. Hah.
How did they like The Police's debut?
As entertainment, Outlandos d'Amour isn't monotonous—it's far too jumpy and brittle for that—but its mechanically minded emptiness masquerading as feeling makes you feel cheated, and more than a little empty yourself. You're worn out by all the supercilious, calculated pretense. The Police leave your nervous system all hyped up with no place to go.
Ouch.
Tons of fun, reading the old reviews.
And, for some reason, the writers were frequently concerned about what the album at hand meant given the that it was almost... 1980!!.
About The Stones' Some Girls:
...well, if you want to survive the Seventies and enter the Eighties with something more than your bankbook and dignity intact, you'd better dredge up your leftover pride, bite the bullet and try like hell to sweat out some good music
About Fleetwood Mac's Tusk:
Plagued by internal conflicts and challenged by New Wave rock, this psychedelically tinted folk-rock tribe might well be the last and most refined of a breed of giddy celebrants who, from the early Sixties on, prospered on the far shore of the promised land as they toasted the pure splendor of a beautiful and possibly frivolous pop dream.
Can this dream survive the economic chill of the Eighties?
Oooohhh... The eighties!
I’ve never forgiven Rolling Stone for their sneery reviews of Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut and Roger Water’s The Pros And Cons Of Hitchhiking about which, admittedly, I was a bit of a zealot.
Still am, but I can hear how others might not take to them. However, for a major critical organ like Rolling Stone to not recognize the astonishing singularity of the particular compositional voice Roger Waters had developed? Gobsmacking. I felt like they were just trying to be “with it” and hate on the 70s dinosaurs.
The stilted language of the reviews feels dated but the assessments–at least of “Fear of Music” and””Outlandos D’Amour”–seem basically sound to me. I’m that sure from the perspective of a Talking Heads fan in 1979 who found the African polyrhythms to be the most interesting aspect of “Fear Of Music,” “Life During Wartime” felt like a bit of a copout to popular taste. To those of us who heard the song in isolation on college radio four or five years later, it was just another great New Wave pop song.