Popular music was splintering in about a dozen directions as the '70s came to an end. The decade's buildups of pop, rock, new wave, punk, disco, soul and any number of variations on those genres finally collided in a burst of new collaborations and spinoffs as the 1980s loomed.

As you'll see in the list below of the Top 50 Songs of 1979 - voted on by the UCR staff - the year was marked by several key artists from the decade making their last stands while fresh voices from the outside came knocking more forcefully than ever. By the time the '80s rolled around, the implications of the final years of the previous decade were clear.

You'll find plenty of old favorites: Eagles , Led Zeppelin , Paul McCartney , Pink Floyd and Neil Young put out records in 1979 that were just a

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