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Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes

album by Jimmy Buffett

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ5071942 ↗
Source-derived summary

Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes is the seventh studio album by American popular music singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett. This is his breakthrough album, which remains the best-selling studio album of Buffett's career, and contains his biggest single, "Margaritaville". It was initially released in January 1977 as ABC AB-990 and rereleased on its successor label, MCA.

Changes was very popular and critically well-received and was a transitional album on several levels for Buffett. In a commercial sense, it ushered in Buffett's greatest period of chart and airplay popularity – changing him from an FM cult favorite and minor hitmaker to a top-draw touring artist whose albums sold in the millions, receiving regular AM airplay at the time. Changes would be followed by equally popular and more grandiose expressions of Buffett's "Caribbean Soul" on Son of a Son of a Sailor (1978) and Volcano (1979). All of these albums would combine pop, bar-band rock, country, folk, and reggae influences with the professional production of Norbert Putnam.

Chart performance

Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes reached No. 12 on the Billboard 200 album chart and No. 2 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. The album was also certified "Platinum" by the RIAA.

Two singles from the album charted including "Margaritaville" (#8 on the Billboard Hot 100; No.

Editorial summary

“Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” enters the record as album by Jimmy Buffett. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Changes, Latitudes and Attitudes can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1977, 1978, 1979—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1977. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Changes, Latitudes and Attitudes.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Changes, Latitudes and Attitudes provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5071942. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1977, 1978 and 1979.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes primary sources, Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes archive and Changes research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.