After the cultural ferment of the 1960s, the 1970s kept the pulse going and took music in new directions. After the separation of the Beatles at the beginning of 1970 new bands took over. The Rolling Stones themselves released their best, most ambitious works in that decade. Bands that would mark the course of rock in the following years, such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple, also upped the standard. Pink Floyd also explored the sonic possibilities of the recording studio.
We look back at the Most Famous 70s Classic Rock Album In The Year You Were Born:
Paranoid – Black Sabbath (1970)
“Paranoid” was an album ahead of its time, an innovative album for its genuineness, made up of four great musicians who formed a band that has become one of the great pillars of current rock music, in terms of its resistant and timeless music. . We could include them in those times together with The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, etc… but among all of them, Black Sabbath was the most reviled by the press, the strangest, the ones who had to earn their prestige based on to prove on their records that they were wrong.
Led Zeppelin IV – Led Zeppelin (1971)
An album without a title, without mentioning the artist on the cover, mysterious, esoteric. And the most relevant: from a seismic influence even half a century later (it was published on November 8, 1971). Most of it was not recorded in a studio: the group holed up in an English country mansion, Headley Grange, with the Rolling Stones’ mobile recording studio. In that isolated environment, Led Zeppelin (Robert Plant, vocals; Jimmy Page, guitar; John Paul Jones, bass, and John Bonham, drums) reinvented rock: they inaugurated the ballad/rock genre with Stairway to Heaven, and they got a set of songs that prompted them to create stadium tours as we know them today, created the concept of a hard rock album for all audiences, and Plant’s voice and Page’s guitar were references for hundreds of bands.
Exile On Main Street – The Rolling Stones (1972)
The process of creating Exile on Main Street begins in 1971 when a tax problem “forced” the Rolling Stones into exile in the French town of Villefranche-sur-Mer. Once in France, the band began recording in the basement of Keith Richards’ mansion, “Nellcôte”. Before they had tried it in cinemas and nightclubs. Convenience ended up winning. The recording process was very slow. The band members were spread out across the south of France and it was difficult to get them all together. They did not find the ideal conditions to start. The remedy? Leave the tape recording and wait for something to come out at some point.
Dark Side Of The Moon – Pink Floyd (1973)
In 1973 Richard Wright, Roger Waters, Nick Mason, and David Gilmour showed the world the result of their most productive experiment. They weren’t alone, engineer Alan Parsons piloted the ship to the moon, achieving an avant-garde sound that has stood the test of time. The Dark Side of the Moon, one of the great concept albums of the ’70s, is a gem whose value continues to rise.
Court and Spark – Joni Mitchell (1974)
Joni Mitchell’s sixth studio album, Court and Spark, is her sixth studio album. It was an instant financial and massive success, and it is still her most successful record. It was released in January 1974 and combines her folk-rock sound, which she had cultivated over the past 5 records, with jazz inflections.
Born To Run – Bruce Springsteen (1975)
Born to Run: Bruce Springsteen’s do-or-die album It was his last chance: either he was in the right place at the right time with the right luggage, or the train would pass him by forever. Faced with such a scenario, the obsessive nervousness of that 25-year-old Bruce Springsteen was such that it took 14 months to record the album (at the Record Plant studios in New York) and no less than six to finish the song that gives it its famous title.
Hotel California – The Eagles (1976)
Some say that there is music that can summarize an era. When we listen to the intro of Hotel California, we are listening to the sound of the seventies. The album was much more than a song, but it is one of those songs that are capable of selling an album and making it be remembered. Released in 1976, it went on to sell 16 million copies in the United States alone. With sales in the rest of the world, they doubled that number. Hotel California was the creative pinnacle of the band, but also the beginning of its downfall. By the time they released their next album, The Long Run, creativity had given way to bickering, bickering, and drug addiction. In the words of singer Don Henley, the album was a “loss of innocence.”
Rumours – Fleetwood Mac (1977)
Fleetwood Mac had been running since the late ’60s with such a mix of line-ups that it would make for a Netflix series or two. The hard core of the band, by name, was that of drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie, but they had been so foolish that they hadn’t even registered it, losing their right to use it for a few endless moments in 1974. Initially, the leader Peter Green and guitarist Jeremy Spencer rounded out the blues-oriented group, already scoring small hits like ‘Albatross’ – with the addition of a young guitarist named Danny Kirwan – and ‘Black Magic Woman’, which Santana would turn into a hit in the 1970s.
Van Halen – Van Halen (1978)
There are albums that you know are going to be great just by looking at the cover, which is the case with this album. And is that this album is the beginning of everything that is going to happen in L.A. in the decade following its release (1978). Not since the JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE or the first solo LPs of JEFF BECK had a guitar sounded like this. On this debut album, it seems that an alien has taken over the six strings, but it is Edward Van Halen who, together with his three cronies (his brother Alex on drums, Michael Anthony on bass, and the inimitable Diamond Dave on vocals) record a sonic earthquake measuring 9.5 on the Richter scale.
London Calling – The Clash (1979)
London Calling, is the album that established The Clash and changed the history of punk music. Considered one of the most influential albums of all time, it was a qualitative leap in the career of The Clash, who went beyond the punk barrier to integrate music such as reggae, ska, rockabilly and pop into their repertoire.