10 rock albums from the 1970s that changed music history
If the 1960s were the era where rock and roll came into its own, then the ‘70s blew the lid off the entire operation. The minute that the hippy generation fell in the late ‘60s, the next decade had rockers getting more experimental with what they could do both in the studio and on stage, with different subgenres popping up almost by the month. In between the different bands that were crushing it on stage, the next chapter was written by acts including Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.
Although the records listed below might seem like game-changers by today’s standing, there’s a good chance that none of the artists in question really were thinking that way at the time. To them, this was just the natural extension of what they were trying to do with their art, and in doing so, left a blueprint for the rest of the rock world to follow in their wake.
In the ten years that rock and roll spent here, artists went through the beginnings of heavy metal, glam rock, heartland rock, the punk movement, and then the slightest hints of the more glamorous side of rock and roll that was appearing just on the horizon with a little movement called MTV.
This was the era when artists were free to express themselves however they pleased, even if that meant pissing off some along the way. Before any of the manufactured sides of the industry kicked in, rock was still thought of as no man’s land for a while, and it was up to these artists to guide fans into the next phase of the genre’s development.
10 rock albums that changed music history:
2112 – Rush
In the mid-70s, Rush were coming dangerously close to being dropped by their label. While Fly By Night may have put them on firm ground with the hard rock crowd, their love of prog wasn’t the most radio-friendly in the world, and the higher-ups were breathing down their necks, telling them to start writing something that could get them on the radio. 2112 never made it to the top of the charts, but it marked the emergence of the world’s most popular cult band.
Not wanting to compromise their vision, Rush made a sprawling 20-minute-long song about following their heart, telling the story of a man who chooses to play music despite the naysaying of the high priests of Syrinx. This whole album should have been career suicide, but the message of not backing down from authority resonated with fans, leading to the record getting tons of exposure by word of mouth.
Rumours – Fleetwood Mac
After years of being a decent blues band, the ‘70s version of Fleetwood Mac became a completely different animal. Drafting in Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, the focus of the band started to shift towards mainstream rock music, with their self-titled album gaining traction with songs like ‘Rhiannon’ and ‘Say You Love Me’. The next record was where everything changed, and all hell broke loose once they got to the studio.
In the midst of recording Rumours, Buckingham and Nicks were breaking up along with John and Christine McVie, who were having marital troubles that would eventually end in divorce. Having nothing to do except play music all day, every writer channelled their emotional trauma into their songs. Although some of the lyrics cut like a knife given the context, this is about as perfect a pop rock album can get, telling heartbreaking stories of infidelity on ‘Oh Daddy’ or Buckingham telling off Nicks on ‘Go Your Own Way’.
It’s not all one big soap opera from back to front, though, from McVie’s optimistic look to the future on ‘Don’t Stop’ to the band coming together for the fiery climax of ‘The Chain’. The camaraderie of Fleetwood Mac was being held together with string and duct tape during these sessions, but they could always count on that musical chain to keep them together.
Who’s Next – The Who
After conquering the rock and roll scene with Tommy, the plan for The Who was to do it all over again. The rock opera format that Pete Townshend pioneered was incredibly innovative for the time, and his vision for the next project was to take it one step further. Though the storyline may have worked in Townshend’s head, getting it onto the tape was a different story.
After trying to get the rest of the band to grasp the concept, Townshend almost suffered a nervous breakdown because of how much work he was putting into the next album, tentatively entitled Lifehouse. While the band eventually had to shelve the rock opera project, Who’s Next is the table scraps of what he was working on. If these were the songs to make up the rock opera, it would have eclipsed what Tommy had done, taking the concept of music and using it as a means to find enlightenment, like the sounds of ‘Getting in Tune’ or leaving all of your cares behind to find a new life for yourself on ‘Baba O’Riley’.
Though the rest of the band played their hearts out, the real game-changer on this album came with the synthesizer, which gives a more robotic feel to the entire record, giving the sensation of flying through space. Who’s Next may be the leftovers that the band scraped together, but songs like ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ is an intimate look into Townshend’s tortured mind.
Born to Run – Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen needed a miracle to get off the ground. Even though he had been heralded as the future of rock and roll music by the press, his reputation as a Bob Dylan ripoff was starting to pigeonhole him, and he worked his E Street Band to the bone with no real results. Somewhere on the streets of Jersey, though, Springsteen found his calling singing about the rough and tumble people that he heard from every day.
While Born to Run isn’t a concept album by nature, every song is informed by Springsteen’s need to break free of his small town and see what the rest of the world has in store for him. Across every single track on here, The Boss treats the listener to stories of people who have their backs against the wall, from the couple that doesn’t have enough money on ‘Thunder Road’ or the greaser who found himself on the wrong side of the Mob on ‘Meeting Across the River’. Life’s not looking good for these guys, but that doesn’t mean they’re not going to go down swinging.
Using the same bombast as Phil Spector, Springsteen creates a heartland rock fairytale on this album, mentioning the kids who flash guitars like switchblades and dream of something bigger on the other side of the state line. Some of these stories might seem bittersweet, but with songs like this, escape from Nowheresville doesn’t seem impossible.
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars – David Bowie
The traditional rock and roll star of the ‘60s had started to get a bit stale in the new decade. The era of Jim Morrison and Mick Jagger was starting to wane, with The Doors frontman passing away and Jagger transforming himself into something different during The Rolling Stones’ new decade. The ‘60s may have had psychedelia, but David Bowie brought us someone from a completely different planet.
Sculpting himself into a glam rock alien, Bowie created the Ziggy Stardust character as a way to live out his rock and roll fantasies, creating a scenario where the Earth has five years left to live, and Ziggy is the only one who can save humanity from its impending doom. While Ziggy might try to excite fans with his music, the record twists and turns into different scenarios, going back to the blues tradition on ‘It Ain’t Easy’ and even foreshadowing the punk movement a few years earlier with songs like ‘Hang On To Yourself’.
Outside of the fairy tale scenario, this album serves as a comment on what fame can do to someone when Ziggy lets all the fame go to his head before he breaks up his band and plans his own ‘Rock and Roll Suicide’. He may have strutted up and down the stage on Top of the Pops, but this was never meant to be a pop sensation. Bowie was made for the outsiders, and there’s no shame in being different.
Ramones – Ramones
Rock and roll in the ‘70s was way too overblown. Even though bands like Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones may have had some decent songs in the past, the mid-70s made them look like pampered rock stars. Rock gods seemed to exist on a totally different planet, so it was time to bring rock and roll back to its garage roots.
Although the Ramones never claimed to be the most talented musicians in the world, their debut was the start of a more organic brand of rock and roll, relying on just a fistful of power chords to get the job done. While most of their songs clocked out at just over two minutes, this gave the rest of the world the confidence to pick up guitars of their own. Though Joey Ramone didn’t look like a typical rock star frontman, the sound of his voice on songs like ‘I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend’ was the kind of rough-around-the-edges voice that made fans want to sing along to songs about sniffing glue and going berserk with a chainsaw.
While The Sex Pistols might get the credit for being the more fashionable punk group, the Ramones’ debut embodies more of what punk stood for on the other side of the Atlantic. Rock wasn’t about becoming gods, and if these four guys from Queens could get it done, anyone could.
Van Halen – Van Halen
The end of the ‘70s was an incredibly confusing time for rock music. Although punk exploded back in 1977, that didn’t leave the rest of the scene with anywhere to go, with the offshoots of new wave beginning and disco starting to rear its head in clubs across the world. Hard rock looked like it was becoming a lost art until a couple of misfits from California lit the entire world on fire.
Coming from the depths of West Hollywood, Van Halen’s debut gave the world two different icons in one band, from Eddie Van Halen’s ferocious lead work to David Lee Roth emerging as one of the biggest frontmen of all time. For all of Roth’s poses, guitar players were transfixed with what Eddie was doing, pulling off two-hand taps on the fretboard and creating symphonies in just under a minute on songs like ‘Eruption’.
While this is still a hard rock release from back to front, it’s not the same kind of dark album that one expects out of Black Sabbath. It might be forceful, but songs like ‘Ain’t Talkin Bout Love’ and ‘Feel Your Love Tonight’ are all about having fun, making the whole record sound like one big party. Hard rock may be a little bit intimidating, but it had its fun side as well, and the beginnings of hair metal are still living in the shadow of what Van Halen did here.
Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath
As the ‘70s got underway, metal didn’t really have a proper name yet. There were definitely bands that were on the heavier side, like the psychedelic sounds of The Doors and Jimi Hendrix’s heavy tunes, but no one could really pin down what all of those songs fell under. If there’s one album that birthed metal into existence, it’s Black Sabbath’s first steps into the world.
From the opening notes of the title track, this was far heavier than what The Stones and The Who were doing at the same time, making something that was looking to be more scary than powerful. Although Ozzy Osbourne’s vocals are iconic across this album, the key to all things heavy is Tony Iommi’s guitar, creating riffs that are menacing once they kick in, whether it’s throwing it back to the blues on ‘The Wizard’ or making a demonic version of Led Zeppelin on ‘Behind the Wall of Sleep’.
The lyrics were also enough to ruffle some feathers as well, talking about more taboo subjects like the occult on the title track and Lucifer falling in love with a human on ‘NIB’. This might have scared many concerned parents back in the day, but this wasn’t about converting children into Satanists. This was the beginning of heavy metal finally breaking into the mainstream.
Led Zeppelin IV – Led Zeppelin
From 1968 onward, Led Zeppelin soon replaced The Beatles as the world’s biggest band. After forming from the ashes of the Yardbirds, Jimmy Page’s riffs gave listeners a sneak peek at what the ‘70s were going to look like a few years beforehand with tracks like ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and ‘Heartbreaker’. Once they reached their fourth album, the blues had been taken in a much different direction.
While the basis of songs like ‘When the Levee Breaks’ and ‘Black Dog’ are still based on blues shuffles, the tone is much different this time around, with Page turning riffs on their head and Robert Plant finally coming into his ‘Golden God’ persona. Across this album, there’s a taste of everything that made Zeppelin work, from the interplay between John Bonham and Jimmy Page on the song ‘Rock and Roll’ to the more tender side of their acoustic work on ‘Going to California’.
There’s also this little song called ‘Stairway to Heaven’, an eight-minute juggernaut that sends listeners on a journey whenever it comes on, climaxing with one of the greatest solos in rock and roll history. Zeppelin would only get bigger as the decade went on, but this is the moment where every element of their sound fell into place.
Dark Side of the Moon – Pink Floyd
Before the ‘70s even started, Pink Floyd had lived enough lifetimes for any other average band. Their original lineup with Syd Barrett had fallen apart over Barrett’s declining mental health, and the rest of the band were lost trying to carry on without their musical brother. While ‘Echoes’ may have been the first song to get them on their feet, the next record was where they started to internalize what they had just been through.
Although Wish You Were Here might be seen as a tribute to Barrett, Dark Side of the Moon is the real dissection of why he left, with lyrics focusing on life and what makes people go mad. From back to front, every song covers a different aspect of life that’s beyond one’s control, from the neverending slew of deadlines and commitments to deal with on ‘Time’ to people who spend their lives living off their own greed on ‘Money’.
David Gilmour and Roger Waters weren’t pulling any punches here, always looking to dissect the harder questions about life and not spend their lives as a prisoner in their own mind. The Beatles may have opened rock’s ears to what could be done with music in the ‘60s, but Dark Side of the Moon showed that rock and roll could be used to shape the world around it.