70S MUSIC: TIMELESS HITS AND ICONIC TRACKS

Rock Takes Root

Rock ‘n’ roll was king in the 1960s, thanks to the ‘British Invasion’ of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, which contrasted with the hippy vibes from Woodstock in 1969 and a raft of protest songs driven by the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. But by the 1970s, the excesses of rock superstardom gave rise to a number of different genres, making it an iconic era. When it comes to influential artists of the late 70s, many of them were playing rock music.

Traditional rock expanded – partly because car stereos became common. FM stereo radio, 8-track tapes, cassette tapes – the variety of music distribution channels, plus the fact that cassettes were portable, enabled more and more rock styles to break through. Think hard rock, prog rock and heavy metal, with everything from Pink Floyd’s psychedelic soundscapes and concept albums to Led Zeppelin’s thunderous riffs and epic anthems.

Glam rock was a self-consciously camp take on being a rock star – bands and artists including T-rex, Roxy Music, David Bowie and Queen embraced theatricality and grandeur.

‘What Are You Rebelling Against?’ ‘What Have You Got?’

However, if glam seemed too considered and arch – a bit posh and ‘art school’ - then the other ‘alternative’ rock ideology, built on the idea of a militantly DIY aesthetic, was punk, which exploded onto the scene in 1976.

In the UK, the late 70s were pretty depressing, with unemployment and inflation reaching new highs, the 3-day week and numerous industries striking for better pay. Teenagers have rebelled since the term was invented, but when the Sex Pistols’ ‘Anarchy in the UK’ hit the headlines, a revolution in attitude, music and fashion really blew up.

Punk informed design, fashion, clubs, artwork, writing and performance and an alternative media of independent labels and fanzines – punk’s attitude pushed boundaries across the board. The moral panic around the Sex Pistols’ ‘God Save the Queen’, released to coincide with the Jubilee in 1977, ensured that punk went overground and spread to the suburbs, spawning local scenes.

The Clash and X-Ray Spex criticized society and culture; Siouxsie and the Banshees, Wire and The Slits carved out a place for extreme otherness. Manchester’s Joy Division then moved punk on from anger to alienation.

Punk’s diversity led to 2-Tone and New Romanticism by the end of the 70s with new styles, the modernity and slick sound of synths and a whole new version of pop music that emerged largely from club subcultures.

Culturally, the 70s were characterized by a spirit of freedom and individuality, with everything from the Women’s Liberation Movement, the LGBTQIA+ Rights Movement and the Civil Rights Movement all continuing to gain momentum. You can clearly see the influence that flamboyant 70s stars like David Bowie, Elton John and Queen still have when you look at artists like Lady Gaga, Harry Styles and Sam Smith.

Yes Sir, I Can Boogie

Berry Gordy’s Motown hits of the 60s, such as the Supremes and Martha and the Vandellas, gave way to disco in the 1970s. Disco had its roots in R&B and funk, but it was also born out of New York’s gay culture. The massive success of Saturday Night Fever in 1977 catapulted disco to worldwide popularity (the soundtrack sold over 15 million copies), and hits by artists from Donna Summer to Gloria Gaynor and the Village People cornered the mainstream.

Era-Defining Tracks

• Love to Love You Baby
• Dancing Queen
• I Will Survive

Here are some of the iconic 70s songs which defined the era – covering disco, punk, rock, funk and soul and pop.

Love to Love You Baby

The Queen of disco music in the late 70s was undoubtedly Donna Summer. With hits including ‘I Feel Love’ and ‘Last Dance’ with Georgio Moroder, she was a chart regular. But it was ‘Love to Love You Baby’ that really created a moment. Producers were concerned it was too risqué and might get banned when it came to radio airplay. But when it was given to DJs in discos, it was an immediate club hit, and radio stations were inundated with calls demanding they play the track. The label released it, and it hit No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and No. 4 on the UK Singles chart, despite the BBC’s initial refusal to play or promote it.

‘Love to Love You Baby’ was one of the first disco hits to be released in an extended form, and The Rock and Roll Hall of fame named it one of the 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

Dancing Queen

Inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2015, ABBA’s disco classic reached No. 1 in 14 countries around the world. The Swedish quartet’s knack for creating songs that make you want to hit the dancefloor is pretty much unparalleled, and the massive success of their avatar-fronted live show, ABBA Voyage, is testament to their impact and longevity.

I Will Survive

An anthem for the broken-hearted everywhere and tapping into the female empowerment movement, Gloria Gaynor’s disco stomper netted a Grammy in 1979 for Best Disco Recording and Billboard ranked it among the 500 Best Pop Songs of All Time in October 2023.

The song was originally recorded as a B-side (to ‘Substitute’) in just 35 minutes. The power of the clubs was instrumental again in making it a hit, and among many other accolades, Pitchfork featured it as one of 50 Songs That Define the Last 50 Years of LGBTQ+ Pride:

‘I Will Survive’ probably would’ve been a gay anthem even without the spectre of AIDS. It has an undeniable flair for the dramatic… It was released as disco’s wave was beginning to break.’

Punk Rock Anthems From the Late 70s

• Anarchy in the UK
• Oh Bondage Up Yours!

Anarchy in the UK

Punk rock anthems don’t come much bigger or better than the Sex Pistols’ debut single, released on 26^th November 1976. Their manager, Malcolm McLaren, considered it, ‘a call to arms to the kids who believe that rock and roll was taken away from them. It’s a statement of self-rule, of ultimate independence.’

As a calling card and a statement of (rude) intent, you’re not going to get better than ‘Anarchy in the UK’ – as FarOut magazine succinctly puts it: ‘The Sex Pistols did exactly what they were supposed to, they made the people who were supposed to like them fall in love with them, and became hate figures for just about everybody else… Johnny Rotten immediately became the saviour of a generation, giving a voice to the voiceless.’

The UK music scene hadn’t encountered anything as overtly political and rebellious as the Sex Pistols before – it arguably hasn’t since, and sticking two fingers up at the establishment has never looked so thrilling.

Oh Bondage Up Yours!

Gloria Gaynor was offering up female empowerment in the form of ‘I Will Survive’, but if you want a more in-your-face rallying cry, then get X-Ray Spex, fronted by songwriter and lead vocalist Poly Styrene, on your Spotify playlist immediately.

The song takes on consumerism and disposability and Styrene described it as, ‘a call for liberation. It was saying: “Bondage – forget it! I’m not going to be bound by the laws of consumerism or bound by my own senses.”’ And in time-honoured fashion, the single was banned by the BBC, so didn’t trouble the charts, but has become one of punk rock’s defining moments.

Iconic Pop Songs of the Late 70s

• Wuthering Heights
• Cars
• Mull of Kintyre

Wuthering Heights

Can you believe that Kate Bush wrote her eerie gothic tale of lost love and longing when she was just 18 years old? Inspired by a TV adaptation of Emily Bronte’s novel, the song’s written from the perspective of Cathy Earnshaw’s ghost, pleading with the brutal Heathcliff to let her soul into the house. It became a hit in early 1978 – the first single written and recorded by a female artist to top the British charts – and sounded utterly unique. As the NME dryly noted, ‘perhaps the reason so few pop songs are based on classic novels is that they’d have to live up to this.’

Bush’s vocal was apparently recorded in a single take, and as the Guardian’s Rebecca Nicholson notes, ‘Wuthering Heights’ turned Bush into a pop star, the rules of which she continues to bend to her own will: her individuality was set in stone from the very beginning.’

Cars

Gary Numan’s debut solo single might well be the polar opposite to ‘Wuthering Heights’ in terms of inspiration: he told the Sunday Times that ‘I really did write ‘Cars’ about me sitting in my car. Because of my Asperger’s, I’ve never been good with crowds of people, and I find cities very threatening. Somehow, as soon as I get in a car, all the panic goes away.’

This trailblazing electro pop song from the summer of 1979 sounded like the future, but its genesis was more straightforward – Numan explained to Rolling Stone that, ‘I’ve only written two songs on bass guitar and the first one was ‘Cars’. I’d just been to London to buy a bass and when I got home the first thing I played was that intro riff. In 10 minutes, I had the whole song. The quickest one I ever wrote. And the most famous one I’ve ever written. More people should learn from that!’

Mull of Kintyre

The biggest-selling single of the decade was Wings’ ‘Mull of Kintyre’. Released in November 1977, the song became the Christmas No. 1 – and the first single ever to sell more than 2 million copies in the UK. It held the record for being the UK’s best-selling single of all time, until it was overtaken by Band Aid’s ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ in 1984.

Paul McCartney was living in the area and, ‘it was a love song, really, about how I enjoyed being there and imagining I was travelling away and wanting to get back there.’ The song featured Great Highland bagpipes played by the Campbeltown Pipe Band – quite an unusual addition to a pop song.

Classic Rock Hits of the Late 70s

• Comfortably Numb
• Bohemian Rhapsody

Comfortably Numb

Pink Floyd were one of the 70s’ biggest rock bands, and this track captures all the facets of their distinctive sound, from ethereal to dynamic. It featured on their eleventh studio album, the concept/rock opera, The Wall, in 1979. The six-minute song boasts a legendary guitar solo and the lyrics are about Pink, the album’s character, in a drug-induced state.

Roger Waters drew on a personal experience from 1977 for the lyrics – he was suffering from hepatitis when a doctor injected him with a tranquiliser before a show. He told Rolling Stone that, ‘that was the longest two hours of my life, trying to do a show when you can hardly lift your arm.’

Bohemian Rhapsody

The 70s were a time of excess: long hair, massive flares and tracks that redefined the word ‘epic’. You can’t talk about songs from the 70s and leave out Queen’s most celebrated track. It’s got an intro, a ballad segment, an operatic bit, a hard rock part and a reflective coda. Freddie Mercury referred to it as a ‘mock opera’ and it’s regularly voted one of the greatest songs of all time (it still claims the title of the UK’s third best-selling single.) Plus, after the release of the 2018 biopic, it became the most streamed song from the 20^th century.

Queen were certainly no one-take wonder – the entire piece took three weeks to record, with some sections featuring 180 separate overdubs, and Freddie, Brian May and Roger Taylor reportedly singing their vocal parts continuously for 10-12 hours a day.

‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ has been classified as everything from prog rock to hard rock, art rock to progressive pop. One of the many things that makes it unique is that it’s got no chorus, and the band have never fully explained the lyrics. Freddie Mercury simply said, ‘It’s one of those songs which has such a fantasy feel about it. I think people should just listen to it think about it, and then make up their own minds as to what it says to them…’

Record execs thought the track was far too long to be a hit, but typical late 70s rebellion won out. The band gave the single to outrageous DJ and comedian Kenny Everett, who played it 14 times over two days on his radio show; fans across both sides of the Pond clamoured for its release and it stayed at No. 1 for nine weeks.

And let’s not forget that video, which many have credited with launching the MTV age:

Funk and Soul Tracks of the Late 70s

• One Nation Under a Groove
• As

One Nation Under a Groove

George Clinton’s sci-fi funk collective, Funkadelic, turned dry protest songs on their head with this track, which encapsulated their philosophy of ‘moving towards freedom through the freedom of movement.’ Come and join the party, for a ridiculously empowering good time!

It’s a track that’s been sampled almost 100 times – by artists from Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube to Queen Latifah and Janet Jackson. Daring and playful, irreverent and carefree, Funkadelic brought humour and inclusivity and challenged many people’s perceptions about Black music. George Clinton has been feted by not only the hip hop fraternity, but also rock acts like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

As

Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life album was released in 1976, melding soul, funk, reggae, R&B, Latin, jazz and pop. ‘As’ was inspired by spending time in Ghana, where he gained a new perspective on life, and he recruited jazz-funk firebrand Herbie Hancock to record a separate track on a Fender Rhodes piano.

Numerous acts have covered ‘As’ since its original release, including Sister Sledge, Michael Bolton and, of course, George Michael and Mary J Blige in 1999.

70s Influences

These timeless hits, alongside the rest of the music of the late 70s, have had a lasting impact on subsequent decades and genres. You can see it in everything from Lana Del Rey’s vintage sound to Florence Welch’s Kate Bush/glam rock-style dress sense and theatricality; Harry Styles’ flamboyant jumpsuits and disco-inspired beats from Tame Impala, Daft Punk and The Weeknd.

If you fancy revisiting 70s sounds, then we’ve got some perfect albums for you – try vintage rock with plenty of swagger on 70s Rock Fest, or go psychedelic with Classic and Prog Rock; get down to some up-tempo funk courtesy of Show Stoppers, or pull on your sequined jumpsuit and platform boots for Glam Rock.