Band or singer that best represents the music of the 70s

[PaulBullion]

The 80s thread was fun, but let's go back a decade, shall we?

Before a wave of racism and homophobia convinced people that Disco was the worst thing ever (culminating in Disco Demolition Night, which was basically a nazi style book burning for vinyl records), Disco ruled supreme. It was a fresh, new music, it was hedonistic but could be political at times. It allowed for black, non-binary singers like Sylvester to become super stars.

So for your consideration, I present to you the brain child of Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, Chic!



The song features Norma Jean Wright on lead vocals and the legendary Luther Vandross, Diva Gray and Robin Clark on background vocals.

[numberthirty]

Thinking about it, I don't know that I've ever thought "Here is something that is quintessentially 'Seventies'...", the way that I think a tune like "Somebody's Watching Me" is quintessentially "Eighties".

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Non-Disco division: Paul McCartney's solo career took off like a rocket after the break-up of The Beatles with several big hits in the 70's, including the theme song from a James Bond movie:

[worstblogever]

It's a tough call for me. I feel like Donna Summer hits the late 70s to a "t".

But overall, I'd say Led Zeppelin with Robert Plant for the whole decade.

[numberthirty]

It's a tough call for me. I feel like Donna Summer hits the late 70s to a "t".

But overall, I'd say Led Zeppelin with Robert Plant for the whole decade.

That got me to thinking it over.

While I have a tough time narrowing down what would be quintessential/best represent, it feels kind of like the "Live" album is a particularly "Seventies" thing.

Don't even know where you'd start to narrow down all of the "Live" albums from then, but the phenomenon feels really "Seventies" when I think about it.

[WillieMorgan]

I could have a field day with a question like that. The 1970's is easily my favourite decade for music. Rock music was at it's artistic and commercial peak back then. Different world.

I'm firmly of the opinion that The Rolling Stones' greatest music hails from the Seventies. 'Sticky Fingers' and 'Exile On Main Street' alone bear that out for me.

It's got to be Led Zeppelin though. My all time favourite band. Their 1975 masterpiece 'Physical Graffiti' is THE album of the Seventies for me. I listened to the whole thing just the other night. Genius.

[WillieMorgan]

This song is taken from that aforementioned Zeppelin album. 'Ten Years Gone' is one of the best examples of Zeppelin's 'light and shade' musical dynamic that elevated them above other, themselves brilliant, peers.

[Kirby101]

The 70s were really the start of the fracturing of popular music. In the 60s the pop-rock stations played it all, from the Beatles, Stones and Beach Boys to Motown and Country crossovers.
By the 70s Album Oriented FM stations had become more pure Rock and Disco had taking over Pop stations.
So the question first is "which music of the 70's?"

[MyriVerse]

Probably have to go along with Zeppelin.

[Jim Kelly]

McCartney & Wings was one of the biggest selling bands at the time--and my favourite. But I think that as the Beatles were to the 1960s, ABBA was to the 1970s. I thought I was too good for ABBA back then and didn't give them a lot of time. Only now am I going back and giving them a listen and cursing myself for not embracing the ABBA of it all when they were happening. My life would have been a lot better for it, if I had.

[numberthirty]

The 70s were really the start of the fracturing of popular music. In the 60s the pop-rock stations played it all, from the Beatles, Stones and Beach Boys to Motown and Country crossovers.
By the 70s Album Oriented FM stations had become more pure Rock and Disco had taking over Pop stations.
So the question first is "which music of the 70's?"

Even that is more complicated than it would seem.

Let's say you were going to try to narrow it down to genres/sub-genres that arguably came into being during the seventies. You could probably make a decent case for -

- Disco
- Country Rock
- Punk Rock

- coming into being during the seventies.

If you tried to go with a band from one of those categories, you'd be setting aside Stevie Wonder's albums from Singed, Sealed, & Delivered through Songs In They Key Of Life when you did.

Which sounds crazy when you say it out loud or type it out.

And, that's just Stevie Wonder. You could do the exact same for the seventies runs of Parliment/Funkadelic, AC/DC, or Captain Beefheart And The Magic Band.

[numberthirty]

McCartney & Wings was one of the biggest selling bands at the time--and my favourite. But I think that as the Beatles were to the 1960s, ABBA was to the 1970s. I thought I was too good for ABBA back then and didn't give them a lot of time. Only now am I going back and giving them a listen and cursing myself for not embracing the ABBA of it all when they were happening. My life would have been a lot better for it, if I had.

When I read that, I wind up putting "The Carpenters" where "ABBA" is.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

McCartney & Wings was one of the biggest selling bands at the time--and my favourite. But I think that as the Beatles were to the 1960s, ABBA was to the 1970s. I thought I was too good for ABBA back then and didn't give them a lot of time. Only now am I going back and giving them a listen and cursing myself for not embracing the ABBA of it all when they were happening. My life would have been a lot better for it, if I had.

Damn! Forgot about ABBA! The first time I heard “Dancing Queen” back in the day, I was hooked, and I’m still a fan to this day!

[Jim Kelly]

When I read that, I wind up putting "The Carpenters" where "ABBA" is.

The Carpenters were certainly big in my heart. But I was thinking of the international success that ABBA became.

I remember a Bob Rozakis comic book story in the 1970s, where he had two bands that were like the Carpenters and Wings, but they actually turned out to be the same people in both groups--so they could dominate the charts by being both easy listening and hard rock.

[Gray Lensman]

The 70s were really the start of the fracturing of popular music. In the 60s the pop-rock stations played it all, from the Beatles, Stones and Beach Boys to Motown and Country crossovers.
By the 70s Album Oriented FM stations had become more pure Rock and Disco had taking over Pop stations.
So the question first is "which music of the 70's?"

Unlike the 70's, the 80's seems to be defined by the eye-hurting fashion and the wacky hair helmet shapes, kind of like a glam-pop look. Partly because that look is confined to the 80's almost exclusively. The 70's makes me think of the fan war between hard rock and disco - although I associate the decade more with disco than rock because disco seems to have faded with the decade that spawned it.

Hard rock and metal are actually victims of their own success in the popular imagination. By having the staying power to adapt and last through multiple decades, they are denied the ability to define any one of them. The music that people think of first when you mention a specific time period always seem to be the stuff that dies out when the years flip.