1970s in music
Encyclopedia
For music from a year in the 1970s, go to 70
| 71
| 72
| 73
| 74
| 75
| 76
| 77
| 78
| 79
This article includes an overview of the major events and trends in popular music
in the 1970s
.
In the North America
, Europe
and Oceania
, the decade saw the rise of disco
music, which became one of the biggest genres of the decade, especially in the mid to latter part of the 1970s; in Europe, a variant known as Euro disco
, became popular towards end of the 70s. Additionally, aside from disco, funk
, smooth jazz
, jazz fusion
and soul
remained popular throughout the decade. Rock music
played an important part in the Western musical scene, with punk rock
thriving throughout the mid to latter part of the 1970s; similarly glam rock
, hard rock
, progressive rock
, art rock
and heavy metal
achieved success. Additionally, reggae
music also reached a degree of success and innovation throughout the decade. Hip hop music
emerged in the 1970s, despite achieving popularity later on in the 1980s. In terms of the classical
music, saw the rise of experimental classical music
and minimalist music
by classical composers. Alongside the popularity of experimental music, the decade was notable for its contributions to electronic music
, as the genre started to be popularised through the usage of synthesizer
s, creating a genre known as synthpop
.
In Asia
, music continued to follow varied trends. In Japan
, the decade saw several musical phases; such include the highly popular folk
-influenced fōku, as well as greater experimentation with electronic music, ranging from developments in synthpop, electro
and techno
music created through different Japanese artists and bands such as Yellow Magic Orchestra
.
In Latin America
and the Iberian Peninsula
, the Nueva canción
movement peaked in popularity and was adopted as the music of the Hippie
, Liberation Theology
and New Left
movements. Cumbia
music began its internationalization as regional scenes rose outside Colombia. Merengue
got mainstream exposure across Latin America.
In Africa
, especially Nigeria
, a genre known as Afrobeat
became popular throughout the 1970s.
is the genre of music most readily associated with the 1970s. First appearing in dance clubs by the middle of the decade, (with such hits as "The Hustle
" by Van McCoy
), songstresses like Donna Summer
, Gloria Gaynor
and Anita Ward
(in North America); and Dalida
(in Europe) popularized the genre and were described in subsequent decades as the "disco divas." The movie Saturday Night Fever
was released in December 1977, starring John Travolta and featuring the music of the Bee Gees
and several other artists. It had the effect of setting off disco mania in the United States. The Bee Gees' soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever
became the best-selling album of all time until 1983 when Michael Jackson
's Thriller
broke that record.
Almost as quickly as disco's popularity came, however, it soon fell out of favor. The genre started to become increasingly commercialized, and the large number of disco songs flooding the radio airwaves in 1978-1979 resulted in a growing backlash against it, as epitomized by the "Disco Demolition Night
" stunt by a Chicago disc jockey at a July 1979 baseball game at Comiskey Park
. Disco clubs also gained a reputation as decadent places where people engaged in drug use and promiscuous sex. The popularity of the genre waned, and 1980s "Funkytown
" by Lipps Inc.
was one of the last disco hits. Along with the demise of disco came the end of the orchestrations and musical instruments (such as strings) which had become associated with disco, in part because of the high cost of producing such music. Electronic and synthesized music quickly replaced the lush orchestral sounds of the 1970s and rock music resurged in popularity with new wave
bands such as Blondie
("Heart of Glass
"), The Knack
("My Sharona
") and Devo
("Whip It
"), all who formed their bands in the 1970s. Many artists such as The Bee Gees, who came to be associated with disco, found it difficult to sell records or concert tickets in the 1980s.
as one of the most prominent subgenres of rock music
. Bands like Alice Cooper
and Deep Purple
were highly popular by 1972. By the second half of the decade, several bands had achieved stardom, namely, Lynyrd Skynyrd
, Aerosmith
and Kiss
.
Arena rock
grew in popularity through progressive bands like Styx
("Come Sail Away
"), and hard rock bands like Boston
("More Than a Feeling
").
Psychedelic rock
declined in popularity after the deaths of Jimi Hendrix
, Janis Joplin
and Jim Morrison
and the breakup of The Beatles
.
Country rock
, formed from the fusion of rock music
with Country music
, gained its greatest commercial success in the 1970s, beginning with non-country artists such as Bob Dylan
, Gram Parsons
and The Byrds
. By the mid-1970s, Linda Ronstadt
, along with other newer artists such as Emmylou Harris
and The Eagles, were enjoying mainstream success and popularity that continues to this day. The Eagles themselves emerged as one of the most successful rock acts of all time, producing albums that included Hotel California (1976).
During the 1970s, a similar style of country rock called southern rock
(fusing rock, country and blues music, and focusing on electric guitars and vocals) was enjoying popularity with country audiences, thanks to such non-country acts as Lynyrd Skynyrd
, The Allman Brothers Band
and The Marshall Tucker Band
.
The American brand of prog rock varied from the eclectic and innovative Steel Heart, Frank Zappa
, Captain Beefheart
and Blood, Sweat and Tears, to more pop rock oriented bands like Boston
, Foreigner
, Kansas
, Journey
and Styx
. These, beside British bands Supertramp
and ELO
, all demonstrated a prog rock influence and while ranking among the most commercially successful acts of the 1970s, issuing in the era of pomp or arena rock
, which would last until the costs of complex shows (often with theatrical staging and special effects), would be replaced by more economical rock festival
s as major live venues in the 1990s.
s, forming the new wave
style. The original American bands included Talking Heads
, The Cars
, and Devo
. In the eighties, Britain would respond with the synthpop
style, which broadened the definition of "new wave".
and pop music
, bands such as The Romantics
, The Knack
, and Cheap Trick
created the "power pop" sound. Also seeing mild success is Loverboy
.
-garage band
roots in the 1960s and early 1970s. The Ramones
and Blondie
were some of the earliest American Punk rock acts to make it big in both the United Kingdom and the United States Punk music has also been heavily associated with a certain punk fashion
and absurdist humor which exemplified a genuine suspicion of mainstream culture and values. Blondie quickly lost their punk roots going on to become a pop/ska/reggae band.
, ZZ Top
, and George Thorogood
seeing the greatest success.
, The Guess Who
, the Osmonds and Queen
.
Male soloists who characterized the pop music of the era included Barry Manilow
, Tom Jones
, Johnny Mathis
, Engelbert Humperdinck
, Eric Carmen
, Leo Sayer
, Shaun Cassidy
and Rod Stewart
. Female soloists who epitomized the '70s included Cher
, Carly Simon
, Dionne Warwick
, Barbra Streisand
, Rita Coolidge
, and Helen Reddy
.
Soft rock
was prominently featured on many Top 40 and contemporary hit radio
stations throughout the 1970s. Soft rock often used acoustic instruments and placed emphasis on melody
and harmonies. Major soft rock artists of the 1970s included Carole King
, James Taylor
, Billy Joel
, Chicago
, America
and Fleetwood Mac
, whose Rumours (1977) was the best-selling album of the decade. (See the country music section of this article for more about country music that crossed over onto the pop charts.) Bob Dylan
's 1975-1976 Rolling Thunder Revue
reunited him with a number of folk-rock acts from his early days of performing, most notably Joan Baez
.
A large number of country-pop and booom lar fit into the singer-songwriter
classification — that is, songs written and recorded by the same person. Some of the most successful singer-songwriter artists were Jackson Browne
, Eric Carmen
, Jim Croce
, John Denver
, Steve Goodman
, Arlo Guthrie
, Joel, Dave Mason
, Don McLean
, Joni Mitchell
, Paul Simon
, Kris Kristofferson
and Gordon Lightfoot
— had previously been primarily songwriters but began releasing albums and songs of their own. King's album Tapestry became one of the top-selling albums of the decade, and the song "It's Too Late" became one of the 1970s biggest songs. McLean's 1971 song "American Pie," inspired by the death of Buddy Holly
, became one of popular music's most-recognized songs of the 20th century
, thanks to its abstract and vivid storytelling, which center around "The Day the Music Died" and popular music of the rock era.
The early 1970s marked the departure of Diana Ross
from The Supremes
and the breakup of Simon & Garfunkel. Ross, Simon and Art Garfunkel
all continued hugely successful recording careers throughout the decade and beyond. Several of their songs are listed among the biggest hits of the 1970s: Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water
," Simon's solo hit "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
," and Ross' "Ain't No Mountain High Enough
."
was one of the most popular genres of music in the '70s. Primarily an African-American genre, it was characterized by the heavy use of bass and "wah-wah" pedals. Rhythm was emphasized over melody. Artists such as James Brown
, The Meters
, Parliament-Funkadelic
and Sly And The Family Stone pionered the genre. It then spawned artists such as Stevie Wonder
, Rufus (band)
, The Brothers Johnson, Kool & The Gang
, Earth, Wind & Fire
, Bootsy's Rubber Band, King Floyd
, Tower of Power
, Ohio Players
, The Commodores, War
, Kool & the Gang
, Confunkshun, Gap Band
, Slave
, Cameo
, the Bar-Kays
, Zapp
, and many more.
The Jackson 5
became one of the biggest pop-music phenomena of the 1970s, playing from a repertoire of rhythm and blues
, soul
, pop
and later disco
. The Jacksons — brothers Jackie
, Tito
, Jermaine
, Marlon
and Michael
— the first act in recording history to have their first four major label singles: "I Want You Back
", "ABC
", "The Love You Save
", and "I'll Be There" reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100
. The band served as the launching pad for the solo careers of their lead singers Jermaine and Michael, and while Jermaine had some success, it was Michael who would transform his early fame into greater success as an adult artist, with songs such as "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough
" and "Rock with You."
The Commodores were another group that played from a diverse repertoire, including R&B, funk and pop. Lionel Richie
, who went on to even greater success as a solo artist in the 1980s, fronted the group's biggest 1970s hits, including "Easy," "Three Times a Lady
" and "Still
."
A number of styles defined country music during the 1970s decade. At the beginning of the decade, the countrypolitan
— an offshoot of the earlier "Nashville Sound" of the late 1950s and early 1960s — and the honky-tonk fused Bakersfield Sound
were some of the more popular styles.
The countrypolitan sound — a polished, streamlined sound featuring string sections, background vocals and crooning lead vocalists — was popularized by artists including Lynn Anderson
, Glen Campbell
, Anne Murray
, Dottie West
, Tammy Wynette
and others, achieving their successes through such songs as "(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden," "Snowbird
" and others. The Bakersfield sound, first popularized in the early 1960s, continued its peak in popularity through artists such as Buck Owens
and Merle Haggard
.
But other styles began to emerge during the 1970s. One of the more successful styles was "outlaw country
," a type of music blending the traditional and honky tonk sounds of country music with rock
and blues music
, and mixed with the anger of an alienated subculture of the nation during the period. The leaders of the movement were Waylon Jennings
and Willie Nelson
, although others associated with the movement were David Allan Coe
, Jessi Colter
, Tompall Glaser
, Gary Stewart
and Billy Joe Shaver
. The efforts of Jennings, Nelson, Colter and Glaser were encapsulated in the 1976 album Wanted! The Outlaws
.
The country pop
sound was a successor to the countrypolitan sound of the early 1970s. In addition to artists such as Murray and Campbell, several artists who were not initially marketed as country were enjoying crossover success with country audiences through radio airplay and sales. The most successful of these artists included The Bellamy Brothers, Charlie Rich
, John Denver
, Olivia Newton-John
, Marie Osmond
, B. J. Thomas
and Kenny Rogers
. Newton-John, an Australian pop singer, was named Female Vocalist of the Year by the Country Music Association
, sparking a debate that continues to this day — what is country music? A group of traditional-minded artists, troubled by this trend, formed the short-lived Association of Country Entertainers, in an attempt to bring back traditional honky-tonk sounds to the forefront. The debate continued into 1975, a year where six songs reached No. 1 on both the Billboard Hot Country Singles
and Billboard Hot 100
charts. Things came to a head when, at that year's CMA Awards, Rich — the reigning Entertainer of the Year, and himself a crossover artist — presented the award to his successor, "my good friend, Mr. John Denver." His statement, taken as sarcasm, and his setting fire to the envelope (containing Denver's name) with a cigarette lighter were taken as a protest against the increasing pop style in country music.
By the later half of the 1970s, Dolly Parton
, a highly successful traditional-minded country artist since the late 1960s, mounted a high profile campaign to crossover to pop music, culminating in her 1977 hit "Here You Come Again", which peaked at No. 1 country and No. 3 pop. Rogers, the former lead singer of The First Edition
, followed up a successful career in pop, rock and folk music by switching to country music. Like Parton, he enjoyed a long series of successful songs that charted on both the Hot Country Singles and Billboard Hot 100 charts; the first of the lot was "Lucille
," a No. 1 country and No. 5 pop hit. Crystal Gayle
, Ronnie Milsap
, Eddie Rabbitt
and Linda Ronstadt
were some of the other artists who also found success on both the country and pop charts with their records as well.
The 1970s continued a trend toward a proliferation of No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart. In 1970, there were 23 songs that reached the top spot on the chart, but by the mid 1970s, more than 40 titles rotated in and out of the top spot for the first time in history. The trend temporarily reversed itself by the late 1970s, when about 30 to 35 songs reached the pinnacle position of the chart annually.
participated through their hit "Crazy Little Thing Called Love
". Billy Joel
provided "Piano Man
" and "Only The Good Die Young
". Also symbolizing this trend was the hit movie Grease
in 1978, starring John Travolta
and Olivia Newton-John
.
Tying in with the nostalgia craze, several stars of the late 1950s and early 1960s successfully revived their careers during the early- to mid-1970s after several years of inactivity. The most successful of these were Rick Nelson ("Garden Party", 1972), Paul Anka
("(You're) Having My Baby
", 1974), Neil Sedaka
("Laughter in the Rain
" and "Bad Blood
", both 1975), and Frankie Valli
as both a solo artist (1975's "My Eyes Adored You
") and with The Four Seasons (1976's "December 1963 (Oh, What A Night)"). In addition, Perry Como
—one of the most successful pre-rock era artists—enjoyed continued success, albeit on a somewhat smaller scale (as most of his fans were adults who grew up during the 1940s and early 1950s, and not the rock record-buying youth); his most successful hits of the decade were "It's Impossible" (1970) and the Don McLean song "And I Love Her So" (1973).
Two of popular music's most successful artists died within six weeks of each other in 1977: Elvis Presley
(on August 16) and Bing Crosby
(on October 14). Presley — whose top hit in the 1970s was 1972's "Burning Love
"— was ranked among the top artists of the rock era and currently, he's the best selling artist of all time, while Crosby was among the most successful pre-rock era artists.
The early seventies also marked the deaths of rock legends Jim Morrison
, Janis Joplin
, and Jimi Hendrix
as well as the plane crash in 1977
in which three members of Lynyrd Skynyrd
were killed.
as the best Artist of the Decade for the 1970s. He joined the list with The Beatles and Elvis Presley, who have also been awarded with this prestigious honor in their respective decades.
One of the most successful European groups of the decade was the quartet ABBA
. The Swedish group, who are still the most successful group from their country, first found fame when they won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest
. They became one of the most widely known European groups ever and one of the best selling artists of all time. "Take a Chance on Me
" and "Dancing Queen
" are two of ABBA's most popular songs.
Elton John
became the decade's biggest pop star, releasing diverse styles of music that ranged from ballads to arena rock; some his most popular songs included "Crocodile Rock
," "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
," "Bennie and the Jets
," "Philadelphia Freedom
and "Don't Go Breaking My Heart
" (the latter a duet with Kiki Dee
). Other European soft rock major artists of the decade included Cat Stevens
, Fleetwood Mac
and Joan Armatrading
. (See the country music section of this article for more about country music that crossed over onto the pop charts.)
One of the first events of the 1970s was the breakup of The Beatles
in the spring of 1970. Paul McCartney
formed a new group, Wings
, and continued to enjoy great mainstream success. The three other former Beatles — John Lennon
, George Harrison
and Ringo Starr
— all continued hugely successful recording careers throughout the decade and beyond. Several of their songs are listed among the biggest hits of the 1970s: Wings' "Silly Love Songs
" and "My Love," and Harrison's "My Sweet Lord
"."
Heavy metal music
gained a cult following in the 1970s, led by Led Zeppelin
, Black Sabbath
and Deep Purple
, with their styles later influencing other bands like Judas Priest
and Motörhead, which eventually started the New Wave of British Heavy Metal in the 1980s.
Progressive or prog rock developed out of late 1960s blues-rock
and psychedelic rock
. Dominated by British bands it was part of an attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility. Progressive rock bands attempted to push the technical and compositional boundaries of rock by going beyond the standard verse-chorus
-based song structure
s. The arrangement
s often incorporated elements drawn from classical
, jazz
, and world music
. Instrumental
s were common, while songs with lyrics were sometimes conceptual, abstract, or based in fantasy. Progressive rock bands sometimes used "concept album
s that made unified statements, usually telling an epic story or tackling a grand overarching theme." King Crimson have been seen as the band who established the concept of progressive rock". The term was applied to the music of bands such as Yes
, Genesis
, Pink Floyd
, Jethro Tull
, Soft Machine
, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer
. It reached its peak of popularity in the mid 1970s, but had mixed critical acclaim and the punk movement can be seen as a reaction against its musicality and perceived pomposity.
early 1970s. It was characterised by outrageous clothes, makeup, hairstyles, and platform-soled boots. The flamboyant lyrics, costumes, and visual styles of glam performers were a campy
, playing with categories of sexuality in a theatrical blend of nostalgic
references to science fiction
and old movies, all over a guitar-driven hard rock
sound. Pioneers of the genre included David Bowie
, Roxy Music
, Mott the Hoople
, Marc Bolan
and T.Rex. These, and many other acts straddled the divide between pop and rock music, managing to maintain a level of respectability with rock audiences, while enjoying success in the singles chart, including Queen
and Elton John
. Other performers aimed much more directly for the popular music market, where they were the dominant groups of their era, including and Slade
and Sweet
. The glitter image was pushed to its limits by Gary Glitter
and The Glitter Band
. Largely confined to the British
, glam rock peaked during the mid 1970s, before it disappeared in the face of punk rock and new wave trends.
From the late 1960s it became common to divide mainstream rock music into soft rock
and hard rock
. Soft rock was often derived from folk rock
, using acoustic instruments and putting more emphasis on melody and harmonies. It reached its commercial peak in the mid- to late-70s with acts like the reformed Fleetwood Mac
, whose Rumours (1977) was the best-selling album of the decade. Major British soft rock artists of the 1970s included 10cc
, Mungo Jerry
and Rod Stewart
. A large number of soft-rock songs fit into the singer-songwriter
classification — that is, songs written and recorded by the same person. Some of the most successful singer-songwriter artists were Cat Stevens
, Steve Winwood
and Elton John
.
-garage band
roots in the 1960s and early 1970s. The the Sex Pistols
, and The Clash
were some of the earliest British acts to make it big in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Groups like the Clash were noted for the experimentation of style, especially that of having strong ska
influences in their music. Punk music has also been heavily associated with a certain punk fashion
and absurdist humor which exemplified a genuine suspicion of mainstream culture and values.
The mid to late 1970s Australian band AC/DC
became one of the most popular and successful acts in Australia, scoring a string of hits albums and singles. The band found a degree of international success, especially with the release of their Highway to Hell
album in 1979.
The Bee Gees — brothers Barry
, Maurice
and Robin Gibb
— had been a successful harmonic act as the 1970s dawned; while they continued to have success with ballads such as "How Deep is Your Love
," the Gibb brothers' most successful songs were their disco recordings, including "Stayin' Alive
" Jive Talking and "Night Fever
" (both from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack). The Gibbs' youngest brother, Andy
, had a successful solo career of his own, also with disco songs such as "I Just Want to Be Your Everything
" and "Shadow Dancing
."
The most successful Australian female artist of the decade, Olivia Newton-John
became a leading singer in the 1970s in both popular
and country
music and had several number one hits, including the songs "Let Me Be There
" and "I Honestly Love You
" for which she received three Grammy
s.
Additional top music acts in Australia and New Zealand included Little River Band, Sherbet
, Skyhooks, Dragon
, Hush
and the Ted Mulry Gang.
The Wailers, a band started by Bob Marley
, Peter Tosh
, and Bunny Wailer
in 1963 which used to play Ska
and Rocksteady
music during the 1960s which became popular in the Caribbean
and Africa since the early 1970s after they start playing Reggae
music. Later on the band became very popular in the U.S. and in Europe. The Wailers broke up in 1974 with each of the three main members going on to pursue solo careers. Despite the breakup, Marley continued recording music as "Bob Marley & The Wailers". In 1975, Marley had his international breakthrough with his first hit outside Jamaica, "No Woman, No Cry
", from the Natty Dread
album. The success of the album Exodus (1977), which included the major international hits "Jamming
", "Turn Your Lights Down Low
" and "One Love
, propelled Marley to international stardom.
In addition to the Wailers, other significant pioneers include Prince Buster
, Desmond Dekker
, Jackie Mittoo
and several others.
During the 1970s in Latin America
the '60s music influence remained strong and two styles developed from it one that followed the European and North American trends and Nueva Canción
that focused on the renewal of folklore
including Andean music
and Cueca
. Some bands such as Los Jaivas
mixed both streams and created a syncretism between folklore and progressive rock
. The Nueva Canción
movement got an even more marked protest association after all countries in the Southern Cone
became (or were already) military dictatorships in the '70s.
began to emerge (specially in Argentina), and as imitation bands became fewer rock music started to develop more independently from the outside, although many rock bands still preferred to sing in English. The Argentine defeat in the Falklands War
in 1982 followed by the fall of the military junta that year diminished need of Nueva Canción as protest music there in favour of other styles. In Chile the Nueva Canción styles developed through the '70s would remain popular until the return to democracy in 1990.
became widely popular outside Colombia. Several bands bought Cumbia to Mexico, Peru and Argentine, places that later became major scenes for further developments of cumbia music. While Nueva Canción was the music of the New Left
and the rock developments of Argentina reflected the European oriented youth, cumbia became widely popular among the large poor sectors of Latin American countries, to such degree that it came to be associated with shantytowns and low-prestige Native American populations.
developed in the 1960s and '70s by Puerto Rican and Cuba
n immigrants to the New York City
area but did not enter into mainstream popularity in Latin America until the late '80s. The Merengue music
experienced during the late '70s a golden age of productivity characterized by the rise of a new generation of musicians.
and Bollywood
movies from India.
1970 in music
- Events :*January 3**Davy Jones announces he is leaving the Monkees**Former Pink Floyd frontman Syd Barrett releases his first solo album The Madcap Laughs....
| 71
1971 in music
-Events:*February 1 – after months of feuding in the press, Ginger Baker and Elvin Jones hold a "drum battle" at The Lyceum.*February 8 – Bob Dylan's hour-long documentary film, Eat the Document, is premièred at New York's Academy of Music...
| 72
1972 in music
-Events:*January 17 – Highway 51 South in Memphis, Tennessee is renamed "Elvis Presley Boulevard"*January 20 – The début of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon at The Dome, Brighton, is halted by technical difficulties,...
| 73
1973 in music
-January–April:*January 9 – Mick Jagger's request for a Japanese visa is rejected on account of a 1969 drug conviction, putting an abrupt end to The Rolling Stones' plans to perform in Japan during their forthcoming tour.*January 14...
| 74
1974 in music
-January–April:*January 3 – Bob Dylan and The Band kick off their 40-date concert tour at Chicago Stadium. It's Dylan's first time on the road since 1966.*January 17...
| 75
1975 in music
-January–April:*January 2 - New York City U.S. District Court Judge Richard Owen rules that former Beatle John Lennon and his lawyers can have access to Department of Immigration files pertaining to his deportation case....
| 76
1976 in music
-January–February:*January 5 – Former Beatles road manager Mal Evans is shot dead by Los Angeles police after refusing to drop what police only later determine is an air rifle....
| 77
1977 in music
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1977.-January–February:*January 1 – The Clash headline the gala opening of the London music club, The Roxy....
| 78
1978 in music
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1978.-January–April:*January 14 – The Sex Pistols play their final show at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom....
| 79
1979 in music
See also:Record labels established in 1979* 1979 in music This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1979.-January–February:*January 1...
This article includes an overview of the major events and trends in popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
in the 1970s
1970s
File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...
.
In the North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and Oceania
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
, the decade saw the rise of disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
music, which became one of the biggest genres of the decade, especially in the mid to latter part of the 1970s; in Europe, a variant known as Euro disco
Euro disco
Euro disco is an all encompassing colloquial term used to describe a variety of European electronic dance music that first originated from disco in the 1970s; incorporating elements of pop, New Wave and rock into disco-like continuous dance atmosphere...
, became popular towards end of the 70s. Additionally, aside from disco, funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
, smooth jazz
Smooth jazz
Smooth jazz is a genre of music that grew out of jazz fusion and is influenced by R&B, funk, rock, and pop music styles ....
, jazz fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
and soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
remained popular throughout the decade. Rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
played an important part in the Western musical scene, with punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
thriving throughout the mid to latter part of the 1970s; similarly glam rock
Glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...
, hard rock
Hard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
, progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
, art rock
Art rock
Art rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, with influences from art, avant-garde, and classical music. The first usage of the term, according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, was in 1968. Influenced by the work of The Beatles, most notably their Sgt...
and heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
achieved success. Additionally, reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
music also reached a degree of success and innovation throughout the decade. Hip hop music
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
emerged in the 1970s, despite achieving popularity later on in the 1980s. In terms of the classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
music, saw the rise of experimental classical music
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
and minimalist music
Minimalist music
Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....
by classical composers. Alongside the popularity of experimental music, the decade was notable for its contributions to electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
, as the genre started to be popularised through the usage of synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
s, creating a genre known as synthpop
Synthpop
Synthpop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Kraut rock" of...
.
In Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, music continued to follow varied trends. In Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, the decade saw several musical phases; such include the highly popular folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
-influenced fōku, as well as greater experimentation with electronic music, ranging from developments in synthpop, electro
Electro (music)
Electro is a genre of electronic dance music directly influenced by the use of TR-808 drum machines, Moog keytar synthesizers and funk sampling...
and techno
Techno
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...
music created through different Japanese artists and bands such as Yellow Magic Orchestra
Yellow Magic Orchestra
Sakamoto first worked with Hosono as a member of his live band in 1976, while Takahashi recruited Sakamoto to produce his debut solo recording in 1977 following the split of the Sadistic Mika Band...
.
In Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
and the Iberian Peninsula
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
, the Nueva canción
Nueva canción
Nueva canción is a movement and genre within Latin American and Iberian music of folk music, folk-inspired music and socially committed music...
movement peaked in popularity and was adopted as the music of the Hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
, Liberation Theology
Liberation theology
Liberation theology is a Christian movement in political theology which interprets the teachings of Jesus Christ in terms of a liberation from unjust economic, political, or social conditions...
and New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
movements. Cumbia
Cumbia
Cumbia is a music genre popular across Latin America. The cumbia originated in the Caribbean coast of Colombia, where it is associated with an eponymous dance and has since spread as far as Mexico and Argentina...
music began its internationalization as regional scenes rose outside Colombia. Merengue
Merengue music
Merengue is a type of music and dance from the Dominican Republic. It is popular in the Dominican Republic and all over Latin America. Its name is Spanish, taken from the name of the meringue, a dessert made from whipped egg whites and sugar...
got mainstream exposure across Latin America.
In Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, especially Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, a genre known as Afrobeat
Afrobeat
Afrobeat is a combination of traditional Yoruba music, jazz, highlife, funk and chanted vocals, fused with percussion and vocal styles, popularised in Africa in the 1970s. Its main creator was the Nigerian multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Fela Kuti, who gave it its name, who used it to...
became popular throughout the 1970s.
Disco
For many people, discoDisco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
is the genre of music most readily associated with the 1970s. First appearing in dance clubs by the middle of the decade, (with such hits as "The Hustle
Hustle (dance)
The Hustle is a catchall name for several disco dances which were extremely popular in the 1970s. Today it mostly refers to the unique partner dance done in ballrooms and nightclubs to disco music. It has some features in common with swing dance. Its basic steps are somewhat similar to the...
" by Van McCoy
Van McCoy
Van Allen Clinton McCoy was an accomplished musician, music producer, arranger, songwriter, and orchestra conductor. He is known best for his 1975 internationally successful song "The Hustle", which is still played in dance halls and on radio to this day more than thirty years since his death...
), songstresses like Donna Summer
Donna Summer
LaDonna Adrian Gaines , known by her stage name, Donna Summer, is an American singer/songwriter who gained prominence during the disco era of the 1970s. She has a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Summer is a five-time Grammy winner and was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach...
, Gloria Gaynor
Gloria Gaynor
Gloria Gaynor is an American singer, best known for the disco era hits; "I Will Survive" , "Never Can Say Goodbye" , "Let Me Know " and "I Am What I Am" .-Early career:Gaynor was a singer with the Soul...
and Anita Ward
Anita Ward
Anita Ward is an American singer and musician. She is best known for her 1979 million selling chart-topper, "Ring My Bell".-Career:Before signing a recording contract, Ward obtained a degree in psychology from Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and had become a schoolteacher...
(in North America); and Dalida
Dalida
Dalida , born with Italian name of Iolanda Cristina Gigliotti, was a world-famous singer and actress born in Egypt with Italian origins but naturalised French with the name Yolanda Gigliotti. She spent her early years in Egypt amongst the Italian Egyptian community, but she lived most of her adult...
(in Europe) popularized the genre and were described in subsequent decades as the "disco divas." The movie Saturday Night Fever
Saturday Night Fever
Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 drama film directed by John Badham and starring: John Travolta as Tony Manero, an immature young man whose weekends are spent visiting a local Brooklyn discothèque; Karen Lynn Gorney as his dance partner and eventual friend; and Donna Pescow as Tony's former dance...
was released in December 1977, starring John Travolta and featuring the music of the Bee Gees
Bee Gees
The Bee Gees are a musical group that originally comprised three brothers: Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio was successful for most of their 40-plus years of recording music, but they had two distinct periods of exceptional success: as a pop act in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and as a...
and several other artists. It had the effect of setting off disco mania in the United States. The Bee Gees' soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever
Saturday Night Fever (soundtrack)
Original Vinyl ReleaseSide A:#"Stayin' Alive" performed by Bee Gees, produced by Bee Gees, Albhy Galuten, Karl Richardson – 4:45#"How Deep Is Your Love" performed by Bee Gees, produced by Bee Gees, Albhy Galuten, Karl Richardson – 4:05...
became the best-selling album of all time until 1983 when Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
's Thriller
Thriller (album)
Thriller is the sixth studio album by American recording artist Michael Jackson. It was released on November 30, 1982, by Epic Records as the follow-up to Jackson's critically and commercially successful 1979 album Off the Wall...
broke that record.
Almost as quickly as disco's popularity came, however, it soon fell out of favor. The genre started to become increasingly commercialized, and the large number of disco songs flooding the radio airwaves in 1978-1979 resulted in a growing backlash against it, as epitomized by the "Disco Demolition Night
Disco Demolition Night
Disco Demolition Night was a promotional event that took place on Thursday, July 12, 1979, at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois, during which a crate filled with disco records was blown up on the field. It was held during the twi-night doubleheader baseball game between the Chicago White Sox and...
" stunt by a Chicago disc jockey at a July 1979 baseball game at Comiskey Park
Comiskey Park
Comiskey Park was the ballpark in which the Chicago White Sox played from 1910 to 1990. It was built by Charles Comiskey after a design by Zachary Taylor Davis, and was the site of four World Series and more than 6,000 major league games...
. Disco clubs also gained a reputation as decadent places where people engaged in drug use and promiscuous sex. The popularity of the genre waned, and 1980s "Funkytown
Funkytown
"Funkytown" is a 1980 disco hit song by the disco band Lipps Inc. The song expresses the singer's pining for a metaphorical place that will "keep me movin', keeps me groovin' with some energy". It reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Dance charts in 1980, also reaching number 1 in Germany,...
" by Lipps Inc.
Lipps Inc
Lipps Inc. was a studio band that achieved two significant hits, "Funkytown", in 1980 and "Designer Music", in 1981.The group was formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota by Steven Greenberg, who wrote and produced all of the group's music, and who also played several musical instruments...
was one of the last disco hits. Along with the demise of disco came the end of the orchestrations and musical instruments (such as strings) which had become associated with disco, in part because of the high cost of producing such music. Electronic and synthesized music quickly replaced the lush orchestral sounds of the 1970s and rock music resurged in popularity with new wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
bands such as Blondie
Blondie (band)
Blondie is an American rock band, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American New Wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s...
("Heart of Glass
Heart of Glass (song)
"Heart of Glass" is a song by American New Wave band Blondie, written by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. Featured on the band's third studio album, Parallel Lines, it was released as a single in January 1979 and topped the charts in several countries, including the US and UK.Rolling...
"), The Knack
The Knack
The Knack was an American New Wave rock quartet based in Los Angeles that rose to fame with their first single, "My Sharona", an international number one hit in 1979.-Founding :...
("My Sharona
My Sharona
"My Sharona" is the debut single by The Knack, released in 1979 from their album Get the Knack. It reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart where it remained for six weeks and was #1 on Billboards Top Pop Singles of 1979 year-end chart. It was certified gold by the Recording Industry...
") and Devo
Devo
Devo is an American band formed in 1973 consisting of members from Kent and Akron, Ohio. The classic line-up of the band includes two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs and the Casales . The band had a #14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It", and has maintained a cult...
("Whip It
Whip It
"Whip It" is the title of a 1980 single by the American New Wave band Devo. It appears on the album Freedom of Choice. There were two 7" single releases of "Whip It", one backed with a remix of the track "Snowball" and one backed with "Turn Around"...
"), all who formed their bands in the 1970s. Many artists such as The Bee Gees, who came to be associated with disco, found it difficult to sell records or concert tickets in the 1980s.
Hard rock, Arena rock and Heavy metal
The 1970s saw the emergence of hard rockHard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
as one of the most prominent subgenres of rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
. Bands like Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper is an American rock singer, songwriter and musician whose career spans more than four decades...
and Deep Purple
Deep Purple
Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in Hertford in 1968. Along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, they are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal and modern hard rock, although some band members believe that their music cannot be categorised as belonging to any one genre...
were highly popular by 1972. By the second half of the decade, several bands had achieved stardom, namely, Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd is an American rock band prominent in spreading Southern Rock during the 1970s.Originally formed as the "Noble Five" in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1964, the band rose to worldwide recognition on the basis of its driving live performances and signature tune, Freebird...
, Aerosmith
Aerosmith
Aerosmith is an American rock band, sometimes referred to as "The Bad Boys from Boston" and "America's Greatest Rock and Roll Band". Their style, which is rooted in blues-based hard rock, has come to also incorporate elements of pop, heavy metal, and rhythm and blues, and has inspired many...
and Kiss
KISS (band)
Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Well-known for its members' face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting,...
.
Arena rock
Arena rock
Arena rock is a term used to describe rock music that utilised large arena venues, particularly sports venues, for concerts or series of concerts linked in tours...
grew in popularity through progressive bands like Styx
Styx (band)
Styx is an American rock band that became famous for its albums from the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Chicago band is known for melding the style of prog-rock with the power of hard rock guitar, strong ballads, and elements of American musical theater....
("Come Sail Away
Come Sail Away
"Come Sail Away" is a song by American progressive rock group Styx, featured on the band's seventh album The Grand Illusion . Upon its release as the lead single from the album, "Come Sail Away" charted at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100, and helped The Grand Illusion achieve multi-platinum...
"), and hard rock bands like Boston
Boston (band)
Boston is an American rock band from Boston, Massachusetts that achieved its most notable successes during the 1970s and 1980s. Centered on guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter, and producer Tom Scholz, the band is a staple of classic rock radio playlists...
("More Than a Feeling
More Than a Feeling
"More Than a Feeling" is a song by the rock band Boston, released as the lead single from their self-titled debut album on Epic Records in September 1976, with "Smokin'" on the flipside. The single peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100...
").
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
declined in popularity after the deaths of Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
, Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
and Jim Morrison
Jim Morrison
James Douglas "Jim" Morrison was an American musician, singer, and poet, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band The Doors...
and the breakup of The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
.
Country rock and Southern rock
Country rock
Country rock is sub-genre of popular music, formed from the fusion of rock with country. The term is generally used to refer to the wave of rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s, beginning with Bob Dylan and The Byrds; reaching its greatest...
, formed from the fusion of rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
with Country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
, gained its greatest commercial success in the 1970s, beginning with non-country artists such as Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, Gram Parsons
Gram Parsons
Gram Parsons was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and pianist. Parsons is best known for his work within the country genre; he also mixed blues, folk, and rock to create what he called "Cosmic American Music"...
and The Byrds
The Byrds
The Byrds were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn remaining the sole consistent member until the group disbanded in 1973...
. By the mid-1970s, Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...
, along with other newer artists such as Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including...
and The Eagles, were enjoying mainstream success and popularity that continues to this day. The Eagles themselves emerged as one of the most successful rock acts of all time, producing albums that included Hotel California (1976).
During the 1970s, a similar style of country rock called southern rock
Southern rock
Southern rock is a subgenre of rock music, and genre of Americana. It developed in the Southern United States from rock and roll, country music, and blues, and is focused generally on electric guitar and vocals...
(fusing rock, country and blues music, and focusing on electric guitars and vocals) was enjoying popularity with country audiences, thanks to such non-country acts as Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd is an American rock band prominent in spreading Southern Rock during the 1970s.Originally formed as the "Noble Five" in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1964, the band rose to worldwide recognition on the basis of its driving live performances and signature tune, Freebird...
, The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band is an American rock/blues band once based in Macon, Georgia. The band was formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1969 by brothers Duane Allman and Gregg Allman , who were supported by Dickey Betts , Berry Oakley , Butch Trucks , and Jai Johanny "Jaimoe"...
and The Marshall Tucker Band
The Marshall Tucker Band
The Marshall Tucker Band is an American Southern rock band originally from Spartanburg, South Carolina. The band's blend of rock, rhythm and blues, jazz, country, and gospel helped establish the Southern rock genre in the early 1970s...
.
Progressive rock
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
, Captain Beefheart
Captain Beefheart
Don Van Vliet January 15, 1941 December 17, 2010) was an American musician, singer-songwriter and artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work was conducted with a rotating ensemble of musicians called The Magic Band, active between 1965 and 1982, with whom he recorded 12...
and Blood, Sweat and Tears, to more pop rock oriented bands like Boston
Boston (band)
Boston is an American rock band from Boston, Massachusetts that achieved its most notable successes during the 1970s and 1980s. Centered on guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter, and producer Tom Scholz, the band is a staple of classic rock radio playlists...
, Foreigner
Foreigner (band)
Foreigner is a British-American rock band, originally formed in 1976 by veteran English musicians Mick Jones and ex-King Crimson member Ian McDonald along with American vocalist Lou Gramm...
, Kansas
Kansas (band)
Kansas is an American rock band that became popular in the 1970s initially on Album-Oriented Rock charts, and later with hit singles such as "Carry On Wayward Son" and "Dust in the Wind"...
, Journey
Journey (band)
Journey is an American rock band formed in 1973 in San Francisco by former members of Santana. The band has gone through several phases; its strongest commercial success occurred between the 1978 and 1987, after which it temporarily disbanded...
and Styx
Styx (band)
Styx is an American rock band that became famous for its albums from the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Chicago band is known for melding the style of prog-rock with the power of hard rock guitar, strong ballads, and elements of American musical theater....
. These, beside British bands Supertramp
Supertramp
Supertramp are a British rock band formed in 1969 under the name Daddy before renaming to Supertramp in early 1970. Though their music was initially categorised as progressive rock, they have since incorporated a combination of traditional rock and art rock into their music...
and ELO
ELO
- Music :* Electric Light Orchestra, a British rock music group** The Electric Light Orchestra , the group's debut album** ELO 2, the group's second album* ELO Part II, an offshoot band of Electric Light Orchestra- Sports and games :...
, all demonstrated a prog rock influence and while ranking among the most commercially successful acts of the 1970s, issuing in the era of pomp or arena rock
Arena rock
Arena rock is a term used to describe rock music that utilised large arena venues, particularly sports venues, for concerts or series of concerts linked in tours...
, which would last until the costs of complex shows (often with theatrical staging and special effects), would be replaced by more economical rock festival
Rock festival
A rock festival, or a rock fest, is a large-scale rock music concert, featuring multiple acts.The first rock festivals were put on in the late 1960s and were important socio-cultural milestones. In the 1980s a minor resurgence of festivals occurred with charity as the goal.Today, they are often...
s as major live venues in the 1990s.
New Wave
Many American bands in the late seventies began experimenting with synthesizerSynthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
s, forming the new wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
style. The original American bands included Talking Heads
Talking Heads
Talking Heads were an American New Wave and avant-garde band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band comprised David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison...
, The Cars
The Cars
The Cars are an American rock band that emerged from the early New Wave music scene in the late 1970s. The band consisted of lead singer and rhythm guitarist Ric Ocasek, lead singer and bassist Benjamin Orr, guitarist Elliot Easton, keyboardist Greg Hawkes and drummer David Robinson...
, and Devo
Devo
Devo is an American band formed in 1973 consisting of members from Kent and Akron, Ohio. The classic line-up of the band includes two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs and the Casales . The band had a #14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It", and has maintained a cult...
. In the eighties, Britain would respond with the synthpop
Synthpop
Synthpop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Kraut rock" of...
style, which broadened the definition of "new wave".
Power Pop
Combining elements of punk rockPunk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
and pop music
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
, bands such as The Romantics
The Romantics
The Romantics is an American New Wave band from Detroit, Michigan, formed in 1977. The band adopted the name "The Romantics" because they formed on Valentine's Day, 1977. The Romantics achieved popularity in the United Kingdom, The U.S...
, The Knack
The Knack
The Knack was an American New Wave rock quartet based in Los Angeles that rose to fame with their first single, "My Sharona", an international number one hit in 1979.-Founding :...
, and Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick is an American rock band from Rockford, Illinois, formed in 1973. The band consists of members Robin Zander , Rick Nielsen , Tom Petersson , and Bun E...
created the "power pop" sound. Also seeing mild success is Loverboy
Loverboy
Loverboy is a Canadian rock group formed in 1980 in Calgary, Alberta. Throughout the 1980s, the band accumulated numerous hit songs in Canada and the United States, earning four multi-platinum albums and selling millions of records...
.
Punk rock
The mid '70s saw the rise of punk music from its protopunkProtopunk
Protopunk is a term used retrospectively to describe a number of musicians who were important precursors of punk rock in the late 1960s to mid-1970s, or who have been cited by early punk musicians as influential...
-garage band
Garage band
The term garage band can refer to:* A band that performs garage rock* GarageBand, audio production software published by Apple Inc.* GarageBand.com, a website that helps publicize emerging bands...
roots in the 1960s and early 1970s. The Ramones
Ramones
The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group...
and Blondie
Blondie (band)
Blondie is an American rock band, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American New Wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s...
were some of the earliest American Punk rock acts to make it big in both the United Kingdom and the United States Punk music has also been heavily associated with a certain punk fashion
Punk fashion
Punk fashion is the clothing, hairstyles, cosmetics, jewelry, and body modifications of the punk subculture. Punk fashion varies widely, ranging from Vivienne Westwood designs to styles modeled on bands like The Exploited. The distinct social dress of other subcultures and art movements, including...
and absurdist humor which exemplified a genuine suspicion of mainstream culture and values. Blondie quickly lost their punk roots going on to become a pop/ska/reggae band.
Blues Rock
Blues rock remains popular, with Eric ClaptonEric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
, ZZ Top
ZZ Top
ZZ Top is an American rock band, sometimes referred to as "That Little Ol' Band from Texas". Their style, which is rooted in blues-based boogie rock, has come to incorporate elements of arena, southern, and boogie rock. The band, from Houston Texas, formed in 1969...
, and George Thorogood
George Thorogood
George Thorogood is an American blues rock vocalist/guitarist from Wilmington, Delaware, United States, known for his hit song "Bad to the Bone" as well as for covers of blues standards such as Hank Williams' "Move It On Over" and John Lee Hooker's "House Rent Boogie/One Bourbon, One Scotch, One...
seeing the greatest success.
Soft rock and singer-songwriter
Some of the more notable pop/soft rock groups during the 1970s were the Carpenters, the Jackson 5, Bay City RollersBay City Rollers
The Bay City Rollers were a Scottish pop band who were most popular in the 1970s. The British Hit Singles & Albums noted that they were "tartan teen sensations from Edinburgh", and were "the first of many acts heralded as the 'Biggest Group since The Beatles' and one of the most screamed-at...
, The Guess Who
The Guess Who
The Guess Who are a Canadian rock band from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Initially gaining recognition in Canada, they also found international success from the late 1960s through the mid-1970s with numerous hit singles, including "American Woman", "These Eyes" and "Share the Land"...
, the Osmonds and Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...
.
Male soloists who characterized the pop music of the era included Barry Manilow
Barry Manilow
Barry Manilow is an American singer-songwriter, musician, arranger, producer, conductor, and performer, best known for such recordings as "Could It Be Magic", "Mandy", "Can't Smile Without You", and "Copacabana ."...
, Tom Jones
Tom Jones (singer)
Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...
, Johnny Mathis
Johnny Mathis
John Royce "Johnny" Mathis is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standards, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status, and 73 making the Billboard charts...
, Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck was a German composer, best known for his opera, Hänsel und Gretel. Humperdinck was born at Siegburg in the Rhine Province; at the age of 67 he died in Neustrelitz, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.-Life:After receiving piano lessons, Humperdinck produced his first composition...
, Eric Carmen
Eric Carmen
Eric Howard Carmen is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and keyboardist.He scored numerous hit songs across the 1970s and 1980s, first as a member of the Raspberries , and then with his solo career, including hits such as "All By Myself", "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again", "She Did It",...
, Leo Sayer
Leo Sayer
Leo Sayer is a British singer-songwriter, musician, and entertainer whose singing career has spanned four decades. Sayer became a naturalised Australian citizen in 2009. Sayer was a top singles and album act on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1970s...
, Shaun Cassidy
Shaun Cassidy
Shaun Paul Cassidy is an American actor, singer, writer, and producer. He is the eldest son of Academy Award winning actress Shirley Jones, and the second son of Tony award-winning actor Jack Cassidy...
and Rod Stewart
Rod Stewart
Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....
. Female soloists who epitomized the '70s included Cher
Cher
Cher is an American recording artist, television personality, actress, director, record producer and philanthropist. Referred to as the Goddess of Pop, she has won an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globes and a Cannes Film Festival Award among others for her work in...
, Carly Simon
Carly Simon
Carly Elisabeth Simon is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records, and has since been the recipient of two Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for her work...
, Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick is an American singer, actress and TV show host, who became a United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, and a United States Ambassador of Health....
, Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
, Rita Coolidge
Rita Coolidge
Rita Coolidge is a multiple Grammy Award-winning American vocalist. During the 1970s and 1980s, she charted hits on Billboard's Pop, Country, Adult Contemporary and Jazz charts.-Career:...
, and Helen Reddy
Helen Reddy
Helen Reddy , often referred to as "The Queen of 70s Pop", is an Australian-American singer and actress. In the 1970s, she enjoyed international success, especially in the United States, where she placed fifteen singles in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. Six of those 15 songs made the Top 10...
.
Soft rock
Soft rock is a style of music which uses the techniques of rock music to compose a softer, more toned-down sound. Soft rock songs generally tend to focus on themes like love, everyday life and relationships. The genre tends to make heavy use of acoustic guitars, pianos, synthesizers and sometimes...
was prominently featured on many Top 40 and contemporary hit radio
Contemporary hit radio
Contemporary hit radio is a radio format that is common in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by the Top 40 music charts...
stations throughout the 1970s. Soft rock often used acoustic instruments and placed emphasis on melody
Melody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...
and harmonies. Major soft rock artists of the 1970s included Carole King
Carole King
Carole King is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. King and her former husband Gerry Goffin wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have become standards. As a singer, King had an album, Tapestry, top the U.S...
, James Taylor
James Taylor
James Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....
, Billy Joel
Billy Joel
William Martin "Billy" Joel is an American musician and pianist, singer-songwriter, and classical composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, according to...
, Chicago
Chicago (band)
Chicago is an American rock band formed in 1967 in Chicago, Illinois. The self-described "rock and roll band with horns" began as a politically charged, sometimes experimental, rock band and later moved to a predominantly softer sound, becoming famous for producing a number of hit ballads. They had...
, America
America (band)
America is an English-American folk rock band that originally included members Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell and Dan Peek. The three members were barely out of their teens when they became a musical sensation during 1972, scoring #1 hits and winning a Grammy for best new musical artist...
and Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac are a British–American rock band formed in 1967 in London.The only original member present in the band is its eponymous drummer, Mick Fleetwood...
, whose Rumours (1977) was the best-selling album of the decade. (See the country music section of this article for more about country music that crossed over onto the pop charts.) Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
's 1975-1976 Rolling Thunder Revue
Rolling Thunder Revue
The Rolling Thunder Revue was a famed U.S. concert tour consisting of a traveling caravan of musicians, headed by Bob Dylan, that took place in late 1975 and early 1976; the prevailing theory was that the tour was named after the Native American shaman Rolling Thunder. Others maintained that tour...
reunited him with a number of folk-rock acts from his early days of performing, most notably Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
.
A large number of country-pop and booom lar fit into the singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
classification — that is, songs written and recorded by the same person. Some of the most successful singer-songwriter artists were Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne
Jackson Browne is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone....
, Eric Carmen
Eric Carmen
Eric Howard Carmen is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and keyboardist.He scored numerous hit songs across the 1970s and 1980s, first as a member of the Raspberries , and then with his solo career, including hits such as "All By Myself", "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again", "She Did It",...
, Jim Croce
Jim Croce
James Joseph "Jim" Croce January 10, 1943 – September 20, 1973 was an American singer-songwriter. Between 1966 and 1973, Croce released five studio albums and 11 singles...
, John Denver
John Denver
Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. , known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer/songwriter, activist, and humanitarian. After growing up in numerous locations with his military family, Denver began his music career in folk music groups in the late 1960s. His greatest commercial success...
, Steve Goodman
Steve Goodman
Steve Goodman was an American folk music singer-songwriter from Chicago, Illinois. The writer of "City of New Orleans", made popular by Arlo Guthrie, Goodman won two Grammy Awards.-Personal life:...
, Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Davy Guthrie is an American folk singer. Like his father, Woody Guthrie, Arlo often sings songs of protest against social injustice...
, Joel, Dave Mason
Dave Mason
David Thomas "Dave" Mason is an English singer, songwriter, and guitarist from Worcester, who first found fame with the rock band Traffic...
, Don McLean
Don McLean
Donald "Don" McLean is an American singer-songwriter. He is most famous for the 1971 album American Pie, containing the renowned songs "American Pie" and "Vincent".-Musical roots:...
, Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
, Paul Simon
Paul Simon
Paul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...
, Kris Kristofferson
Kris Kristofferson
Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...
and Gordon Lightfoot
Gordon Lightfoot
Gordon Meredith Lightfoot, Jr. is a Canadian singer-songwriter who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music, and has been credited for helping define the folk-pop sound of the 1960s and 1970s...
— had previously been primarily songwriters but began releasing albums and songs of their own. King's album Tapestry became one of the top-selling albums of the decade, and the song "It's Too Late" became one of the 1970s biggest songs. McLean's 1971 song "American Pie," inspired by the death of Buddy Holly
The Day the Music Died
On February 3, 1959, a small-plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, killed three American rock and roll pioneers: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, as well as the pilot, Roger Peterson. The day was later called The Day the Music Died by Don McLean, in his song...
, became one of popular music's most-recognized songs of the 20th century
Songs of the Century
The "Songs of the Century" list is part of an education project by the Recording Industry Association of America , the National Endowment for the Arts, and Scholastic Inc. that aims to "promote a better understanding of America’s musical and cultural heritage" in American schools...
, thanks to its abstract and vivid storytelling, which center around "The Day the Music Died" and popular music of the rock era.
The early 1970s marked the departure of Diana Ross
Diana Ross
Diana Ernestine Earle Ross is an American singer, record producer, and actress. Ross was lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during the 1960s. After leaving the group in 1970, Ross began a solo career that included successful ventures into film and Broadway...
from The Supremes
The Supremes
The Supremes, an American female singing group, were the premier act of Motown Records during the 1960s.Originally founded as The Primettes in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959, The Supremes' repertoire included doo-wop, pop, soul, Broadway show tunes, psychedelic soul, and disco...
and the breakup of Simon & Garfunkel. Ross, Simon and Art Garfunkel
Art Garfunkel
Arthur Ira "Art" Garfunkel is an American singer-songwriter, poet, and actor, best known as being a member of the folk duo Simon & Garfunkel...
all continued hugely successful recording careers throughout the decade and beyond. Several of their songs are listed among the biggest hits of the 1970s: Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water
Bridge over Troubled Water
Bridge Over Troubled Water is the fifth and final studio album by Simon & Garfunkel. Released on January 26, 1970 on both Quadraphonic and Stereo formats, it reached No. 1 on Billboard Music Charts pop albums list...
," Simon's solo hit "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
"50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" is a 1975 hit song by Paul Simon, from his album Still Crazy After All These Years. Backing vocals on the single were performed by Patti Austin, Valerie Simpson and Phoebe Snow.-Creation:...
," and Ross' "Ain't No Mountain High Enough
Ain't No Mountain High Enough
"Ain't No Mountain High Enough" is an R&B/soul song written by Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson in 1966 for the Tamla Motown label. The composition was first successful as a 1967 hit single recorded by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, becoming a hit again in 1970 when recorded by former Supremes...
."
R&B and urban
Along with disco, funkFunk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
was one of the most popular genres of music in the '70s. Primarily an African-American genre, it was characterized by the heavy use of bass and "wah-wah" pedals. Rhythm was emphasized over melody. Artists such as James Brown
James Brown
James Joseph Brown was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist. He is the originator of Funk and is recognized as a major figure in the 20th century popular music for both his vocals and dancing. He has been referred to as "The Godfather of Soul," "Mr...
, The Meters
The Meters
The Meters are an American funk band based in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Meters performed and recorded their own music from the late 1960s until 1977...
, Parliament-Funkadelic
Parliament-Funkadelic
Parliament-Funkadelic is a funk, soul and rock music collective headed by George Clinton. Their style has been dubbed P-Funk. Collectively the group has existed under various names since the 1960s and has been known for top-notch musicianship, politically charged lyrics, outlandish concept albums...
and Sly And The Family Stone pionered the genre. It then spawned artists such as Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...
, Rufus (band)
Rufus (band)
Rufus was an American funk band from Chicago, Illinois best known for launching the career of lead singer Chaka Khan. They had several hits throughout their career, including "Tell Me Something Good," "Sweet Thing," and "Ain't Nobody."-Origins:...
, The Brothers Johnson, Kool & The Gang
Kool & the Gang
Kool & the Gang are an American jazz, R&B, soul, and funk group, originally formed as the Jazziacs in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1964.They went through several musical phases during the course of their recording career, starting out with a purist jazz sound, then becoming practitioners of R&B and...
, Earth, Wind & Fire
Earth, Wind & Fire
Earth, Wind & Fire is an American soul and R&B band formed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1969 by Verdine and Maurice White. Also known as EWF, the band has won six Grammy Awards and four American Music Awards. They have been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Vocal Group Hall of...
, Bootsy's Rubber Band, King Floyd
King Floyd
King Floyd was a New Orleans soul singer and songwriter, best known for his Top 10 hit from 1970, "Groove Me".-Early career:...
, Tower of Power
Tower of Power
Tower of Power is an American R&B-based horn section and band, originating in Oakland, California, that has been performing for over 43 years. They are best known for their funky soul sound highlighted by a powerful horn section...
, Ohio Players
Ohio Players
The Ohio Players were an American funk and R&B band, most popular in the 1970s. They are best known for their double #1 hit songs "Fire" and "Love Rollercoaster".- Biography :...
, The Commodores, War
War (band)
War is an American funk band from California, known for the hit songs "Low Rider", "Spill the Wine", "The Cisco Kid" and "Why Can't We Be Friends?". Formed in 1969, War was a musical crossover band which fused elements of rock, funk, jazz, Latin, rhythm and blues, and reggae...
, Kool & the Gang
Kool & the Gang
Kool & the Gang are an American jazz, R&B, soul, and funk group, originally formed as the Jazziacs in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1964.They went through several musical phases during the course of their recording career, starting out with a purist jazz sound, then becoming practitioners of R&B and...
, Confunkshun, Gap Band
Gap Band
The Gap Band was an American funk band, who rose to fame during the 1970s and 1980s. Comprising brothers Charlie, Ronnie and Robert Wilson, the band first formed as the Greenwood, Archer and Pine Street Band in 1967 in their hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The group shortened its name to The Gap Band...
, Slave
Slave (band)
Slave was an Ohio funk band popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Trumpeter Steve Washington and Mark Hicks formed the group in Dayton, Ohio in 1975.-Career:Trombonist Floyd Miller teamed with Tom Lockett Jr...
, Cameo
Cameo (band)
Cameo is an American soul-influenced funk group that formed in the early 1970s. Cameo was initially a 13-member group known as the New York City Players; this name was later changed to Cameo to avoid a lawsuit from Ohio Players, another group from that era. Since then, Cameo has recorded several...
, the Bar-Kays
Bar-Kays
The Bar-Kays are a popular soul, R&B, and funk group who began performing in 1966 and continue to perform today, although with only one original member. The group had dozens of charting singles from the 1960s to the 1980s, including "Soul Finger" The Bar-Kays are a popular soul, R&B, and funk group...
, Zapp
Zapp (band)
Zapp is a soul and funk band formed in 1978 by brothers Roger Troutman, Larry Troutman, Lester Troutman, Terry Troutman, Bobby Glover and Gregory Jackson [Cincinnati Ohio Funk Keyboardist]...
, and many more.
The Jackson 5
The Jackson 5
The Jackson 5 , later known as The Jacksons, were an American popular music family group from Gary, Indiana...
became one of the biggest pop-music phenomena of the 1970s, playing from a repertoire of rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
, soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
, pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
and later disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
. The Jacksons — brothers Jackie
Jackie Jackson
Sigmund Esco "Jackie" Jackson is an American singer and musician, a member of The Jackson 5, and the second child in the Jackson family.-Life and career:...
, Tito
Tito Jackson
Toriano Adaryll "Tito" Jackson is an American singer and lead guitarist and original member of The Jackson 5. He is the older brother of American pop stars Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson.-Early life and rise to stardom:...
, Jermaine
Jermaine Jackson
Jermaine La Jaune Jackson is an American singer, bassist, composer, a member of The Jackson 5, older brother of American pop stars Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson and occasional film director...
, Marlon
Marlon Jackson
Marlon David Jackson is an American entertainer singer, dancer, former member of The Jackson 5, and elder brother of American pop stars Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson.-Personal life:...
and Michael
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
— the first act in recording history to have their first four major label singles: "I Want You Back
I Want You Back
"I Want You Back" was released in 1969 and in early 1970s became a number-one hit single recorded by The Jackson 5 for the Motown label. The song, along with a b-side cover of Smokey Robinson & the Miracles' "Who's Lovin' You", was the only single from the first Jackson 5 album, Diana Ross Presents...
", "ABC
ABC (song)
"ABC" is a 1970 number-one hit song by The Jackson 5. "ABC" was written with the same design as "I Want You Back", and was first heard on American Bandstand in February 1970. "ABC" knocked The Beatles song "Let It Be" out of the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970...
", "The Love You Save
The Love You Save
"The Love You Save" is a 1970 number-one hit single recorded by The Jackson 5 for the Motown label. It held the number-one spot on the soul singles chart for six weeks. It held the number-one position on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for two weeks, from June 27 to July 4, 1970...
", and "I'll Be There" reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
. The band served as the launching pad for the solo careers of their lead singers Jermaine and Michael, and while Jermaine had some success, it was Michael who would transform his early fame into greater success as an adult artist, with songs such as "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough
Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough
"Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" is a single by American recording artist Michael Jackson. Released under Epic Records on July 28, 1979, the song is the first single from Jackson's fifth studio album, entitled Off the Wall. Written by Jackson, it is in the key of B major and in common time...
" and "Rock with You."
The Commodores were another group that played from a diverse repertoire, including R&B, funk and pop. Lionel Richie
Lionel Richie
Lionel Brockman Richie, Jr. , is an American singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Since 1968, he has been a member of the musical group Commodores signed to Motown Records...
, who went on to even greater success as a solo artist in the 1980s, fronted the group's biggest 1970s hits, including "Easy," "Three Times a Lady
Three Times a Lady
* The song was also covered in the country genre by country singer Billy "Crash" Craddock on his 1986 album Crash Craddock and in 2007 by Cobra Starship as an iTunes bonus track for their album ¡Viva La Cobra!...
" and "Still
Still (Commodores song)
"Still" is a song by the soul music group the Commodores. It reached number one in the U.S. in 1979. It was released as a single on Motown Records with "Such A Woman" as the B-side. The song appears on their hit album Midnight Magic. The song reached the top of both the pop and R&B charts. It is...
."
Country
Nashville sound
The Nashville sound originated during the late 1950s as a sub-genre of American country music, replacing the chart dominance of honky tonk music which was most popular in the 1940s and 1950s...
— an offshoot of the earlier "Nashville Sound" of the late 1950s and early 1960s — and the honky-tonk fused Bakersfield Sound
Bakersfield sound
The Bakersfield sound was a genre of country music developed in the mid- to late 1950s in and around Bakersfield, California. The many hit singles were largely produced by Capitol Records country music head, Ken Nelson. Bakersfield country was a reaction against the slickly produced, string...
were some of the more popular styles.
The countrypolitan sound — a polished, streamlined sound featuring string sections, background vocals and crooning lead vocalists — was popularized by artists including Lynn Anderson
Lynn Anderson
Lynn Rene Anderson is an American country music singer and equestrian known for a string of hits throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, most notably her Grammy Award-winning, worldwide mega-hit, " Rose Garden." Helped by her regular exposure on national television, Anderson was one of the most...
, Glen Campbell
Glen Campbell
Glen Travis Campbell is an American country music singer, guitarist, television host and occasional actor. He is best known for a series of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as for hosting a variety show called The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS television.During his 50 years in show...
, Anne Murray
Anne Murray
Morna Anne Murray CC, ONS is a Canadian singer in pop, country and adult contemporary styles whose albums have sold over 54 million copies....
, Dottie West
Dottie West
Dottie West was an American country music singer and songwriter. Along with her friends and co-recording artists Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, she is considered one of the genre's most influential and groundbreaking female artists...
, Tammy Wynette
Tammy Wynette
Virginia Wynette Pugh, known professionally as Tammy Wynette , was an American country music singer-songwriter and one of the genre's best-known artists and biggest-selling female vocalists....
and others, achieving their successes through such songs as "(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden," "Snowbird
Snowbird (song)
"Snowbird" is a song by the Canadian songwriter Gene MacLellan. Though it has been recorded by many performers , it is best known through Anne Murray's 1970 version, which launched her into a long career of international exposure. It was a #2 hit on Canada's pop chart and went to #1 on both the...
" and others. The Bakersfield sound, first popularized in the early 1960s, continued its peak in popularity through artists such as Buck Owens
Buck Owens
Alvis Edgar Owens, Jr. , better known as Buck Owens, was an American singer and guitarist who had 21 No. 1 hits on the Billboard country music charts with his band, the Buckaroos...
and Merle Haggard
Merle Haggard
Merle Ronald Haggard is an American country music singer, guitarist, fiddler, instrumentalist, and songwriter. Along with Buck Owens, Haggard and his band The Strangers helped create the Bakersfield sound, which is characterized by the unique twang of Fender Telecaster guitars, vocal harmonies,...
.
But other styles began to emerge during the 1970s. One of the more successful styles was "outlaw country
Outlaw country
Outlaw country is a subgenre of country music, most popular during the late 1960s and the 1970s , sometimes referred to as the outlaw movement or simply outlaw music...
," a type of music blending the traditional and honky tonk sounds of country music with rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
and blues music
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, and mixed with the anger of an alienated subculture of the nation during the period. The leaders of the movement were Waylon Jennings
Waylon Jennings
Waylon Arnold Jennings was an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Jennings began playing at eight. He began performing at twelve, on KVOW radio. Jennings formed a band The Texas Longhorns. Jennings worked as a D.J on KVOW, KDAV and KLLL...
and Willie Nelson
Willie Nelson
Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...
, although others associated with the movement were David Allan Coe
David Allan Coe
David Allan Coe is an American outlaw country music singer who achieved popularity in the 1970s and 1980s. He has written and performed over 280 original songs throughout his career...
, Jessi Colter
Jessi Colter
Jessi Colter is an American country music artist who is best known for her collaboration with her husband, country singer and songwriter Waylon Jennings and for her 1975 country-pop crossover hit "I'm Not Lisa"....
, Tompall Glaser
Tompall Glaser
Tompall Glaser is an American country music artist. Active since the 1950s, he has recorded both as a solo artist and with his brothers Chuck and Jim in the trio Tompall & the Glaser Brothers...
, Gary Stewart
Gary Stewart (singer)
Gary Stewart was a country musician and songwriter known for his distinctive vibrato voice and his southern rock influenced, outlaw country sound...
and Billy Joe Shaver
Billy Joe Shaver
Billy Joe Shaver is a Texas country music singer and songwriter. Shaver's 1973 album Old Five and Dimers Like Me is a classic in the outlaw country genre.-Biography:...
. The efforts of Jennings, Nelson, Colter and Glaser were encapsulated in the 1976 album Wanted! The Outlaws
Wanted! The Outlaws
Wanted! The Outlaws is an album by Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter, and Tompall Glaser, released in RCA Victor in 1976, and consisting of previously released material. Released to capitalize on the new outlaw country movement, Wanted! The Outlaws earned its place in music history by...
.
The country pop
Country pop
Country pop, with roots in both the countrypolitan sound and in soft rock, is a subgenre of country music that first emerged in the 1970s. Although the term first referred to country music songs and artists that crossed over to Top 40 radio, country pop acts are now more likely to cross over to...
sound was a successor to the countrypolitan sound of the early 1970s. In addition to artists such as Murray and Campbell, several artists who were not initially marketed as country were enjoying crossover success with country audiences through radio airplay and sales. The most successful of these artists included The Bellamy Brothers, Charlie Rich
Charlie Rich
Charles Rich was an American country music singer and musician. A Grammy Award winner, his eclectic-style of music was often hard to classify in a single genre, playing in the rockabilly, jazz, blues, country, and gospel genres.In the latter part of his life, Rich acquired the nickname The Silver...
, John Denver
John Denver
Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. , known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer/songwriter, activist, and humanitarian. After growing up in numerous locations with his military family, Denver began his music career in folk music groups in the late 1960s. His greatest commercial success...
, Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John AO, OBE is a singer and actress. She is a four-time Grammy award winner who has amassed five No. 1 and ten other Top Ten Billboard Hot 100 singles and two No. 1 Billboard 200 solo albums. Eleven of her singles and 14 of her albums have been certified gold by the RIAA...
, Marie Osmond
Marie Osmond
Olive Marie Osmond is an American singer, actress, doll designer, and a member of the show business family The Osmonds. Although she was never part of her family's singing group, she gained success as a solo country music artist in the 1970s and 1980s...
, B. J. Thomas
B. J. Thomas
Billy Joe "B. J." Thomas is an American popular singer known for his chart-topping hits in the 1960s and 1970s—appearing on the pop, adult contemporary, country and Hot 100 charts.-Career:...
and Kenny Rogers
Kenny Rogers
Kenneth Donald "Kenny" Rogers is an American singer-songwriter, photographer, record producer, actor, and entrepreneur...
. Newton-John, an Australian pop singer, was named Female Vocalist of the Year by the Country Music Association
Country Music Association
The Country Music Association was founded in 1958 in Nashville, Tennessee. It originally consisted of only 233 members and was the first trade organization formed to promote a music genre...
, sparking a debate that continues to this day — what is country music? A group of traditional-minded artists, troubled by this trend, formed the short-lived Association of Country Entertainers, in an attempt to bring back traditional honky-tonk sounds to the forefront. The debate continued into 1975, a year where six songs reached No. 1 on both the Billboard Hot Country Singles
Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...
and Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
charts. Things came to a head when, at that year's CMA Awards, Rich — the reigning Entertainer of the Year, and himself a crossover artist — presented the award to his successor, "my good friend, Mr. John Denver." His statement, taken as sarcasm, and his setting fire to the envelope (containing Denver's name) with a cigarette lighter were taken as a protest against the increasing pop style in country music.
By the later half of the 1970s, Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton
Dolly Rebecca Parton is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music. Dolly Parton has appeared in movies like 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias and Straight Talk...
, a highly successful traditional-minded country artist since the late 1960s, mounted a high profile campaign to crossover to pop music, culminating in her 1977 hit "Here You Come Again", which peaked at No. 1 country and No. 3 pop. Rogers, the former lead singer of The First Edition
The First Edition
The First Edition was a country music/rock band. Its stalwart members being Kenny Rogers , Mickey Jones and Terry Williams...
, followed up a successful career in pop, rock and folk music by switching to country music. Like Parton, he enjoyed a long series of successful songs that charted on both the Hot Country Singles and Billboard Hot 100 charts; the first of the lot was "Lucille
Lucille (Kenny Rogers song)
"Lucille" is the title of a ballad written by Roger Bowling and Hal Bynum, and recorded by Kenny Rogers. It was released in January 1977 as the second and final single from the album Kenny Rogers. The song is about a man in a bar that meets a woman who has left her husband...
," a No. 1 country and No. 5 pop hit. Crystal Gayle
Crystal Gayle
Crystal Gayle is an American country music singer best known for her 1977 country-pop hit, "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue". An award-winning singer, she accumulated 18 number one country hits during the 1970s and 1980s...
, Ronnie Milsap
Ronnie Milsap
Ronnie Lee Milsap is an American country music singer and pianist. He was one of country’s most popular and influential performers of the 1970s and 1980s...
, Eddie Rabbitt
Eddie Rabbitt
Edward Thomas "Eddie" Rabbitt was an American singer-songwriter and musician. His career began as a songwriter in the late 1960s, springboarding to a recording career after composing hits such as "Kentucky Rain" for Elvis Presley in 1970 and "Pure Love" for Ronnie Milsap in 1974...
and Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...
were some of the other artists who also found success on both the country and pop charts with their records as well.
The 1970s continued a trend toward a proliferation of No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart. In 1970, there were 23 songs that reached the top spot on the chart, but by the mid 1970s, more than 40 titles rotated in and out of the top spot for the first time in history. The trend temporarily reversed itself by the late 1970s, when about 30 to 35 songs reached the pinnacle position of the chart annually.
Other developments
In the second half of the decade, a 1950s nostalgia movement prompted the Rockabilly Revival fad. The Stray Cats led the revival into the early 1980s. QueenQueen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...
participated through their hit "Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
"Crazy Little Thing Called Love" is a song by the rock band Queen. Written by Freddie Mercury in 1979, the track featured on their 1980 album The Game, and also appears on the band's compilation album, Greatest Hits...
". Billy Joel
Billy Joel
William Martin "Billy" Joel is an American musician and pianist, singer-songwriter, and classical composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, according to...
provided "Piano Man
Piano Man (song)
"Piano Man" was Billy Joel's first major hit and his signature song. "Piano Man" was released as a single in November 1st, 1973 and has been on several albums...
" and "Only The Good Die Young
Only The Good Die Young
"Only the Good Die Young" is a song from Billy Joel's 1977 pop rock album, The Stranger. The song was controversial for its time, with the lyrics describing a boy who tries to convince a Catholic girl who is a virgin to have sex with him....
". Also symbolizing this trend was the hit movie Grease
Grease (film)
Grease is a 1978 American musical film directed by Randal Kleiser and based on Warren Casey's and Jim Jacobs's 1971 musical of the same name about two lovers in a 1950s high school. The film stars John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, and Jeff Conaway...
in 1978, starring John Travolta
John Travolta
John Joseph Travolta is an American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease...
and Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John AO, OBE is a singer and actress. She is a four-time Grammy award winner who has amassed five No. 1 and ten other Top Ten Billboard Hot 100 singles and two No. 1 Billboard 200 solo albums. Eleven of her singles and 14 of her albums have been certified gold by the RIAA...
.
Tying in with the nostalgia craze, several stars of the late 1950s and early 1960s successfully revived their careers during the early- to mid-1970s after several years of inactivity. The most successful of these were Rick Nelson ("Garden Party", 1972), Paul Anka
Paul Anka
Paul Albert Anka, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and actor.Anka first became famous as a teen idol in the late 1950s and 1960s with hit songs like "Diana'", "Lonely Boy", and "Put Your Head on My Shoulder"...
("(You're) Having My Baby
(You're) Having My Baby
" Having My Baby" is a song written and recorded by Canadian popular music singer Paul Anka. Recorded as a duet with female vocalist Odia Coates, the song became Anka's first No...
", 1974), Neil Sedaka
Neil Sedaka
Neil Sedaka is an American pop/rock singer, pianist, and composer. His career has spanned nearly 55 years, during which time he has sold millions of records as an artist and has written or co-written over 500 songs for himself and other artists, collaborating mostly with lyricists Howard...
("Laughter in the Rain
Laughter in the Rain
"Laughter in the Rain" is a song recorded by Neil Sedaka and composed by Sedaka with lyrics by Phil Cody. It hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on February 1, 1975. The song also spent two weeks atop the adult contemporary chart.-Covers:...
" and "Bad Blood
Bad Blood (Neil Sedaka song)
"Bad Blood" was a popular song written by Neil Sedaka and Phil Cody. The song, with uncredited backing vocals by Elton John, reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1975, remaining in the top position for three weeks. It was certified gold by the RIAA and was the most successful individual...
", both 1975), and Frankie Valli
Frankie Valli
Frankie Valli is an American musician, most famous as frontman of The Four Seasons. He is well-known for his unusually powerful falsetto singing voice...
as both a solo artist (1975's "My Eyes Adored You
My Eyes Adored You
"My Eyes Adored You" is a popular song written by Bob Crewe and Kenny Nolan. It was originally recorded by The Four Seasons in early 1974. After the MoWest label balked at the idea of releasing it, the recording was sold to lead singer Frankie Valli for $4000...
") and with The Four Seasons (1976's "December 1963 (Oh, What A Night)"). In addition, Perry Como
Perry Como
Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with them in 1943. "Mr...
—one of the most successful pre-rock era artists—enjoyed continued success, albeit on a somewhat smaller scale (as most of his fans were adults who grew up during the 1940s and early 1950s, and not the rock record-buying youth); his most successful hits of the decade were "It's Impossible" (1970) and the Don McLean song "And I Love Her So" (1973).
Two of popular music's most successful artists died within six weeks of each other in 1977: Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
(on August 16) and Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
(on October 14). Presley — whose top hit in the 1970s was 1972's "Burning Love
Burning Love
"Burning Love" is a song written by Dennis Linde, first recorded by Arthur Alexander, who included it on his self-titled 1971 album, and made famous by Elvis Presley, who took it to #2 in the United States in 1972...
"— was ranked among the top artists of the rock era and currently, he's the best selling artist of all time, while Crosby was among the most successful pre-rock era artists.
The early seventies also marked the deaths of rock legends Jim Morrison
Jim Morrison
James Douglas "Jim" Morrison was an American musician, singer, and poet, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band The Doors...
, Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
, and Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
as well as the plane crash in 1977
1977 Convair 240 crash
On Thursday, October 20, 1977, a Convair CV-300 chartered by the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd from L&J Company of Addision, TX ran out of fuel and crashed near the end of its flight from Greenville, South Carolina, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana...
in which three members of Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd is an American rock band prominent in spreading Southern Rock during the 1970s.Originally formed as the "Noble Five" in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1964, the band rose to worldwide recognition on the basis of its driving live performances and signature tune, Freebird...
were killed.
Billboard Artist of the Decade
On December 1979 the American music magazine Billboard Magazine named the English singer Elton JohnElton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
as the best Artist of the Decade for the 1970s. He joined the list with The Beatles and Elvis Presley, who have also been awarded with this prestigious honor in their respective decades.
The U.K and Europe
Pop
ABBA
ABBA was a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm in 1970 which consisted of Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Agnetha Fältskog...
. The Swedish group, who are still the most successful group from their country, first found fame when they won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest
Eurovision Song Contest 1974
The Eurovision Song Contest 1974 was the 19th Eurovision Song Contest. It was held in the seaside resort of Brighton on the south coast of the United Kingdom...
. They became one of the most widely known European groups ever and one of the best selling artists of all time. "Take a Chance on Me
Take a Chance on Me
"Take a Chance on Me" is a song by the Swedish pop group ABBA. It was released in 1978 as the second single from their fifth studio album, simply called The Album. The song has been featured on a number of ABBA compilations such as ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits.-History:The working title of "Take a...
" and "Dancing Queen
Dancing Queen
"Dancing Queen" is a pop song recorded by Swedish pop group ABBA. It was released in August 1976, but was first performed two months earlier, on 18 June 1976, during a Royal Variety Show in Stockholm the evening before the Swedish royal wedding. It was the follow-up single to the hit "Fernando"...
" are two of ABBA's most popular songs.
Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
became the decade's biggest pop star, releasing diverse styles of music that ranged from ballads to arena rock; some his most popular songs included "Crocodile Rock
Crocodile Rock
"Crocodile Rock" is a song written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, and recorded in June 1972 at the Strawberry Studios, Château d'Hérouville in France. It was released on 27 October 1972 in the UK and 20 November 1972 in the US, as a pre-release single from his forthcoming 1973 album Don't Shoot...
," "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (song)
"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" is a ballad performed by musician Elton John. The song was written by Bernie Taupin and composed by John for his album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Its musical style and production is heavily influenced by 1970s soft rock...
," "Bennie and the Jets
Bennie and the Jets
"Bennie and the Jets" is a song composed by Elton John and Bernie Taupin. The song is written in the key of G major and first appeared on the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album in 1973. "Bennie and the Jets" has been one of John's most popular songs....
," "Philadelphia Freedom
Philadelphia Freedom (song)
"Philadelphia Freedom" is a song released by Elton John as a single in 1975. The song was one of John's numerous number-one U.S. hit singles during the early and mid-1970s, which saw his recordings dominating the charts. In Canada, it was his eighth single to hit the top of the RPM national...
and "Don't Go Breaking My Heart
Don't Go Breaking My Heart
"Don't Go Breaking My Heart" is a duet by Elton John and Kiki Dee. It was written by Elton John with Bernie Taupin under the pseudonym "Ann Orson" and "Carte Blanche" , and intended as an affectionate pastiche of the Tamla Motown style, notably the various duets recorded by Marvin Gaye and singers...
" (the latter a duet with Kiki Dee
Kiki Dee
Kiki Dee is an English singer with a career spanning more than 40 years....
). Other European soft rock major artists of the decade included Cat Stevens
Cat Stevens
Yusuf Islam , commonly known by his former stage name Cat Stevens, is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, philanthropist, and prominent convert to Islam....
, Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac are a British–American rock band formed in 1967 in London.The only original member present in the band is its eponymous drummer, Mick Fleetwood...
and Joan Armatrading
Joan Armatrading
Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading, MBE is a British singer, songwriter and guitarist. Armatrading is a three-time Grammy Award-nominee and has been nominated twice for BRIT Awards as Best Female Artist...
. (See the country music section of this article for more about country music that crossed over onto the pop charts.)
Rock
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
in the spring of 1970. Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
formed a new group, Wings
Wings (band)
Wings were a British-American rock group formed in 1971 by Paul McCartney, Denny Laine and Linda McCartney that remained active until 1981....
, and continued to enjoy great mainstream success. The three other former Beatles — John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
, George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
and Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
— all continued hugely successful recording careers throughout the decade and beyond. Several of their songs are listed among the biggest hits of the 1970s: Wings' "Silly Love Songs
Silly Love Songs
Silly Love Songs is a song written by Paul and Linda McCartney and performed by Wings. The song appeared on the 1976 album, Wings at the Speed of Sound. It was also released as a single in 1976. The US single was released on 1 April 1976 and reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The UK single was...
" and "My Love," and Harrison's "My Sweet Lord
My Sweet Lord
"My Sweet Lord" is a song by former Beatles lead guitarist George Harrison from his UK number one hit triple album All Things Must Pass. The song was written in praise of the Hindu god Krishna...
"."
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
gained a cult following in the 1970s, led by Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
, Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...
and Deep Purple
Deep Purple
Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in Hertford in 1968. Along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, they are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal and modern hard rock, although some band members believe that their music cannot be categorised as belonging to any one genre...
, with their styles later influencing other bands like Judas Priest
Judas Priest
Judas Priest are an English heavy metal band from Birmingham, England, formed in 1969. The current line-up consists of lead vocalist Rob Halford, guitarists Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner, bassist Ian Hill, and drummer Scott Travis. The band has gone through several drummers over the years,...
and Motörhead, which eventually started the New Wave of British Heavy Metal in the 1980s.
Progressive rock
Blues-rock
Blues rock is a hybrid musical genre combining bluesy improvisations over the 12-bar blues and extended boogie jams with rock and roll styles. The core of the blues rock sound is created by the electric guitar, piano, bass guitar and drum kit, with the electric guitar usually amplified through a...
and psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
. Dominated by British bands it was part of an attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility. Progressive rock bands attempted to push the technical and compositional boundaries of rock by going beyond the standard verse-chorus
Refrain
A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song...
-based song structure
Song structure (popular music)
The structures or musical forms of songs in popular music are typically sectional, repeating forms, such as strophic form. Other common forms include thirty-two-bar form, verse-chorus form, and the twelve bar blues...
s. The arrangement
Arrangement
The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...
s often incorporated elements drawn from classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, and world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
. Instrumental
Instrumental
An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....
s were common, while songs with lyrics were sometimes conceptual, abstract, or based in fantasy. Progressive rock bands sometimes used "concept album
Concept album
In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...
s that made unified statements, usually telling an epic story or tackling a grand overarching theme." King Crimson have been seen as the band who established the concept of progressive rock". The term was applied to the music of bands such as Yes
Yes (band)
Yes are an English rock band who achieved worldwide success with their progressive, art, and symphonic style of rock music. Regarded as one of the pioneers of the progressive genre, Yes are known for their lengthy songs, mystical lyrics, elaborate album art, and live stage sets...
, Genesis
Genesis (band)
Genesis are an English rock band that formed in 1967. The band currently comprises the longest-tenured members Tony Banks , Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins . Past members Peter Gabriel , Steve Hackett and Anthony Phillips , also played major roles in the band in its early years...
, Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
, Jethro Tull
Jethro Tull (band)
Jethro Tull are a British rock group formed in 1967. Their music is characterised by the vocals, acoustic guitar, and flute playing of Ian Anderson, who has led the band since its founding, and the guitar work of Martin Barre, who has been with the band since 1969.Initially playing blues rock with...
, Soft Machine
Soft Machine
Soft Machine were an English rock band from Canterbury, named after the book The Soft Machine by William S. Burroughs. They were one of the central bands in the Canterbury scene, and helped pioneer the progressive rock genre...
, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Emerson, Lake & Palmer, also known as ELP, are an English progressive rock supergroup. They found success in the 1970s and sold over forty million albums and headlined large stadium concerts. The band consists of Keith Emerson , Greg Lake and Carl Palmer...
. It reached its peak of popularity in the mid 1970s, but had mixed critical acclaim and the punk movement can be seen as a reaction against its musicality and perceived pomposity.
Glam rock
Glam or glitter rock developed in the UK in the post-hippieHippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
early 1970s. It was characterised by outrageous clothes, makeup, hairstyles, and platform-soled boots. The flamboyant lyrics, costumes, and visual styles of glam performers were a campy
Camp (style)
Camp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...
, playing with categories of sexuality in a theatrical blend of nostalgic
Nostalgia
The term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form.The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of , meaning "returning home", a Homeric word, and , meaning "pain, ache"...
references to science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
and old movies, all over a guitar-driven hard rock
Hard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
sound. Pioneers of the genre included David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
, Roxy Music
Roxy Music
Roxy Music was a British art rock band formed in 1971 by Bryan Ferry, who became the group's lead vocalist and chief songwriter, and bassist Graham Simpson. The other members are Phil Manzanera , Andy Mackay and Paul Thompson . Former members include Brian Eno , and Eddie Jobson...
, Mott the Hoople
Mott the Hoople
Mott the Hoople were a British rock band with strong R&B roots, popular in the glam rock era of the early to mid 1970s. They are popularly known for the song "All the Young Dudes", written for them by David Bowie and appearing on their 1972 album of the same name.-The early years:Mott The Hoople...
, Marc Bolan
Marc Bolan
Marc Bolan was an English singer-songwriter, guitarist and poet. He is best known as the founder, frontman, lead singer & guitarist for T. Rex, but also a successful solo artist...
and T.Rex. These, and many other acts straddled the divide between pop and rock music, managing to maintain a level of respectability with rock audiences, while enjoying success in the singles chart, including Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...
and Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
. Other performers aimed much more directly for the popular music market, where they were the dominant groups of their era, including and Slade
Slade
Slade are an English rock band from Wolverhampton, who rose to prominence during the glam rock era of the early 1970s. With 17 consecutive Top 20 hits and six number ones, the British Hit Singles & Albums names them as the most successful British group of the 1970s based on sales of singles...
and Sweet
Sweet (band)
Sweet was a British rock band that rose to worldwide fame in the 1970s as one of the most prominent glam rock acts, with the classic line-up of lead vocalist Brian Connolly, bass player Steve Priest, guitarist Andy Scott, and drummer Mick Tucker.Sweet was formed in 1968 and achieved their first...
. The glitter image was pushed to its limits by Gary Glitter
Gary Glitter
Gary Glitter is an English former glam rock singer-songwriter and musician.Glitter first came to prominence in the glam rock era of the early 1970s...
and The Glitter Band
The Glitter Band
The Glitter Band are a glam rock band from England, who initially worked as Gary Glitter's backing band under that name from 1973, when they then began releasing records of their own. They were unofficially known as the Glittermen on the first four hit singles by Gary Glitter from 1972 to 1973. The...
. Largely confined to the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, glam rock peaked during the mid 1970s, before it disappeared in the face of punk rock and new wave trends.
Soft rock and singer-songwriters
Soft rock
Soft rock is a style of music which uses the techniques of rock music to compose a softer, more toned-down sound. Soft rock songs generally tend to focus on themes like love, everyday life and relationships. The genre tends to make heavy use of acoustic guitars, pianos, synthesizers and sometimes...
and hard rock
Hard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
. Soft rock was often derived from folk rock
Folk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
, using acoustic instruments and putting more emphasis on melody and harmonies. It reached its commercial peak in the mid- to late-70s with acts like the reformed Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac are a British–American rock band formed in 1967 in London.The only original member present in the band is its eponymous drummer, Mick Fleetwood...
, whose Rumours (1977) was the best-selling album of the decade. Major British soft rock artists of the 1970s included 10cc
10cc
10cc are an English art rock band who achieved their greatest commercial success in the 1970s. The band initially consisted of four musicians -- Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley, and Lol Creme -- who had written and recorded together for some three years, before assuming the "10cc" name...
, Mungo Jerry
Mungo Jerry
Mungo Jerry is an English rock group whose greatest success was in the early 1970s, though they have continued throughout the years with an ever-changing line-up, always fronted by Ray Dorset. They are remembered above all for their hit "In the Summertime". It remains their most successful and most...
and Rod Stewart
Rod Stewart
Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....
. A large number of soft-rock songs fit into the singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
classification — that is, songs written and recorded by the same person. Some of the most successful singer-songwriter artists were Cat Stevens
Cat Stevens
Yusuf Islam , commonly known by his former stage name Cat Stevens, is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, philanthropist, and prominent convert to Islam....
, Steve Winwood
Steve Winwood
Stephen Lawrence "Steve" Winwood is an English international recording artist whose career spans nearly 50 years. He is a songwriter and a musician whose genres include soul music , R&B, rock, blues-rock, pop-rock, and jazz...
and Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
.
Punk rock
The mid '70s saw the rise of punk music from its protopunkProtopunk
Protopunk is a term used retrospectively to describe a number of musicians who were important precursors of punk rock in the late 1960s to mid-1970s, or who have been cited by early punk musicians as influential...
-garage band
Garage band
The term garage band can refer to:* A band that performs garage rock* GarageBand, audio production software published by Apple Inc.* GarageBand.com, a website that helps publicize emerging bands...
roots in the 1960s and early 1970s. The the Sex Pistols
Sex Pistols
The Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. They were responsible for initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and inspiring many later punk and alternative rock musicians...
, and The Clash
The Clash
The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, dance, and rockabilly...
were some of the earliest British acts to make it big in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Groups like the Clash were noted for the experimentation of style, especially that of having strong ska
Ska
Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...
influences in their music. Punk music has also been heavily associated with a certain punk fashion
Punk fashion
Punk fashion is the clothing, hairstyles, cosmetics, jewelry, and body modifications of the punk subculture. Punk fashion varies widely, ranging from Vivienne Westwood designs to styles modeled on bands like The Exploited. The distinct social dress of other subcultures and art movements, including...
and absurdist humor which exemplified a genuine suspicion of mainstream culture and values.
Australia and New Zealand
AC/DC
AC/DC are an Australian rock band, formed in 1973 by brothers Malcolm and Angus Young. Commonly classified as hard rock, they are considered pioneers of heavy metal, though they themselves have always classified their music as simply "rock and roll"...
became one of the most popular and successful acts in Australia, scoring a string of hits albums and singles. The band found a degree of international success, especially with the release of their Highway to Hell
Highway to Hell
Highway to Hell can refer to:*Highway to Hell , 1979 album by AC/DC**"Highway to Hell" , the title track from the album*Stairway to Heaven/Highway to Hell*Highway to Hell , a 1992 film starring Chad Lowe and Kristy Swanson...
album in 1979.
The Bee Gees — brothers Barry
Barry Gibb
Barry Alan Crompton Gibb, CBE , is a singer, songwriter and producer. He was born in the Isle of Man to English parents. With his brothers Robin and Maurice, he formed The Bee Gees, one of the most successful pop groups of all time. The trio got their start in Australia, and found their major...
, Maurice
Maurice Gibb
Maurice Ernest Gibb, CBE was a musician, singer-songwriter and record producer. He was born on the Isle of Man, the twin brother of Robin Gibb, and younger brother to Barry. He is best known as a member of the singing/songwriting trio the Bee Gees, formed with his brothers...
and Robin Gibb
Robin Gibb
Robin Hugh Gibb, CBE is a British singer and songwriter. He is best known as a member of the Bee Gees, co-founded with his twin brother Maurice , and elder brother Barry....
— had been a successful harmonic act as the 1970s dawned; while they continued to have success with ballads such as "How Deep is Your Love
How Deep Is Your Love
"How Deep Is Your Love" is a pop song recorded by the Bee Gees in 1977 and released as a single in September. Originally intended for Yvonne Elliman, it was ultimately used as part of the soundtrack to the film Saturday Night Fever. It was a number three hit in the United Kingdom and Australia...
," the Gibb brothers' most successful songs were their disco recordings, including "Stayin' Alive
Stayin' Alive
"Stayin' Alive" is a song by the pop group Bee Gees from the Saturday Night Fever motion picture soundtrack. The song was written by the Bee Gees and produced by the Bee Gees, Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson. It was released on 13 December 1977, as the second single from the Saturday Night Fever...
" Jive Talking and "Night Fever
Night Fever
"Night Fever" is a disco song, written and performed by The Bee Gees. It first appeared on the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever. Producer Robert Stigwood wanted to call the film Saturday Night, but singer Robin Gibb expressed hesitation at the title. Stigwood liked the title Night Fever but was...
" (both from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack). The Gibbs' youngest brother, Andy
Andy Gibb
Andy Gibb was an English singer and teen idol, and the youngest brother of the family whose other male siblings formed the Bee Gees: Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb.-The early years:...
, had a successful solo career of his own, also with disco songs such as "I Just Want to Be Your Everything
I Just Want to Be Your Everything
"I Just Want to Be Your Everything" was a hit song by pop singer Andy Gibb. The first single released from his debut album, Flowing Rivers, it became the first of three consecutive number one Billboard Hot 100 singles for Gibb...
" and "Shadow Dancing
Shadow Dancing (song)
"Shadow Dancing" is a song by Andy Gibb that reached number one for seven weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1978. According to Billboard's Book Of Number One Hits, Gibb became the first solo artist in the history of the U.S. pop charts to have his first three singles hit the number-one spot...
."
The most successful Australian female artist of the decade, Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John AO, OBE is a singer and actress. She is a four-time Grammy award winner who has amassed five No. 1 and ten other Top Ten Billboard Hot 100 singles and two No. 1 Billboard 200 solo albums. Eleven of her singles and 14 of her albums have been certified gold by the RIAA...
became a leading singer in the 1970s in both popular
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
and country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
music and had several number one hits, including the songs "Let Me Be There
Let Me Be There
"Let Me Be There" is a popular song written by John Rostill. It was first recorded by Olivia Newton-John in 1973 and included on her album of the same title. The country influenced song was Newton-John's first Top 10 single in the U.S., peaking at No. 6, and also won her a Grammy Award for Best...
" and "I Honestly Love You
I Honestly Love You
"I Honestly Love You" was a worldwide pop hit single for Olivia Newton-John in 1974. The song was Newton-John's first number-one single in the United States and Canada, thus cementing her as a household name in North America....
" for which she received three Grammy
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
s.
Additional top music acts in Australia and New Zealand included Little River Band, Sherbet
Sherbet (band)
Sherbet was one of the most prominent and successful Australian rock bands of the 1970s. Their biggest singles were "Summer Love" and "Howzat" , both reaching number one in Australia. "Howzat" was also a top 5 hit in the UK. Though the band's success in the U.S...
, Skyhooks, Dragon
Dragon (band)
Dragon is a popular New Zealand rock band, they were formed in Auckland, New Zealand in January 1972 and relocated to Sydney, Australia in May 1975. They were previously led by singer Marc Hunter and are currently led by his brother bass player Todd Hunter...
, Hush
Hush (band)
Hush was a 1970s Australian glam rock pop group and became famous during frequent appearances on the ABC show Countdown for live concerts and teenagers, and they would not have come into existence without the superb John Koutts on drums....
and the Ted Mulry Gang.
Reggae
Bob Marley
Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers...
, Peter Tosh
Peter Tosh
Peter Tosh, born Winston Hubert McIntosh , was a Jamaican reggae musician who was a core member of the band The Wailers , and who afterward had a successful solo career as well as being a promoter of Rastafari.Peter Tosh was born in Grange Hill, Jamaica, an illegitimate child to a mother too young...
, and Bunny Wailer
Bunny Wailer
Bunny Wailer, , also known as Bunny Livingston and affectionately as Jah B, is a singer songwriter and percussionist and was an original member of reggae group The Wailers along with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh...
in 1963 which used to play Ska
Ska
Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...
and Rocksteady
Rocksteady
Rocksteady is a music genre that originated in Jamaica around 1966. A successor to ska and a precursor to reggae, rocksteady was performed by Jamaican vocal harmony groups such as The Gaylads, The Maytals and The Paragons. The term rocksteady comes from a dance style that was mentioned in the Alton...
music during the 1960s which became popular in the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
and Africa since the early 1970s after they start playing Reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
music. Later on the band became very popular in the U.S. and in Europe. The Wailers broke up in 1974 with each of the three main members going on to pursue solo careers. Despite the breakup, Marley continued recording music as "Bob Marley & The Wailers". In 1975, Marley had his international breakthrough with his first hit outside Jamaica, "No Woman, No Cry
No Woman, No Cry
"No Woman, No Cry" is a reggae song by Bob Marley & The Wailers. The song first became known in 1974 through the studio album Natty Dread. The live version from the 1975 album Live! is perhaps best known — it was this version which was released on the greatest hits compilation Legend. The original...
", from the Natty Dread
Natty Dread
Natty Dread is a 1974 reggae album by Bob Marley & The Wailers. An important transition in Marley's discography, Natty Dread was the first album released as Bob Marley & the Wailers and the first recorded without former bandmates Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer...
album. The success of the album Exodus (1977), which included the major international hits "Jamming
Jamming (song)
"Jamming" is a song by the reggae band Bob Marley & the Wailers from their 1977 album Exodus. The song also appears on the compilation album Legend....
", "Turn Your Lights Down Low
Turn Your Lights Down Low
"Turn Your Lights Down Low" is a song by Bob Marley & The Wailers from their 1977 album Exodus.-Covers:*Colbie Caillat made a cover version of this song on her 2008 album Coco.*Lauryn Hill covered this tune on the 1999 LP Chant Down Babylon...
" and "One Love
One Love (Bob Marley song)
"One Love/People Get Ready" is a reggae/rhythm and blues song by Bob Marley & The Wailers from their 1977 album Exodus. It was first recorded in a ska style by Marley's original group, The Wailers, on their 1965 debut album The Wailing Wailers, and a heavily reworked version was included on African...
, propelled Marley to international stardom.
In addition to the Wailers, other significant pioneers include Prince Buster
Prince Buster
Cecil Bustamente Campbell, O.D. , better known as Prince Buster, and also known by his Muslim name Muhammed Yusef Ali, is a musician from Kingston, Jamaica. He is regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of ska and rocksteady music...
, Desmond Dekker
Desmond Dekker
Desmond Dekker was a Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae singer-songwriter and musician. Together with his backing group, The Aces , he had one of the first international Jamaican hits with "Israelites". Other hits include "007 " and "It Miek"...
, Jackie Mittoo
Jackie Mittoo
Jackie Mittoo was a Jamaican keyboardist, songwriter and musical director. He was a founding member of The Skatalites and was a mentor to many younger performers, primarily through his work as musical director for the Studio One record label.-Biography:He was born Donat Roy Mittoo in Browns Town,...
and several others.
Nueva canción
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
the '60s music influence remained strong and two styles developed from it one that followed the European and North American trends and Nueva Canción
Nueva canción
Nueva canción is a movement and genre within Latin American and Iberian music of folk music, folk-inspired music and socially committed music...
that focused on the renewal of folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
including Andean music
Andean music
Andean music comes from the general area inhabited by Quechuas, Aymaras and other peoples that lived roughly in the area of the Inca Empire prior to European contact. It includes folklore music of parts of Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela...
and Cueca
Cueca
Cueca is a family of musical styles and associated dances from Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Argentina. In Chile, the cueca holds the status of national dance, where it was officially selected on September 18, 1979.- Origins :...
. Some bands such as Los Jaivas
Los Jaivas
Los Jaivas are a Chilean musical group who perform in folk, rock, and progressive rock styles.-History:Los Jaivas appeared in Chilean music in 1963 as a progressive-rock-andino group, mixing rock with South American ancestral music...
mixed both streams and created a syncretism between folklore and progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
. The Nueva Canción
Nueva canción
Nueva canción is a movement and genre within Latin American and Iberian music of folk music, folk-inspired music and socially committed music...
movement got an even more marked protest association after all countries in the Southern Cone
Southern Cone
Southern Cone is a geographic region composed of the southernmost areas of South America, south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Although geographically this includes part of Southern and Southeast of Brazil, in terms of political geography the Southern cone has traditionally comprised Argentina,...
became (or were already) military dictatorships in the '70s.
Rock
In the '70s Rock en EspañolRock en Español
Rock en español is the Spanish-language rock music. While the term is used widely in English, it is used in Spanish mainly to distinguish such music from "Anglo rock." It is a style of rock music that developed in Latin American countries and Latino communities, along with other genres like...
began to emerge (specially in Argentina), and as imitation bands became fewer rock music started to develop more independently from the outside, although many rock bands still preferred to sing in English. The Argentine defeat in the Falklands War
Falklands War
The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...
in 1982 followed by the fall of the military junta that year diminished need of Nueva Canción as protest music there in favour of other styles. In Chile the Nueva Canción styles developed through the '70s would remain popular until the return to democracy in 1990.
Cumbia
It was during the '70s the cumbiaCumbia
Cumbia is a music genre popular across Latin America. The cumbia originated in the Caribbean coast of Colombia, where it is associated with an eponymous dance and has since spread as far as Mexico and Argentina...
became widely popular outside Colombia. Several bands bought Cumbia to Mexico, Peru and Argentine, places that later became major scenes for further developments of cumbia music. While Nueva Canción was the music of the New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
and the rock developments of Argentina reflected the European oriented youth, cumbia became widely popular among the large poor sectors of Latin American countries, to such degree that it came to be associated with shantytowns and low-prestige Native American populations.
Salsa and merengue
The salsa musicSalsa music
Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...
developed in the 1960s and '70s by Puerto Rican and Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n immigrants to the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
area but did not enter into mainstream popularity in Latin America until the late '80s. The Merengue music
Merengue music
Merengue is a type of music and dance from the Dominican Republic. It is popular in the Dominican Republic and all over Latin America. Its name is Spanish, taken from the name of the meringue, a dessert made from whipped egg whites and sugar...
experienced during the late '70s a golden age of productivity characterized by the rise of a new generation of musicians.
Other trends
The commercial cinemas around the world tended to imitate nuances of disco beats in their movies to present their movies as western and upbeat. These included the increasingly popular Kung-fu movies in far East AsiaEast Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
and Bollywood
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...
movies from India.