Best 12 British albums of the 70s – listed | Music | Entertainment
What were the best British albums released in the 1970s? It’s not an easy question to answer. The 70s were one of the richest decades for new music, hugely wide-ranging and rapidly changing. It started with the birth of heavy metal, saw the first multi-platinum sales for progressive rock, and diversified into glam rock, pub rock and jazz-rock, until punk rock arrived, begetting New Wave, 2-Tone, the Mod revival, and street-punk. Disco hit the charts in 1974 and never went away. Changing Man Bowie released hit singles every year except 1971, influencing the likes of Gary Numan, Bauhaus and Kurt Cobain. Iron Maiden emerged as the vanguard band of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, and unique talents like Kate Bush, Elvis Costello, Elton John, Queen, Roxy Music, and Elkie Brooks flourished. Being a rock writer in London in the late 70s was like having Christmas every week. The scene was vital. You could see new bands every night – The Police at the Hope & Anchor, Iron Maiden at the Cart & Horses, U2 at the Canning Town Bridgehouse. Punk blew away all the barriers. This Top 12 list tries to cover as many of those developments as possible rather than my own favourites. It’s in chronological order with twelve of the best 1970s American albums at the end, because the Yanks had a great decade too. Feel free to tell me what I’ve missed!
Black Sabbath Perform Live In Amsterdam
1970
Black Sabbath – Paranoid
‘Finished with my woman cos she couldn’t help me with my mind…’ I was 15 when I saw Black Sabbath performing Paranoid on Top Of The Pops in September, 1970. Ozzy looked demented and the driving, angst-filled anthem excited a generation of bored teenagers. Black Sabbath didn’t just widen my tastes, they changed popular music forever by creating the cornerstone for a new kind of rock – heavy metal. Out went middle-class hippies, in came something harder, meaner, and altogether more down to earth. Paranoid was Sabbath’s second album, released half a year after their self-titled debut. Although written quickly, the eight tracks include revered classics like War Pigs, an awesome and still relevant anti-war anthem packed with raw power and delivered over slow, ominous, brutal guitar. Iron Man was similarly dark, built over Tony Iommi’s iconic riff, the lyrics (written by bassist Terry ‘Geezer’ Butler) foresaw a time traveller “turned to steel, in a great magnetic field”. The faster, catchier Fairies Wear Boots, shifted tempos and delivered baffling lyrics – said to be either a dig at skinheads or a dig by skinheads at Ozzy’s long hair, plus unrelated drug references. Geezer’s bass lines are terrific and Bill Ward’s drumming manages to be both tight and flexible. The music inspired by these working-class yobs from the backstreets of Birmingham, continues to thrive worldwide to this day.
Elton John released two of his finest albums this year too: his self-titled second LP and Tumbleweed Connection. Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam) broke big in the USA with the exquisite Tea For The Tillerman. And Deep Purple In Rock stayed in the UK charts for more than a year.
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Jethro Tull, Beruf
1971
Jethro Tull. Aqualung. Blending hard rock, folk music, social commentary, and progressive rock, Tull’s fourth studio album broke the band in America where it went triple platinum; it was a Top 5 hit here. It featured some of their stand-out songs such as Locomotive Breath, where singer and songwriter Ian Anderson addresses the runaway train of population growth over a rhythm that echoes a speeding locomotive. The epic title track is Ian’s “guilt-ridden” but richly descriptive lyrical portrait of a perverted homeless man. It changes from a slow, heavy opening riff to an acoustic bridge before accelerating into the second verse followed by Martin Barre’s distinctive guitar solo. Other stand-out tracks include My God, which criticises organised religion, accusing the world’s churches of ‘locking Him in his gilded cage’, and which morphs from an acoustic guitar intro into rockier passages and a middle 8 that alternates between Anderson’s flute and Gregorian-style choral singing. Continuing the theme Hymn 43 is “a blues for Jesus, about the gory, glory seekers who use his name as an excuse for a lot of unsavoury things”; while the more menacing Cross-Eyed Mary tackles teenage prostitution. All of Tull’s strengths are here – intricate musicianship, intelligence, daring and cynicism. No wonder their fans range from John Lydon to Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris.
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Robert Plant
1971
Led Zeppelin. IV.
Up there with Led Zep II as their greatest album, this eight-track magnum opus packs in hard rock, folk, stormy blues, and mysticism. As well as the iconic eight-minute anthem Stairway To Heaven, there are awesomely intense high-volume rockers like Black Dog and Rock And Roll, and their mystical mandolin-driven masterwork The Battle Of Evermore, featuring Robert Plant’s bewitching duet with Fairport Convention’s Sandy Denny and lyrics dipped in Tolkien mythology. Going To California, another dreamy classic, showcases the band’s emotional depth and is Zeppelin’s tribute to Joni Mitchell. Robert Plant sings tenderly over Jimmy Page’s acoustic guitar and John Paul Jones’s mandolin. He’s dreaming of a girl ‘with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair’ and gets a punch on the nose instead. Stairway To Heaven is the crowning glory of course, slowly building from its gentle acoustic ballad start to a ferocious conclusion. Jimmy Page’s beautiful solo, played on a 1959 Telecaster, is one of the finest ever recorded. John Bonham’s drumming is top class throughout.
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Rod Stewart performing with his group “Faces
1971
Rod Stewart. Every Picture Tells A Story.
Already a star from his success with the Faces and the Jeff Beck Group, Londoner Rod broke through to solo success with his third solo album, laying the foundation stones for his subsequent super-stardom. Every Picture came loaded with timeless classics like Maggie May – written by Stewart and Steamhammer’s guitarist Martin Quittenton – his own Mandolin Wind, and a sublime cover of Tim Hardin’s (Find a) Reason To Believe. The nine tracks captured Rod’s unique blend of rock, folk and soul and built on his image as a likeable rogue, the modern-day troubadour first seen on Gasoline Alley. Reason To Believe was the first hit from it, but was outsold by B-side Maggie May which topped the charts worldwide, selling two million copies in the USA alone. The album kicks off with the hard-rocking title track, co-written by Rod and his Faces comrade Ronnie Wood, which is still a live favourite. Other gems include his covers of The Temptations (I Know) I’m Losing You, Bob Dylan’s Tomorrow Is A Long Time, Ted Anderson’s Seems Like A Long Time, and Arthur Crudup’s That’s All Right which segues into a tasteful blues take on Amazing Grace. Released in November it showcased Rod’s unique vocals, a rare mix of raspy grit and soulful tenderness dubbed ‘gravel over velvet’, and sold seven and a half million copies worldwide. He followed it with 1972’s Never A Dull Moment, co-writing the Number One single, You Wear It Well, with Martin Quittenton which again highlighted Stewart’s signature mix of mandolin, fiddle, and acoustic guitar, and reinforced his reputation as a storyteller.
1971 also gave the world The Who’s magnificent Who’s Next and the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers which blended blues-rock and country with maximum swagger.
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