This article includes an overview of the major events and trends in popular music in the 1970s. In North America, Europe, and Oceania, the decade saw the rise of disco, which then went on to become one of the biggest genres of the decade, especially in the mid-to-late 1970s. In Europe, a variant known as Euro disco rose in popularity towards the end of the 1970s. Aside from disco, funk, soul, R&B, smooth jazz, and jazz fusion remained popular throughout the decade. Rock music played an important part in the Western musical scene, with punk rock thriving throughout the mid to late 1970s.
Other sub-genres of rock, particularly glam rock,Auslander, Philip (2006). Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music. University of Michigan Press. p. 49. hard rock, progressive rock, art rock, blues rock, and heavy metal achieved various amounts of success. Other genres such as reggae were innovative throughout the decade and grew a significant following. Hip hop emerged during this decade, but was slow to start and did not become significant until the late 1980s. Classical began losing a little momentum; however, through invention and theoretical development, this particular genre gave rise to experimental classical and minimalist music by classical composers. A sub-genre of classical, film scores, remained popular with movie-goers.
Alongside the popularity of experimental music, the decade was notable for its contributions to electronic music, which rose in popularity with the continued development of synthesizers and harmonizers; more composers embraced this particular genre, gaining the notice of listeners who were looking for something new and different. Its rising popularity, mixed with the popular music of the period, led to the creation of synthpop. Pop also had a popularity role in the 1970s.
In Africa, especially Nigeria, the genre known as Afrobeat gained a following throughout the 1970s.
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 experienced mainstream exposure across Latin America and the southern US border states.
In Asia, music continued to follow varying trends. In Japan, the decade saw several musical trends, including pop music, folk music, rock music and disco music.Martin C. Strong; Brendon Griffin (18 September 2008). Lights, Camera, Soundtracks: The Ultimate Guide to Popular Music in the Movies. Canongate Books. p. 338. .
Overview
In an essay published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau wrote:
According to Christgau, the decade also saw greater fragmentation along stylistic lines because of the rise of semipopular music: "It goes back to whenever arty types began to find 'the best' rock worthy of attention in the '60s, but in the '60s tolerance was the rule; it was easier to name rough substyles—say British invasion, folk-rock, psychedelic, and soul—than to analyze their separate audiences (even racial distinctions were fuzzy). Not until 1968 or 1969, when it became a hippie commonplace to dismiss soul as 'commercial' and when bubblegum and 'white blues' developed into clear categories, did the breakdown really begin. And only in the '70s did genres start asserting themselves: singer-songwriter and interpreter, art-rock and heavy metal and country-rock and boogie, fusion and funk and disco and black MOR, punk and new wave, and somehow straddling them all, the monolith of pop-rock."
Europe
Rock One of the first events of the 1970s was the break-up 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. Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison all released extremely successful solo albums in 1970 and 1971, Imagine, McCartney, and All Things Must Pass, and 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"."
Hard rock and early metal
Hard rock and heavy metal 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. This eventually started the new wave of British heavy metal in the 1980s.
Black Sabbath, formed in 1968 (as The Polka Tulk Blues Band, then Earth), is often credited with inventing the metal genre as well as stoner rock, doom metal, as well as sparking a revolution with much darker lyrics than were the norm in rock at that time.
Progressive rock
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 structures. The arrangements often incorporated elements drawn from classical, jazz, and world music. Instrumentals were common, while songs with lyrics were sometimes conceptual, abstract, or based in fantasy. Progressive rock bands sometimes used "concept albums that made unified statements, usually telling an epic story or tackling a grand overarching theme." King Crimson as well as The Moody Blues have been seen as the bands who established the concept of "progressive rock". The term was applied to the music of bands such as Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Supertramp 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. Nevertheless, Pink Floyd's 1973 release, The Dark Side of the Moon, was an immediate success, remaining in the charts for 741 weeks from 1973 to 1988, with an estimated 50 million copies sold. It is Pink Floyd's most commercially successful album and one of the best-selling albums worldwide. It has twice been remastered and re-released, and has been covered in its entirety by several other acts. It spawned two singles, "Money" and "Time". In addition to its commercial success, The Dark Side of the Moon is one of Pink Floyd's most popular albums among fans and critics, and is frequently ranked as one of the greatest rock albums of all time.
Glam rock Glam or glitter rock developed in the UK in the post-hippie early 1970s. It was characterized by outrageous clothes, makeup, hairstyles, and platform-soled boots. The flamboyant lyrics, costumes, and visual styles of glam performers were 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, Arrows, Roxy Music, Mott the Hoople, Sparks, 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 Slade, Sweet, and Mud. 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.
Soft rock
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-1970s 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, the Hollies, Rod Stewart, the Alan Parsons Project, and Paul McCartney and Wings. Some of the most successful singers and songwriters were Cat Stevens, Steve Winwood, Albert Hammond, Rupert Holmes, and Elton John.J. Beethoven and C. Moore, Rock-It: Textbook (Alfred Music Publishing, 1980), , pp. 37–8.
Punk rock The mid-1970s saw the rise of punk music from its protopunk-garage band roots in the 1960s and early 1970s. 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 humour which exemplified a genuine suspicion of mainstream culture and values. The Sex Pistols caused a major sensation in 1977 and were the first serious challenge to the established rock groups like the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, although the punk era in Britain lasted only three years and effectively ended with the Pistols' breakup.
Pop Elton John became the decade's biggest solo 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 biggest bands of the 1970s were the UKs Bee Gees who dominated the 1970s music scene having a string of number one hits and albums in the U.K. the U.S. and Europe they have generally been considered one of the most important acts of the 1970s, selling over 250 million albums worldwide to date.
One of the most successful European groups of the decade, and one of the best-selling acts with 380 million records sold, was the quartet ABBA. The most successful Swedish group of all time, ABBA first found fame when they won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest. They became one of the most widely known European groups ever, as well as Queen promo 1970s.
New wave In the late 1970s, many bands in the United Kingdom began experimenting with synthesizers, forming the new wave style known as synthpop. Major synthpop bands around this time included Gary Numan and Tubeway Army, the Buggles, the Human League, and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Other successful British new wave bands in the late 1970s included the Police, Echo & the Bunnymen, Adam and the Ants, Roxy Music, Squeeze, XTC, the Cure, the Stranglers, Joy Division, and Siouxsie and the Banshees.
North America
Disco, R&B, funk, and soul The Bee Gees were one of, if not the 1970s biggest musical act dominating album sales, singles sales and music charts of many countries including the U.S. and UK. They were leaders in the disco and pop music scenes of the 1970s; at one point, according to Barry Gibb, they had five songs in the top 10 of the U.S. Billboard charts at the same time, three of those being in the top 5. They were the main writers and performers of the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever which with over 50 million copies worldwide became the second biggest-selling soundtrack of all time, and was the biggest-selling album of all time until Michael Jackson's Thriller surpassed it. Some critics have labeled the Bee Gees as the decade-defining act of the 1970s.