1970s Popular Music
Day 29: The Fragmentation of Pop
• The 1960s rolled into the 1970s, leaving
behind a series of unresolved issues. As a
result, the 1970s are often viewed as a decade
of retreat.
• Rock became scattered and unfocused,
breaking up into little genres.
Merger Mania
Warner Communications Empire
– Warner Brothers Records
• Signed the Grateful Dead in 1967
• Steve Ross became President of the company
– By 1973, Warner Communications owned:
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A couple dozen record labels
Holdings in film and television
Mad magazine
63 comic books
A piece of Ms. magazine
• Connection between music and the
military
• Recording Technology – multi-track
recording
• Promotional Power – new visual
dimension to live rock shows, new small
venues for performances with new
effects…eventually went out of business
as shows became too big and moved to
stadiums and arenas
• Progressive FM Rock Radio – replaced
Top 40 format
• Rock Press
– Rolling Stone Magazine and Jann Wenner
• Launched on October 18, 1967
• First issue featured John Lennon on cover
Day 30: Rock as Art
• Music became at the same level as the status
of art
• Musicians became central to the creative
process
• ‘Rock’ became the mature form of R&R
• Change in race relations that devalued the
contributions of African Americans to rock
Art Rock continued…
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The Who
Treated their stage act as
performance art
Experimented with noise, and
destroyed instruments and
sound systems
Their image established them
as the first pop art band
First rock opera in 1969,
Tommy
Andy Warhol
• Most famous pop artist
• Designed many famous
album covers
Pink Floyd
First British group to
perform with a light show
Reached their pinnacle in
1973 with release of Dark
Side of the Moon album
Introduced the 360 degree
sound system
Another Brick in the Wall
Rock as Art continued…
• Inclusion in the art rock category was linked to art
school training, to the appropriation of classical
and other obscure resources, and even to being
British as well as a white male.
• Art Rock focused on extended songs and LP suites
• Art rockers usually sold far more albums than
singles
• Art rock music was music of the mind, not a
music of the body.
Day 31: Sweeter Soul Music
• Resurgence of AAs on the pop charts in 1972
– AA artists emerged as album-oriented acts
– Popularization of softer soul sounds build the
foundation for disco
• Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff
– Writer-producer team who pioneered Philadelphia
soft soul music
– Formed Philadelphia International Records (PIR)
– Their groups set the standard in black popular music
Jackson 5
Saved Motown when its
other artists were leaving
to go with other labels
First 4 releases went to #1
on the pop charts in 1970:
I Want You Back, ABC, The
Love You Save, & I’ll Be
There
Motown continued…
Stevie Wonder
Marvin Gaye
• Began career at the age of
12
• Challenged Motown’s
formula mentality
• I Was Made to Love Her
• Spent years trying to
convince Berry Gordy to
back him as an album artist
• What’s Goin’ On (1971) &
Let’s Get It On (1973)
Stevie Wonder & Marvin Gaye introduced Motown to the financial
joys of independent production and album-oriented releases.
Both challenged Berry Gordy and his Motown formula.
• James Brown adapted to a new political era by
singing a new political tune.
– In 1970, he voiced that he didn’t want to “help Nixon.”
By 1972, his loyalties changed. He went from ‘Soul
Brother No. 1’ to ‘Sold Brother No. 1.’
– Living in America from Rocky IV (1986)
• Aretha Franklin
– Also faded from the Top 10 charts in mid-70s.
• Roberta Flack
– Killing Me Softly with His Song
• Barry White
– Took romantic sincerity all the way to self-parody with
his Love Unlimited female trio and Orchestra
Day 32: Singer/Songwriters, Soft Rock
Solutions, and More
• Singer/Songwriters of 1970s were
intensely personal
• Soft Rock was gentle…the opposite of
‘hard rock.’ First style that allowed
women to sing in their own voice.
• Joni Mitchell
– 3-octave range for her voice, started the
feminism movement
– Big Yellow Taxi
Singer/Songwriters, Soft Rock, cont…
James Taylor
• One of the most successful
careers of the 1970s
• Very talented and polite
• Married Carly Simon in
1972
• Fire and Rain & Country
Roads
Carly Simon
• Signed to Elektra in 1970
• Her #1 single, You’re So
Vain, is still a mystery
• Nobody Does It Better from
James Bond movie (1977)
Carole King
Was genuine and wrote with
a personal touch, sang in
conversational tone
Outsold everyone in the
music business in 1971
Began career as Brill
Building songwriter in 1960
Her 2nd album, Tapestry,
broke all existing records
(1971).
You’ve Got a Friend
Bruce Springsteen
Singer/Songwriter
A working-class hero,
promoted as the new Dylan
Signed to Columbia Records
1975 – Born to Run album
broke him into the Top 10
1979 – Headlined No Nukes
(weeklong concert series
protesting the construction
of nuclear power plants)
Singer/Songwriters continued…
• Van Morrison
– Brown Eyed Girl
• Bob Marley
• First black international
superstar
• Singer/songwriter from
Jamaica
• No Woman No Cry
Day 33: Women’s Music
• Fanny – first self-contained allfemale rock band signed to a
major label (Reprise Records)
– Helped give women access to
electric instruments
– Charity Ball
• The Runaways – Made up of 4
southern CA teenagers
– Joan Jett, Lita Ford, Micki
Steele, & Suzi Quatro
– Broke up, formed separate
bands, and had more success
in the 1980s
– Cherry Bomb
Women’s Music continued…
• The failure of all-female rock bands and the
hostility of the music industry toward women in
rock bands led to the development of explicitly
female, mostly folk-oriented alternative music.
• Olivia Records – started in 1973 in Washington,
DC
– Formed a network called WILD (Women’s
Independent Labels Distributors) to distribute records
at concerts, in feminist bookstores, and door-to-door
**Women’s music was originally conceived as music by
women, for women, and about women.
Country Rock
• Country Rock – genre started by Bob Dylan
– Nashville, TN was the center for recording Country
Rock
– The Band was hired by Bob Dylan to play back-up
for his 1965 tour.
– The Byrds also moved to a country rock sound.
Country Rock continued…
The Eagles
• Had 16 Top 40 hits & four #1
albums in a row
• Hotel California
John Denver
• A pop/country variant who
scored 15 Top 40 albums
and 32 singles in the Hot
100 between 1971 and
1982
• Country themes and a
jeans-and-flannel image
Country Rock continued…
• The Outlaws – country artists that were drawn
to rock.
– Challenged the conservative control of Nashville
– Willie Nelson, Dollie Parton, and Kenny Rogers
Southern Boogie Bands
The Allman Brothers
• Ramblin’ Man
• Ain’t Wasting No More Time
Lynyrd Skynyrd
• A phonetic spelling of the
name of the high-school
gym teacher who
suspended the group for
wearing long hair
• Sweet Home Alabama
Southern Boogie Bands continued…
• ZZ Top
– Texas-based trio
– Influenced by acid rock and
infused a Tex-Mex culture
– In the 1980s, they adopted
their anonymous bearded
look
The southern rockers could only be distinguished from their
hard rock friends by geography, and, in some cases, personal
appearance.
Day 34: Mad with Power – Heavy Metal
• Heavy Metal represented the absolute rejection
of the peace and love culture. It was hard rock
taken to the extreme.
• Distinctive Qualities:
– Sound quality: power expressed as sheer volume
– The Power Chord
– The power of heavy metal was intended to overwhelm
its listeners.
– Origins lie in blues-based rock, psychedelic music, and
classical music.
• Three pivotal heavy metal bands – Led Zeppelin, Black
Sabbath, & Deep Purple
Heavy Metal
Led Zeppelin
• Became the standard for
heavy metal groups, were a
hit from their first self-titled
album in 1969
• Stairway to Heaven
Black Sabbath
• 5 platinum albums in a row
in less than 4 years
• Lead singer: Ozzy Osbourne
• Iron Man
Heavy Metal
Deep Purple
• Added the influence of
classical music
• Ritchie Blackmore (guitarist)
defined the generation of
metal guitarists
• Smoke on the Water
Aerosmith
• Signed by Columbia in 1972
• Was Boston’s answer to the
Rolling Stones
• Steven Tyler (lead singer)
• Walk This Way
Heavy Metal
Van Halen
• Signed to Warner in late
1970s
• Eddie Van Halen dominated
the guitar, trained as a
classical musician
• (Oh) Pretty Woman
Grand Funk Railroad
• Played raw, basic rock that
was usually out of tune
• We’re an American Band
• Achieved status with
virtually no radio air play
and no press coverage
Heavy Metal: Glitter or Glam Rock
Alice Cooper
• Group of white middle-class
suburban athletes
• Main influence was TV
• Outrageous stage antics
• Performed in spandex, highheeled boots, and makeup
• School’s Out
Kiss
• Made makeup their
trademark
• Their image was their most
important contribution to
rock history.
• I Want to Rock ‘n’ Roll All
Night
Glitter or Glam Rock continued…
• Challenged traditional notions of masculinity
and femininity as no other music had.
– Men wore sequins, platform boots, and full
makeup.
• David Bowie
– The ultimate glam rocker
– Fame
Day 35: Punk and Disco (The Poles of Pop)
• Popular music was on the verge of being
tamed.
• Fleetwood Mac
– Album, Rumours, hit #1 and sold 10 million copies
in the US
Elton John
Billy Joel
• Piano player
• Wore eccentric, glitter
costumes, and wild
eyeglasses
• Early Hits were Rocket Man,
Crocodile Rock, & Bennie
and the Jets
• Piano player
• Intensely personal
songwriter
• Piano Man
• We Didn’t Start the Fire
Punk vs. Disco
• Differences between punk and disco:
– Disco was smooth, punk was rough.
– Disco depended on technological sophistication in the recording
studio, punk was easy to play.
– Disco required dancing, punk had a ‘pit.’
– Disco was a black dance music style, punk aimed to deconstruct R&R.
– Disco focused on leisure suits, punk adorned black leather gear and
ripped t-shirts held w/ safety pins.
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Both shunned by radio.
Both were seen as destroying Western civilization.
Both encouraged active participation.
Both arose in reaction to the “boring” music that preceded them.
Both wanted to intensify the feeling of the moment in an otherwise
uncertain world.
Day 36: Punk - Rock as (White) Noise
• Rivalry between London and New York in the
competition for the punk throne. Started in NY 2
years before it erupted in London.
• The Sex Pistols
– British group
– Never registered a Top 40 album & were not on the
singles charts in the US, broke up before completing
their first and only US tour.
– Important feature of punk: ‘its myth is always more
powerful than its reality.’
CBGB (Country Blue Grass and Blues)
NYC bar that opened in 1974 and became the heart of the NY rock
underground (punk scene)
Iggy Pop and the Stooges
Velvet Underground
• Extremely important band to
the punk scene
• Added the electric viola to
their sound which became
their trademark
• Sunday Morning
• Iggy Pop was named
“Godfather of Punk”
• The Passenger
Punk continued…
• Punk followed the maxim: Whatever is
popular, do the opposite.
– Refused to conform, the refusal to act with good
behavior, and in some cases, the refusal to learn
how to play music.
– Every punk group was very different.
• Television
– First CBGB group to make a splash
Punk as New Wave
Patti Smith
First artist associated with
CBGB to become famous
Started out as a poet
Used an independent single
to attract major label
attention
Signed to Arista Records in
1976
Trademark was a man’s
white shirt and tie
Because the Night
The Ramones
Formed by a group of
middle-class kids from
Forest Hills, NJ
Played only original music
Signed with Sire Records
after performing in the
CBGB Festival of Unsigned
Bands in 1975
2nd punk band to get a major
record contract
I Wanna Be Sedated
New Wave
Blondie
• London was the launching
pad for their success in US
• Lead singer is Deborah
Harry
• Call Me
Talking Heads
• Instant hit at CBGB
• Headlined for the Ramones
• Signed to the Ramones’
label, Sire Records
• Burning Down the House
New Wave
• New York was not the only punk Mecca in US.
There was also Boston and Cleveland.
• Devo
– Formed at Kent State University in Ohio in 1972
– Inverted flowerpot hats and jerky robot
movements defined their image.
– Whip It
Day 37: Anarchy in the UK
Sex Pistols
• Had difficulty finding
suitable venues to play in
• Used scandals to generate
free publicity
• Anarchy in the UK
The Clash
• Name came from the word
used in tabloid headlines
concerning class and race
relations in Britain
• Represented the working
middle class in Britain
• London Calling
• Rock the Casbah
UK Punk continued…
• The Punk Rock Festival
– Stage at the 100 Club in England in Sept 1976
– Lots of problems…was a roaring success in punk
terms!
• The Roxy
– The CBGB of London (home of punk)
Rock Against Racism
• US was started to see “reverse racism” come into
our social language
• Rock Against Racism (RAR) was organized as a
mass movement to oppose the National Front in
Britain
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Staged concerts, paired reggae with punk
Feeling of “black and white together” at events
Bob Marley was key to appeal of reggae in Britain
Crossed line of gender and sexual orientation
One of the most successful marriages of music and
politics ever to occur.
Day 38: Riding the New Wave
Elvis Costello
• Bridged the gap between
punk and new wave
• Combined the words of a
poet with the temper of a
madman
• Staunch supporter of RAR
The Police
• Viewed as too commercial
by the punk community
• Appeared in TV
commercials
• Sting – lead singer
• Roxanne
• Every Breath You Take
New Wave continued…
• The Pretenders
– Immediate success in Britain and US
– Back on the Chain Gang
• Hardcore Punk – increase the speed of the
music to the limits of human endurance
– The Dead Kennedys
• Straightedge Punk – found in Washington, DC,
avoided drugs and alcohol
Disco
• Defining elements: lights shows AND records
rather than live performances.
• Eurodisco: controlled, high-tech energy and
pulsing beat
• Funk Sound:
– Wild Cherry, Play That Funky Music
– Kool and the Gang, Jungle Boogie & Celebration
Funk side of Disco continued…
Earth, Wind, & Fire
• Turned out only platinumselling Top 10 albums
• Transformed their spiritual
interests in Egyptology into
a media-savvy image.
• September
George Clinton
• Wore sequined jumpsuits
and a blonde wig
• Had two bands: the
Parliaments and Funkadelic
• We Want The Funk
Up from the Disco Underground
• When disco first began to emerge
as a genre, most of the initial
releases were by black
artists…continued the development
of black dance music.
• Van McCoy and the Soul City
Orchestra – The Hustle
• Gloria Gayner, I Will Survive
• Donna Summer became the first
disco diva.
Day 39: Disco continued…
• Disco was rarely heard on the radio. Its
primary exposure was in clubs where music
was played by disco deejays.
• Disco fans loved to buy records.
• A Fifth of Beethoven
• Shake Your Booty & That’s The Way I Like It
• Turn the Beat Around
K.C. and the
Sunshine Band
Integrated 10-piece Band
(black, white, & latino)
Get Down Tonight
Boogie Shoes
Their strong r&b sound
became known as “Miami
Sound”
Donna Summer
Signed to Casablanca
Records
Became the ‘Queen of
Disco’
Last Dance earned her the
first of 4 Grammies in 1978
and an Academy Award for
Best Original Song
The Village
People
Signed to Casablanca
Records in 1978
A gay-oriented novelty act
whose members
represented a cowboy, an
Indian, a construction
worker, a soldier, a cop, and
a leather freak
Macho Man, YMCA, In the
Navy
Worldwide sales of 10
million albums
The Bee Gees
Brought disco into
mainstream life
Made disco safe for white,
straight, male, young, and
middle-class America
Singing in falsetto became
their trademark
You Should Be Dancing
Commissioned to write the
soundtrack for Saturday
Night Fever
Crossover Media
• Robert Stigwood was a master at
crossover media (a product in one
medium that can sell a product in
another).
• Stigwood’s involvement in Jesus Christ
Superstar, Tommy, Grease, and Evita.
• Saturday Night Fever
– Movie with unprecedented success with
$130 million in ticket sales
– Sold 15 million copies of the soundtrack
in US and 30 million worldwide
– Starred John Travolta