Did you read The Great Gatsby in high school? I think I was supposed to, but that might have been the week the Who came to town and, well, you know, I was trapped in a teenage wasteland. So all these years later, I’d like to make it up to F. Scott Fitzgerald by quoting one of his famous observations…
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
I rely on that quote when I say that, musically speaking, every generation is the exact same while simultaneously being unique and different. Or, as Paul Simon put it a decade after I saw the Who, “every generation throws a hero up the pop chart.” It’s just that each hero is different.
Teen anthems from the 1970s that should not be missed
I want to talk about teen anthems when I was a teen in the 1970s. My generation (and that is probably the last Who reference I will be making today), was not the first to have our own anthems. Rock & roll was a youthful artistic phenomenon. From “Rock Around the Clock” and “School Days,” modern popular music has always been directed at younger audiences.
But kids in the ‘70s had their own unique backstory and that made their music a little different. The early rock & rollers – from Chuck Berry to Brian Wilson to John Lennon – grew up in a time before rock & roll existed. They had earlier styles of music in their DNA. They were inspired by it. They rebelled against it.
That was not the case for teens in the 1970s. All we knew was rock & roll. Old music was Elvis. If we wanted to rebel against our older siblings, we were rebelling against the Beatles and Zeppelin. For better or worse, it colored how we saw and heard pop music in our adolescent restlessness.
There was music directed at younger fans all over A.M. radio and on 45s. It was catchy, repetitive, and danceable. The singers had high voices. Drums were prominent. That made the dancing easier. Some bands, like the Jackson Five and the Partridge Family, scored a string of major hits. But I wouldn’t consider any of their output anthemic.
You don’t have an anthem about sweet-talking your best girl. The anthem comes when you ditch school to take your girl to the rock show on a Tuesday night. The anthem comes when you make a defiant statement of your own autonomy. The anthem comes when you combine all those hallmarks of bubblegum pop – the drums, the catchy choruses, the high harmonies – with attitude.
Here are seven songs with attitude from the 1970s. Some were hits. Some were not. They all should have been.
“School’s Out” by Alice Cooper (1972)
Cooper had already made a major statement with “I’m Eighteen” a couple of years earlier, but “School’s Out” topped it. The master showman who helped bring theatricality and glam to the American mainstream shifted ever so slightly from the restless depression of “I’m Eighteen” to a more aggressive, forward-looking defiance that every schoolkid felt on the final day of school.
The fact that he scared the crap out of your parents made the song all the better. Cooper’s only top ten hit in the USA and a number one song in the U.K.
No more pencils, no more books – No more teacher’s dirty looks – Out for summer, out for fall – We might not come back at all.
“Smokin’ in the Boy’s Room” by Brownsville Station (1973)
The easygoing, bluesy shuffle begins and turns into the ultimately relatable school scene. While Alice Cooper made a general statement about the nature of school, Cub Koda and mates told a very specific story about … I assume you can tell from the title. It was their only top 20 hit in the USA, climbing into the top five in early 1974.
A decade later, Motley Crue would release a top 20 cover. One test to determine a late boomer from an early gen-Xer is to ask whether this is a Brownsville Station song or a Motley Crue song.
Teacher don’t you fill me up with your rules – ‘Cause everybody knows that smokin’ ain’t allowed in school.
“Teenage Rampage” by Sweet (1974)
One of the ultimate glam statements from the golden combination of the band Sweet, the producer Phil Wainman, and the hit machine songwriters Mark Chapman and Nicky Chinn. From the opening teenage chant of “We want Sweet” to the exhilarating chorus, from the galloping drums to the wailing guitar fills that add color without ever derailing momentum with an extended solo… it is one of the fundamental anthems of the UK in the ‘70s.
Though it stalled out at number two in England, it was a top ten hit throughout Europe and in Oceania. The only place it never broke was in the USA.
Recognize your age, it’s a teenage rampage – Turn another page on the teenage rampage – Now, now now…
“Another School Day” by Hello (1976)
Hello may have just arrived a hair too late. Glam was fading in the second half of the decade, with harder punk claiming some of its turf. They couldn’t really help it. Bob Bradbury was in his mid-teens when his band began putting out singles in the early ‘70s. They scored two top ten hits with “Tell Him” and “New York Groove” in ’74 and ’75, but by the time they recorded their best teenage anthem, Bradbury was 20 and glam was changing. Still, a great tune for schoolkids everywhere.
Cut off my hair, change what I wear, and hide my blue suede shoes – Bottom or top, I’m just a bopper with the school boy blues.
“Love Comes in Spurts” by Richard Hell & the Voidoids (1977)
Some punk rockers would take glam's theatricality and rough it up. The rouge turned into a bruise. The guitars were spikier. On his seminal Blank Generation album, Richard Hell mastered the teen punk anthem. “Love Comes in Spurts” was ever-so-slightly more subtle than what the Buzzcocks were doing across the pond in the U.K. at the time, if you prefer the more overt, just sub in the Buzzcocks’ “Orgasm Addict” for this entry.
Insane with devotion, a whole other notion – I was fourteen and a half, and it wasn’t a laugh – Love comes in spurts - Oh, no, it hurts.
“Teenage Kicks” by the Undertones (1978)
Northern Ireland’s the Undertones took some of the glam they had been raised on (there are actually handclaps in “Teenage Kicks”) and applied the grinding guitar attack of punk. What they were really doing was helping invent pop punk. It was melodious but rough. “Teenage Kicks” kicked off a brief run of successful singles in the UK through the early ‘80s.
I wanna hold her, wanna hold her tight – Get teenage kicks right through the night.
“If the Kids are United” by Sham 69 (1978)
At the end of the decade, we arrive at Oi! It is one of the ultimate expressions of youthful rebellion, a fundamental part of the UK punk scene. The Sex Pistols may have spoken for a lot of kids in the late ‘70s, but their anthems were anarchic. Sham 69 flipped the message and scored a top ten hit in the UK.
For once in my life, I’ve got something to say – I want to say it now for now is today – Life has been given to grab and enjoy – So let’s all grab and let’s all enjoy – If the kids are united – They will never be divided!
A couple of years later, I went off to college and started listening to U2. I think I even read Gatsby. My teen anthem days were done.