The 1970s. What a weird time in music. There was metal, post-punk, and disco, and then sometimes they bled into each other.
The decade wasn't always beautiful, but many times it was original. Even if sometimes that did not mean the music was better overall at the time, what was being made likely influenced some excellence of the future.
The following five tracks were fantastic, however. Maybe they should not have been and some are exceedingly weird. But each is more than worth a few hundred listens.
Five astonishingly great songs from the 1970s
Boston - "More Than a Feeling" (1976)
Here is the premise. Take a student from MIT who is ridiculously smart, but a bit nerdy, and then have that kid eventually find his way into a recording studio with some mates and have them do a take on Phil Spector. In essence, that is what Boston was doing on this track. Layering guitars put up a Spector-style wall-of-sound, one that Billy Corgan would later use for the excellent Smashing Pumpkins album, Siamese Dream. Boston didn't just produce some good tunes, they inspired others.
Founding member Tom Scholz had already gotten a master's degree from MIT in mechanical engineering before Boston was created, but there is little doubt all of Scholz's math skills parlayed themselves into meticulous rock songs that other bands did not make the same way. While the music was bombastic, though, vocalist Brad Delp added a falsetto that seemed unreal.
There might be many who do not like Boston and this song in particular. Maybe the track comes across as a bit too perfect. That is not to mean that people are not smart for disliking the song; each person has their own truth and good for them. But is there a more fun song to sing as loudly as possible in your car while driving or at a party that has lasted too late? Unlikely. Plus, those hand claps...
Styx - "Come Sail Away" (1977)
What a weird song this is. A spaceship lands and puts someone on the craft, and then takes off. That's what it is about, am I right? The song almost does itself in as well because there is a breakdown with synths that makes literally no sense. The listener kind of has to sit and wait for that to end to enjoy the song again. But Styx makes the breakdown worth it because at the end there is a monstrous guitar riff.
There are two reasons this song is great. One is guitarist Tommy Shaw who plays as if there is no vocal track at all, which is the way music should be made. He was not a subordinate on the track; he was a driving force to the melody.
The other reason the song works to perfection is that singer Dennis DeYoung has the theatrical chops to make the words work. One might not even care what he is singing about because his voice is so pure that he could be emoting about the trash being taken out and we might all be like, "Yeah! Rock on!"
Kiss - "Detroit Rock City" (1976)
This song, which is a fan favorite, failed to chart. In fact, the track ended up being a B-side to "Beth," the overly sweet drivel that drummer Peter Criss wrote. Plus, Detroit has little to do with the origin of the tune other than the word "Detroit" is two syllables with a hard d and a hard t - unusual as most words just have a hit on one letter - and that makes the word perfect for rock and roll. Heck, "Detroit" sounds like the drum pick-up at the beginning of an amazing song.
Instead, the lyrics to the song are much more dire. Paul Stanley said in KISS: Behind the Mask - The Official Authorized Biography that he "didn't know what the song was about...then I remembered on the previous tour, I think it was in Charlotte, somebody had gotten hit by a car and killed outside the arena. I remember thinking how weird it is that people's lives end so quickly." So, yeah...not fun.
The song is, though. Who can't resist singing along to "Get up!...Get down!" One does not even have ever visited Detroit to enjoy the track. We all live in some kind of Detroit anyway. (At least, that's what I say in all my fake political messages.)
AC/DC - "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)" (1975)
Let me take you to a time when every song had a call-and-response part between a guitar and some bagpipes. Oh, wait. That doesn't happen unless you happen to be part of the Dropkick Murphys. An Australian hard rock band just beginning on their trek toward being one of the most important bands in the history of the genre seems an unlikely place to find bagpipes plus guitars.
AC/DC's song also is subtly churchy. There are long periods of nothing really happening other than a guitar riff that one likes but knows something more is coming. If you aren't driving in your car when the song comes on your Alexa then you might immediately say, "Alexa... pause." Then you might get in your car and restart the track because it is inarguably the best song ever created for the road.
What does the title of the track even mean? And why are there bagpipes? Who cares? Just let the three minutes and 15 seconds force you to be happy. We all need that in our lives.
David Bowie - "Changes" (1972)
As the formative years of rock and roll in the 1960s were transitioning to the weirdness of the 1970s, David Bowie was there to give everything a real push. He did not seem to fit anything, and that was his point. He was his own idiom, and he helped others, such as the Stooges, be their own people as well. Dance hall, heavy rock, Broadway...Bowie was all and nothing at once.
"Changes" not only is a personal song for Bowie but speaks as a whole about society in the early 1970s. From the free love of Woodstock to the Richard Nixon years, there was pushback and creativity, and they battled each other. Bowie battles himself on the track as well. He knows where he is going, but he isn't quite sure how it will be.
More primitively, the simple "ch-ch-ch-ch-changes" will get stuck in your head for years, and you will be better off for it. "Turn and face the strange"? Brilliant and deeper than anything Bob Dylan offered.