Three bands from the 1970s that deserve more respect

The 1970s were a bit of a music musically. While the decade did give us Ziggy Stardust, we also received disco. The former was magnificent, the latter set pop music back for a few years.

Rock was also undergoing a change. The production got much better in studios compared to the 1960s and record companies and bands took advantage. In fact, there was almost too much experimentation.

Two of the groups that follow certainly used the new tools of the recording studio and put out solid albums. The third wanted less and got more from that. But all three bands were mostly terrific.

Three 1970s groups that deserve more love

Boston

Boston was basically the 1970s rock equivalent to 1980s pop band Erasure. There was an instrumentalist and a singer and the duo produced some excellent music. The difference with Boston is that live they needed a lot more musicians to replicate the wall of sound they created on their albums.

Tom Scholz was the instrumentalist while Brad Delp was the vocalist. But Scholz was the mastermind and wrote the songs and produced the albums. His sound would influence what Billy Corgan did on the Smashing Pumpkins' excellent Siamese Dream album. Without Boston, the Smashing Pumpkins would have sound much differently and we would all be the lesser for that.

Styx

Styx did not mind being theatrical, partly due to the versatility of vocalist Dennis DeYoung. DeYoung wasn't a screamer but a true singer and this allowed the band to do pretty much whatever it wanted with its sound. For instance, while Styx could pull off tracks such as "Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)" they could turn and make "Babe."

"Come Sail Away," except for its more spacey breakdown later in the track, is a perfect song. To be a robot in the corner of the room when Styx put the tune together would have been amazing. And sure, they had a classic 1970s sound which was a bit plastic at times, but there was plenty of enough creativity in their music to make many different kinds of music fans happy.

Joy Division

The third band here has almost literally nothing in common with the other two. Joy Division was an English post-punk and goth group that helped change music and still influences many bands today. The gloom and doom of the lyrics play out over an intentionally garage-type sound. The tracks many times are beautiful and menacing all at once.

The group was so incredible that after the suicide of vocalist Ian Curtis the rest of the band members changed the group's name to New Order and New Order became an iconic band of their own. Joy Division simply sounds different than almost anything else. They should have been worthy of selling 100 million records, though they probably were happy just making excellent songs.

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