My Favorite 50 Albums of the 70s

I was 7 years old when the 70s arrived. The AM radio was a constant on car rides with our family and depending on where we were we'd be listening to country and pop hits on CKCL in Truro, or more rock and R&B tunes on CJCH in Halifax. Monthly trips to my visit relatives exposed me to the album collection of my aunt Heather who was in her late teens at the time. Albums by Beatles, Monkees were there, but also strange ones artists named Led Zeppelin, Grand Funk and Alice Cooper. I would flip through the covers excited by the cover images and try to imagine what the songs sounded like.

Rock radio did not exist in Nova Scotia during this time, so magazines were the important platform for selling rock music to kids like me. Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy, Cream, Rock Scene and my favorite Circus featured colorful photos and articles of groups like Deep Purple, Yes, Uriah Heep, Jethro Tull and Led Zeppelin.

When I started getting into rock music, i was attracted by the shiny, the simple, the gimmicks... so of course I was wanting T-Rex, David Bowie and Alice Cooper. Luckily these groups also featured great songs and led to discovering other groups through the years. One thing you'll notice about my list of albums is that it doesn't include any R&B/Soul artists. I was also an avid buyer of 45s and that group of records was filled with rich 70s R&B artists like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Temptations, etc.

Every decade is unique, but once I started looking at my list I realized two things had happened during the decade. Both music and me had grown.

The following is a list of my favorite albums of the 70s - I've debated myself on what to include, what to leave out, what warranted rating one album over another. I decided to imagine which I played the most, which I remember and which contained some of my favorite hits and album tracks of that time. :D

1. A Night at the Opera – Queen (1975)
2. Led Zeppelin IV – Led Zeppelin (1971)
3. Van Halen – Van Halen (1978)
4. Ziggy Stardust – David Bowie (1972)
5. Billion Dollar Babies – Alice Cooper (1973)
6. Hotel California – Eagles (1976)
7. Bat Out of Hell – Meatloaf (1977)
8. The Wall – Pink Floyd (1979)
9. Alive – Kiss (1975)
10. The Cars – The Cars (1978)
11. Never Mind the Bollocks Here’s the Sex Pistols – Sex Pistols (1977)
12. Killer – Alice Cooper (1971)
13. Dark Side of the Moon – Pink Floyd (1973)
14. The Stranger – Billy Joel (1977)
15. Live at Budokan – Cheap Trick (1978)
16. Destroyer – Kiss (1976)
17. My Aim Is True- Elvis Costello (1977)
18. Damn the Torpedoes – Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (1979)
19. Rocks – Aerosmith (1976)
20. Ramones – Ramones (1976)
21. Some Girls – Rolling Stones (1978)
22. Rumours – Fleetwood Mac (1977)
23. Born to Run – Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band (1975)
24. This Year’s Model – Elvis Costello
25. London Calling – The Clash (1979)
26. Parallel Lines – Blondie (1978)
27. The Clash – The Clash (1977)
28. Boston – Boston (1976)
29. A New World Record – Electric Light Orchestra (1976)
30. Crime of the Century – Supertramp (1974)
31. More Songs about Buildings and Food – Talking Heads (1978)
32. B-52s – B-52s (1979)
33. Darkness on the Edge of Town – Bruce Springsteen (1978)
34. Breakfast In America – Supertramp (1979)
35. Outlando’s D’Amour – The Police (1978)
36. Pronounced Leh’-nerd Skin-‘erd – Lynyrd Skynrd (1973)
37. Dreamboat Annie – Heart (1976)
38. Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd (1975)
39. Frampton Comes Alive – Peter Frampton (1976)
40. Fleetwood Mac – Fleetwood Mac (1975)
41. Physical Graffitti – Led Zeppelin (1975)
42. Aqualung – Jethro Tull (1971)
43. Heaven Tonight – Cheap Trick (1977)
44. Desolation Boulevard – The Sweet (1974)
45. Highway to Hell – AC/DC (1979)
46. 2112 – Rush (1976)
47. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway – Genesis (1974)
48. Animals – Pink Floyd (1977)
49. Harvest – Neil Young (1972)
50. Who’s Next – The Who (1971)