If you could encapsulate the 70's with 1 album...

I never felt so much alike alike alike alike alike

 

Yep, that's actually true. Although London Calling is from 1979 I remember Rolling Stone voting it ten years later Best Album of the 1980s.

 

Not personal favorites, but I'd offer two of the most significant albums of the 70s, were Tapestry and Saturday Night Fever.
Carole King was an industry vet, a female, and her album kind of came out of nowhere and was MEGA-HUGELY popular. A big step for women artists.
SNF grabbed youth culture and set everyone dancing. I didn't like disco, but that's how big it was. You couldn't throw a party with young women around and not expect to hear a good helping of Fever. It went beyond popular and was a cultural phenomenon. I didn't like it at the time, but it actually was really fun.
While Dark Side may have sold more longer, (it's a masterpiece but I don't think it actually changed the culture as much as the first two) and Rumours (and Frampton) were ubiquitous, they are just good albums. I just think Tap and SNF were more impactful and significant in their heyday.

 

But it more like wraps up the seventies than it sounds like the eighties

 

Exqueese me? Have I seen this one before? "Frampton Comes Alive"? Everybody in the world has Frampton Comes Alive. If you lived in the suburbs you were issued it. It came in the mail with samples of "Tide". - Wayne's World 2

You know what was a monster? Frampton Comes Alive, 1976. Is there anyone you knew who didn't have that record? I don't think so. - Peter Griffin, Family Guy

 

The soundtrack to the biggest pop culture phenomenon of the decade BY FAR:

Star Wars OST

 

Led Zeppelin
The Bee Gees
Pink Floyd
David Bowie
IT HAS TO BE WITHIN ONE OF THESE!
They are overplayed for a reason, because they are the greats

 

I was ages 8-17 during the seventies. I got my first rock album, Beatles - Hey Jude, as a birthday present on my 8th birthday. The Seventies really divide up into two periods for me. 1970-1975, and 1976-1979. In the States, post-watergate was really a marker in the end of one era, and the beginning of another. For me 1970-75 has a grooviness and sense of creativity that begins to fade beginning in 1976. Lots of great music in 1976-1979, but the rock music business was becoming a really big corporate endeavor, and while there was still plenty of groovy albums, there was also the rise of corporate rock (some of which I like) supported and promoted as product.

My choices:

1979-1975 - Rolling Stones - Exile on Mainstreet. A masterpiece from the Stones, with abundant influences (good and bad) of what made late 60's , early 70's rock so great.

1976-1979 - Fleetwood Mac - Rumours. Rumours had great songs, three good lead singers, and a style/image that held onto some of the early 70's hippie chic and avoiding the shiny synthetic fabric chic common in the late 70's. Supported by a massive recording budget, and promoted by the record company, Rumours was an example that a great creative album could still be achieved under the growing weight of the "music industry".

The Stones Some Girls was pretty awesome too.

 

The replies and suggestions show that you CANNOT encapsulate the 70s with one album!
You can certainly pick your favorite album from the 70s, but it can't encapsulate the 70s!

 

Exile on main street

 

K Tell.

 

my 70s

 

This is impossible to narrow down to one album.

Albums such as Dark Side of the Moon, Led Zeppelin IV and Who's Next (all classics) are timeless and era-less. So I will put those aside.

To me the answer would be Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, that is proudly of the 70s, it defines the late 70s sound, and was a massive seller. It screams 1970s to me, and proudly so.

 

Well, here it is:



Neil Young - Decade

 

Variations on The Sixties Are Over: Dionne (1972) aka the (Bacharach/David/Warwick) breakup album

 

Would have to give this a vote for encapsulating the early 70s..... The Slider.

 

2 LPS that really mattered in the 70s

Never Mind The Bollocks
Saturday Night Fever

The Specials debut is third

 

Like the Abba album I mentioned earlier, this found it's way into an awful lot of UK homes in the 70s.

 

Wow, that really was the last one with all three, nice choice!

 

OOO!

 

I have to agree with the people who said Rumours. Not necessarily a favorite of mine but that really is the one record that says '70s' more than any other. To me at least.