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

No one has to except anything. I don't except 90 percent of the choices posted here as they are obviously just peoples' favourites or just for a joke. And, it's not about how good an album is. Kind of lazy - why wouldn't someone want to read the thread title more carefully?

 

Denim - Back in Denim

 

Someone who I think has not been mentioned yet.....Jackson Browne! He was probably the 70's artist who got played the most by my wife and I. Her favorite was always Late For The Sky but to me Running On Empty was a pretty good example of the 70's.

 

Impossible for me. So many.

 

Is there a various artists anthology that encapsulates the diversity of the decade including singer/songwriters, outlaw country, hard rock, pleasant pop, Southern rock, prog, arena rock, jazz fusion, disco, punk, early rap, etc.? That would be a pretty decade-defining sampler. Some of those K-Tel comps and Warner/Reprise Loss Leader albums may actually come close.

 

Bad Girls

 

I've been enjoying this thread just to see such a wide range of responses. Granted, I wasn't born until the following decade, but I always got very strong impressions of the '70s from the music my parents exposed me to.

While it'll probably cause a grim chuckle from people who actually lived the decade, the '70s to my developing mind seemed like a sort of eternal summer. It was also a wide world, which makes it damned impossible for me even on the outside to pull up one platter and say, "This covers everything." I tried and every suggestion that cropped up elicited a, "Yeah, but what about..."

Funny aside, my Mom was a graphic designer and she had a copy of the Hipgnosis book "Walk Away Rene," which covered a lot of their best known work along with how it was constructed. To me, THAT covers a lot of the breadth of ideas present in the '70s, though I may be alone in that.

 

This one:



Silk Degrees is practically timeless, but it's also unmistakably the seventies!

 

No one album can do that fine decade justice. No umbrella can encapsulate the diversities of Glam-rock/disco/Punk-rock - the three main contenders. But for the sake of playing the game I'd probably say 'Ziggy'.

 

I'd be brazen to say that Some Girls by the Stones comes close, but still misses the mark a bit. It's hard for me to take the Stones' punk/Glam/disco pretensions seriously, though.

 

Steely Dan's Aja?

 

This blew my tiny nine year old Aussie mind in the '70s .......

 

Dark Side of the Yellow Brick Hotel Fever

 

There was a lot of things going on in the 70s.
Ergo, I don't think there is one album I could name that would encapsulate the decade.

 

Good album, that...Gee Elton Pink Eagles masterpiece!

 

KISS: Alive!

 

oh come on, the 70's weren't THAT bad...

 

Horses

 

I strongly suspect you are correct: i'm thinking I've just not seen the "u" on occasions. That said, I do recall checking a copy in a charity shop and it wasn't there and i was surprised. The second "u" is kinda buried along/in side the "o", perhaps that's what i saw / didn't see...the kerning. Weird Mandela Effect stuff!

 

We have a Winner!
I was going to post 'Songs in the Key of Life' or 'Gratitude'-E, W & F(thinking these 2 albums fell in the middle of the decade), but not sure how popular 'Gratitude' was overall, I think it is a great mix of Studio & Live Songs, but maybe not the right fit for this thread title.

I was going to call out your prior choice of 'Quadrophenia', as while it ranks in my own Top 3 albums from the 1970s after discovering the 1996 CD, I do not think it fits this thread title(although, 'Who's Next' might fit, as you hear a few of those songs in the CSI TV Shows Intros, so a person born in the 1990s, has had a good chance of hearing at least those 2 songs).

Although, certainly think a strong case can be made for 'Dark Side of the Moon' & 'Rumours' mentioned by other Forum Members.

I would also include The Cars-ST(even though I like 'Candy-O' slightly more), if this topic split the 1970s in half and The Cars-ST could be a contender for the late 1970s. Although that being said, 'Rumours' would still be the best selection between 1975-1979-IMO.

 

The follow up would probably have been better: Nevermind The Dark Side of the Yellow Brick Hotel Fever