1971-1979: 100 Best of the Best-Selling Albums (The First 50)

After completing my deep dive into the best-selling albums from 1971 to 1979, I’m here to share my personal picks for the 100 most satisfying listens of the decade. Nobody asked for this, but here it is anyway! Keep in mind, these aren’t necessarily the best albums of the era—just the best of the best-sellers. And yes, the list leans heavily toward white male-centric releases. That’s partly because, well, I’m a white male, and also because the 1970s were undeniably a white-male-dominated decade in music.

Selecting the first 50 albums was fairly straightforward, and for anyone over 40, there won’t be many surprises. The second half of the list has been trickier to finalize, but I’m working on it. After spending so much time exploring this musical landscape, I felt compelled to share my findings.

Under each selection, I’ve included a “CliffsNotes” review courtesy of AllMusic. While I typically don’t hold professional critics in high regard—they often feel like industry insiders with unreliable takes—I found myself agreeing with their assessments. Plus, it saved me a lot of effort!

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Good Calories, Bad Calories

The above title of this post is also the title of a book published in 2008 by science writer Gary Taubes, full title Good Calories, Bad Calories, Fat, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health.** At 609 pages (counting bibliography and index), I guess we could call it a tome. However, I found it hard to put down.

We had moved to Colorado, and sometime prior to 2011 we went to Boulder to hear Noam Chomsky speak. We got probably the last two tickets and were at the very back of the balcony. I remember it well because I had a hard time squeezing my fat ass into my seat. Some time after that I told my wife that I had to change my eating habits. I had read Taubes’ book, and it made sense to me. Here’s a partial list of the things I gave up:

Pizza, cookies, ice cream, spaghetti (all pastas), bread, beer, pizza, donuts, candy, candy bars, chocolate, potatoes, pizza, onion rings, French fries,  … man I love pizza. Also, many fruits and vegetables have high carbohydrate value. Here’s a link to a site that lists good low-carb fruits and vegetables. Strawberries are always in season at our house. White wine is a safe bet over red.

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The Curious Case of Xmas Albums

When I was a kid, my parents rented half our duplex to a lesbian schoolteacher. That arrangement went smoothly until her girlfriend’s “overnight tutoring sessions” became a bit too frequent, and she got the boot. I bring this up because this teacher once threatened to wring my neck if I didn’t stop playing the Chipmunks’ Christmas classic “Christmas Don’t Be Late” on an endless loop. Yep, I was obsessed with that song. In hindsight, I get it. Listening to Alvin and the gang whine about hula hoops 50 times in a row could push anyone to the brink.

Fortunately, I grew out of it—no more Chipmunks. In fact, I can’t remember ever buying a Christmas album, for myself or anyone else.

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Right in the Nuts

As I continue to trudge through the musical gold and platinum mines of 1971-1980, I can’t help but wonder: did people actually listen to this stuff? The sheer volume of mediocre music churned out during this time could only be explained by three quintessentially American tendencies:

  1. Questionable taste (let’s call it “poor discernment” to be polite).
  2. A suspiciously robust ability to spend money we don’t have.
  3. An insatiable hunger for entertainment, no matter how mind-numbing.
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Orgies are vile …

Over the years I have been collecting bits and piece of witty snarks and insightful comments in a file I called “Wit and Wisdom”. I pulled it up last week and found that I had a little over one page of items, meaning I had lost the original. But wait! There were two files by that name, one with a different suffix, and it turned out to be 31 pages. I remember sitting at our dining room table in Bozeman when I first decided I needed a way to save stuff, and putting these gems onto my laptop. That it survived all these years, perhaps twenty or more, is no tribute to my competency, but rather to good luck, nothing more.

I’ve gone over those 31 pages now, and found quite a few items that I am going to repeat here, a few at a time. There’s a lot in there that I would not now take trouble to record, notably Edward Abbey, whose every written word (except some of his fiction, which I found over-the-top) I have read. I also made it a point to read everything written by George Orwell, but he does not turn up very often in this file. I suspect that is because somewhere I have a separate file for him.

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A bad reaction to a minor insult

I put up a comment on Watts Up With That to the effect that Michael Mann’s PhD was premature, and also citing a paper by Nikolov and Zeller stating that there was no heat transfer within our atmosphere even as more CO2 accumulates, as the process is  “adiabatic” which means that the process in our atmosphere and in all of our rocky planets occurring without loss or gain of heat. Global temperatures respond to many forces including insolation and increases and decreases in the planet albedo. I also concluded with the statement that many people, including scientists, “lead with their chin” when they start out their debate by conceding that there is “some” warming caused by CO2 and the GHG effect, that is, green house gases.

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Investigating Social Engineering in Music: Alice Cooper

After the dissolution of The Doors in 1971, another band emerged to fill the void of dark, theatrical rock: the Alice Cooper Band. That year, they released two albums, Love It to Death and Killer, both of which showcased impressive musicality. However, their true standout feature was their bold embrace of taboo themes, including manic insanity, necrophilia, and the infamous “Dead Babies.” Such provocative subject matter inevitably drew criticism and sparked debates about artistic intent, with defenders dismissing objections as either prudish overreaction or a failure to appreciate the dark humor and performance art inherent in the work.

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Manipulative Melodies: Investigating Social Engineering in Music

I’ve been taking a stroll down memory lane with the top-selling albums of the 1970s, a sort of personal farewell tour. But don’t worry, this isn’t one of those “farewell” tours that music acts like The Who or Cher love to milk for decades. No, this is more like revisiting old haunts, savoring the bitter and the sweet, and offering a proper “so long” to the soundtrack of my youth. During the golden years of 1971 to 1980, I went from nine to eighteen—a stretch of time that perfectly bookended my high school era. Naturally, the music of this decade made a massive impression on me. But, like that friend who overstays their welcome, a lot of these songs have been played to death. My old kit bag will carry only a few carefully chosen relics as most of the overexposed hits are being gently but firmly shown the door.

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The Christmas letter …

I came upon the following lines from an obscure source, quoting Horace, among the many legends of ancient literature whom I have not read.

“Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.”

The line  translates to “Mountains will be in labor, and a ridiculous mouse will be born.” This phrase comes from Horace’s Satires (Book 1, Satire 8) and is often interpreted as a commentary on the disparity between expectations and outcomes. I am plagiarizing that last line starting with “This phrase…”.

Enough of that. It brought to mind a file I used to keep and update that I called “Wit and Wisdom”. I went looking for it, and sure enough it has survived all of the new computers that I have used over the past years. The W&W file is quite voluminous and reflects what I was doing and thinking at any given time. I’ll cite two of scores of quotes:

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Facial exercises

Kevin Starr recently suggested a strong facial resemblances between Earl Holliman (who just died a couple of weeks ago at age 96) and Paul Rudd. I thought there was something in Holliman that looked familiar, so I thought I would run him against the Bokonovsky Brats. But first, Holliman/Rudd:

They eyes, nose, ears, hairline, facial shape and chin all align quite well, but not the mouths. Struck out.

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