Half-amusing musings on my music collection - Part 6: The early 70s

 1972

The definite article has a special place in popular music.  It was the usual starting point for most bands in the 1960s when naming themselves.  "The Somethings".  And some bands were often reverently ascribed the addition of an unofficial one, such as "The Pink Floyd" or "The Led Zeppelin".  But the Eagles, despite being referred to as 'The Eagles', are in fact just 'Eagles' and in 1972 they released their first album, "Eagles" (7/10) as if to emphasis the absence of "The" from their name.  That fusion of folk and country soft rock, which by now you're probably mocking me for always including in these top ten lists (a genre like something comfortable that a middle aged man might take simple joy from, like a pair of slippers), remained popular in 1972.  It influenced both "The Late Great Townes van Zandt" (8/10) by the late great Townes van Zandt, who WAS great but still 25 years off dying, despite what the title suggested; and also Neil Young's "Harvest" (10/10).  "Harvest" is indefinably wonderful to me, much like "Hunky Dory" and the colour beige, which I associate with both records.  Beige is such a comforting colour - that must be my reason for loving those two albums so much, their beige-ness.  The Rolling Stones, having helped pioneer country rock, released "Exile on Main Street" (9/10) which continued to embrace this genre and threw in some blues and gospel for good measure.  Country music always makes think of beige too.  Probably due to cornfields and cow dung.  The early 70s were very country and beige.  Lovely.

But 1972, witnessed a juxtaposition (had to get that word in somewhere) between this warm beige-ness and the multi-coloured brilliance of Art Rock.  I won't say Glam Rock, though there is an overlap, as Art Rock is a bit more sophisticated and grown up than the likes of  T Rex.  Heading the field in '72 were Roxy Music and a new incarnation of Bowie.  The former released their self-titled debut (9/10) in which they managed to do a bit of all that mucking about being clever stuff that Prog Rockers and the likes of King Crimson did, but they did it on good songs with melodies that you could sing along to, not just nod analytically along with as you acknowledge the musicianship, which is a wanky way to listen to music.  And Bowie released "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" (10/10) which song for song is difficult to match any other album against.  It's always interested me that 'Starman' was a hastily written last-minute song, when they were one track short of an album.  It was his appearance singing this on 'Top of the Pops' that turned him into a star.. coincidentally.  That look to camera as he sang, "so I picked on you, hoo, hoo" won over the country.

Not wanting to be too down on the Prog Rockers, I have included Genesis' "Foxtrot" (7/10) on my list.  And Pink Floyd continued their journey towards the Dark Side with "Obscured by Clouds" (7/10).  But as some stars were ascending, others neared their end.  Nick Drake released his 3rd and final album, "Pink Moon" (8/10) and The Doors did an admirable job with their second LP without Jim Morrison, "Full Circle" (7/10). 

1973-4

Despite its hype and a thousand or more listens, I never tire of  1973's "Dark Side of the Moon" (10/10).  I'm not quite sure how Pink Floyd created it, but this was certainly a time for re-inventing the whole concept of the rock album.  Roxy Music continued doing it with "For Your Pleasure" (8/10) and Frank Zappa was strutting his stuff left of left-field with "Overnite Sensation" (8/10) and "Apostrophe" (8/10).  Across those two LPs, Zappa sings about dental floss farming in Montana, smelly feet traumatising a dog as it chews a slipper, Nanook the Eskimo clubbing baby seals with a lead-filled snow shoe, warnings to "watch out where the huskies go, don't you eat the yellow snow" and lots of pretty rude stuff about sex that I won't provide details for in case my mum reads this. (She won't, she got bored after part one).

Clearly, in the 70s, rock music felt confident to move beyond the sexual innuendo in 60s music and just come out and say it.  Listening to Bowie's "Aladdin Sane" (9/10) I found myself, as a teenager, having to turn down the volume during 'Time' when he sings, "Time is flexing like a whore, falls wanking to the floor."  I mean, that is REALLY rude, David!  To think that the same album includes his cover of The Rolling Stones 'Let's Spend the Night Together' which was seen as so rude in the 60s that The Stones had to perform it on TV with the main lyric tweaked to 'Let's spend some time together'.  But I think Bowie's reference to self-abuse - and groupie-nailing Frank Zappa's obsession with all things sexual - was unusually explicit for a rock album at this time.  Bowie was not lyrically explicit the following year on "Diamond Dogs" (9/10), but the initial artwork depicting him as a human-canine hybrid, did feature a great big pair of dog's bollocks.   These were the years of the 'Carry On...' and 'Confessions' films, which admittedly were getting naughtier, but were still more cheeky than explicit, especially by modern standards.  That very English (almost camp) cheekiness is evident in Queen's "Sheer Heart Attack" (8/10) in '74 and concealed in innuendo in the (rarely camp) lyrics of The Stones and Led Zep.  Both of these rock giants put out albums worthy of their big stadia tours in these years: The Rolling Stones' "Goats Head Soup" (8/10) and "It's Only Rock and Roll" (8/10); and Led Zeppelin's "Houses of the Holy" (9/10).

Dylan was on the comeback trail at this time, touring with The Band (his first tour since 1966) and bringing them into the studio at last to add their unpolished genius to "Planet Waves" (9/10) in 1974.  Bob had been spawning imitators since day one and some who were clearly influenced by him, but were original enough to make the "new Dylan" epithet an inappropriate burden.  Bruce Springsteen was a case in point and his first two albums were distinctively poetic and soulful in an east-coast 1970s American way that always conjures up for me the scene in 'Rocky' where a group of singers are performing a cappella around an oil-drum fire on a cold night in a grim Philadelphia street.  Each Springsteen long-player had a long title - "Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ" (9/10) and "The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle" (9/10) - very much in keeping with the Boss's tendency for long concerts, then and now. 

One of my favourite Alan Partridge quotes was when he referred to 'Wings' as 'the band The Beatles could have been'.  At this time, Paul McCartney went from solo artist, to solo artist with wife to solo artist with band.  The first album by 'Paul McCartney and Wings' is fully deserving of Partridge's ridicule, but in 1973 they released "Band on the Run" (8/10) which might just win the accolade for the best post-Beatles LP by an ex-Beatle, by a nose anyway.

Rounding off the top tens for these two years are 1973's "Desperado" (8/10) by Eagles, or The Eagles, or whatever you want to call them, and 1974's "Heart like a Wheel" (7/10) by Linda Ronstadt, "Walls and Bridges" (8/10) by John Lennon, "I want to see the bright lights tonight" (8/10) by Richard and Linda Thompson, "On the Beach" (10/10) by Neil Young and "War Child" (7/10) by Jethro Tull.  As with the deleted Bowie album cover, all of these 1973-4 albums were indeed the dog's bollocks.