'70s

Classic rock, cook-outs, and flag-waving patriotism aren’t only for right-wing yahoos who keep a copy of Cat Scratch Fever tucked next to their Beanfield Sniper Remington Sendero SF II. I know it feels that way in an age when the Nuge and Kid Rock are snapping selfies in the Oval Office. But trust me: There’s plenty of us on the left who jump at the chance to blast big, shaggy riffs and slather grub in barbecue sauce (even if the grub being slathered is veggie burgers). And it’s for you, my fellow classic-rock lefties—like the proud American down my street with the “End the War on the Middle Class” sign in his window and a pickup truck covered in union stickers—that I’ve put together what, in my humble opinion, is one hell of a Fourth of July playlist stuffed with songs fighting the good fight.A lot of the tunes you know and love, like Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” (though maybe not everybody has cracked open the howling, wall-of-guitars rendition from 1975’s Rolling Thunder Revue) and Jefferson Airplane’s muddy-ass, piano-banging, Woodstock anthem “Volunteers.” (“Hey, I’m dancing down the streets! Got a revolution!!!”). And as should be expected of any patriotic playlist worth its salt, you’re bound to find some Springsteen (whose original, acoustic version of “Born in the U.S.A.” is a bloody, brooding anti-war cry that sounds more like the dread-stained “State Trooper” than the high-gloss “Dancing in the Dark”) and Seger. (If you know only the Night Moves era—which isn’t bad, mind you—then his 1969 anti-Vietnam War psych-raver “2 +2 =?” will have you burning flags by its second verse.)But listeners will also run into a bunch of obscure nuggets. Detroit’s megaton demolition of The Velvet Underground’s “Rock ’n’ Roll,” from 1971, should’ve been a massive hit for lead singer and perpetual underdog Mitch Ryder, who around the time of its recording had joined the fight to release White Panther revolutionary and all-around awesome guy John Sinclair from prison. Ditto for Relatively Clean Rivers’ “Easy Ride,” a smoothly rolling evocation of rural hippie ethos that will totally appeal to those pro-legalization types in love with Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty.There’s also a ton of soul and funk to be heard, and that’s because all true lefty rock fans don’t see any difference between rock ’n’ roll and R&B. It’s all righteous people making righteous groove music to battle the forces of oppression and tyranny that now, more than ever, are bearing down on our beloved United States. On the deliriously punchy, horn-stabbing “You Haven’t Done Nothin’,” Stevie Wonder rails against Tricky Dick, but it may as well be 45. Aretha Franklin’s “Spirit in the Dark” isn’t overtly political but rather serves as a gorgeous and uplifting example of the sublimely redemptive vibrations emanating from African-American spiritual music. Another powerhouse is the proto-disco “I Want to Take You Higher” recorded at Woodstock. For just shy of seven minutes, Sly & the Family Stone make good on the American dream: full equality and integration riding some of the most ecstatic funk ever laid down.So, this Fourth of July, crank these jams, eat a ton of great food, maybe even set of some explosives. But come Wednesday morning, let these songs inspire you to crawl into the trenches to fight all the anti-union, anti-universal healthcare, anti-Black Lives Matter, anti-LGBTQ, anti-climate change, anti-public education, anti-abortion, pro-corporate, pro-war, pro-Koch forces hijacking our country.

Nineteen-seventy-seven was a year of styles congealing and pointing beyond themselves, musical moments coming into focus and then, just as quickly, getting blurry. Four decades later, this single year of music continually haunts us with its greatness through deaths and rebirths, reissues, and reunion tours. With the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks…, the Ramones’ Rocket to Russia AND Leave Home, and The Clash’s self-titled album, it was a major year for punk; through Television’s Marquee Moon and Wire’s Pink Flag, we glimpsed the dawn of post-punk. And I, for one, still don’t know what to call Iggy Pop’s dual masterpieces from that year, The Idiot and Lust for Life, two records that strayed far enough outside the conventions of rock, proto-punk, and post-punk that they should maybe just be left under the art-rock banner. Likewise, Suicide’s ghostly, self-titled classic could be called anything from proto-punk to post-punk to synth-pop; its mercurial nature only amplifies its staying power as we continue to struggle to digest it in light of Alan Vega’s 2016 death.Also along the lines of the weirder, more avant-garde pop: David Bowie (who produced Iggy Pop’s two releases from that year) dropped Berlin-trilogy classics ”Heroes” and Low—the latter produced by Brian Eno, whose own Before and After Science came out that December. These records, alongside Talking Heads: 77, Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express, and Elvis Costello’s debut LP, My Aim Is True, pointed clearly and forcefully toward the New Wave of the ‘80s.Nineteen-seventy-seven also saw rock continuing to explode into a vast diaspora of sub-genres: disillusioned folk rock (Neil Young’s American Stars ‘n Bars, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours), politicized prog rock (Pink Floyd’s Animals), country-inflected jam rock (Grateful Dead’s Terrapin Station), smooth jazz rock (Steely Dan’s Aja), and whatever you’d call Billy Joel’s The Stranger. (Oh yeah, and John Williams’ Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope soundtrack came out.)This (incomplete, to be sure) list has probably inspired thoughts of nostalgia, as well as, possibly, some feelings of melancholy about the music of our own time. If strong opinions about any of these records have surfaced, it’s because 1977 is still very alive today. The year still guides the rock we make, and it still infiltrates our playlists. The political and social issues of 1977 still, in many ways, exist, and we still struggle to respond to them in ways that are appropriate and meaningful. This playlist isn’t going to change the world, but if it leads to a new way of understanding the present, that’s a good thing. Or, if you just jam out to it while cleaning your house or going for a run, that’s fine, too.

This post is part of our Disco 101 program, an in-depth series that looks at the far-reaching, decades-long impact of disco. Curious about disco and want to learn more? Go here to sign up. Already signed up and enjoying it? Help us get the word out by sharing it on Facebook, Twitter or just sending your friends this link. They’ll thank you. We thank you.When disco emerged as a dominant cultural force in the mid-to-late ’70s, regressive cultural forces converged under the banner of rockism to decry its ascendance. Racists, homophobes, and garden-variety closed-minded reactionaries started stirring up impressionable music fans with apocalyptic visions of disco taking over the world and crushing good ol’ rock ‘n’ roll into the dirt beneath its platform heels. Mass record burnings, graffiti, and sloganeering were all part of the benighted Disco Sucks movement. But if anyone ever bothered to ask actual rockers about the issue at the time, they would have gotten a very different perspective.Between the late ‘70s (when disco was at its zenith) and the early ‘80s (when it began to peter out), a remarkable number of high-profile rockers decided to take the plunge and adapt their sound to a disco groove, even if only for a song or two. Granted, it may not have been too huge a shock when try-anything types like The Rolling Stones and David Bowie turned out discofied tracks like “Miss You” and “Fashion,” respectively, especially since the no-disco movement was less prevalent in their native U.K. than in the U.S. But even some American bands you’d never expect to hit the dance floor were having a go at it.Hippie heroes The Grateful Dead got down with the four-on-the-floor feel for “Shakedown Street.” America’s Band themselves, The Beach Boys, put on their polyester (at least figuratively) for “Here Comes the Night.” And hard-rock demons Kiss stepped up to the plate with the ooga-ooga bass lines of “I Was Made for Lovin’ You,” ending up with one of the biggest hits of their career in the process.

When Winfred “Blue” Lovett gravely intones, “This has got to be the saddest day of my life,” in the intro to The Manhattan’s 1976 hit “Kiss and Say Goodbye,” you believe him. But compared to some of their contemporaries, the group might as well have been crooning “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” The rampant introspection of the “me decade” helped make it a boom time for songs that filled the schedules of suicide hotline volunteers to overflowing. When somebody wasn’t dying in a ‘70s hit, like the protagonist in Terry Jacks’ “Seasons in the Sun,” the horse fancier and her steed in Michael Martin Murphey’s “Wildfire,” or a freakin’ dog in the Henry Gross hit “Shannon,” they were at least at the brink of oblivion. In retrospect, it’s amazing that Harry Nilsson made it to the end of “Without You” alive. The real masters of ‘70s melancholy managed to suck you in by making their songs sound deceptively cheery—check the opening flute riff of Albert Hammond’s angst fest “It Never Rains in Southern California” for proof—but by the time you get to the undeniably catchy chorus you’re hailing the nurse for your meds.

In terms of Western music opening itself up to global influences, the years 1976 to ’82 represent a major paradigm shift. Radical invention was everywhere, both at pop’s fringes and its center. While world renowned visionaries Talking Heads and Joni Mitchell drew African-informed polyrhythms deep into their singular visions, underground mavericks Throbbing Gristle and The Pop Group grafted clanging atonalism to tribal percussion and reverb-encrusted dub, respectively. Jazz, too, boasted its fair share of explorers. Frenetic Afro-Caribbean percussion, mesmerizing Sufi music from Morocco, exotically droning woodwinds—nothing was off limits for the likes of Ornette Coleman or Miles Davis. Not surprisingly, this playlist casts a wide net. Some cuts are as hot and humid as a rainforest; others evoke the cold, dank isolation of abandoned warehouses. Yet they’re united in their bold, ethnological innovation.

As a self-conscious aesthetic, lo-fi didn’t come into its own until after punk’s pro-amateur, DIY attitude had already laid waste to popular notions of what constituted acceptable musicianship and recording techniques. Yet the idea of turning crappy sound into pure sonic gold reaches back to the classic rock era. The obvious precursors are The Velvet Underground and garage-psych bands like 13th Floor Elevators, who in the mid ’60s achieved sonic delirium through intentionally muddy primitivism. Around the same time, the post-Pet Sounds Beach Boys pretty much invented the concept of the warm and woozy bedroom recording, while The Beatles, during their “White Album” sessions, incorporated home demo-style graininess and feedback into their previously pristine pop. The Stones deserve a lot of credit, too. After all, there are entire stretches of 1972’s Exile on Main St. that sound like moldy-ass basement recordings.

While its understandable that some listeners would think that all the great soul music in Memphis came from the Stax/Volt stable, its simply not accurate. Not only were there other R&B imprints that challenged Stax’s standing in terms of their ability to score hits, there was no shortage of acts at other labels whose musical vision was the equal of the vaunted Stax roster. The Willie Mitchell-produced tracks Al Green cut for Memphis mainstay Hi Records in the ‘70s remain among the deepest, most transcendently sensual songs ever recorded in any genre, and they dominated both R&B and pop radio. The tunes James Carr laid down for the less celebrated Memphis label Goldwax Records were easily as intense as anything in the Otis Redding oeuvre. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the searingly soulful sounds that emerged from the musical bounty of the Bluff City.

Todays tykes have no idea how easy theyve got it. If modern-day pop charts were filled with the kind of creepy, trauma-inducing fare that was commonplace when I was a child in the 70s, the FCC would be awash in lawsuits initiated by horrified parents.Though the 70s are commonly typecast as the decade when mellowness reigned supreme, radios gatekeepers thought nothing of filling the airwaves with songs of rape, murder, pedophilia, hate crimes, and other family-friendly activities. The eras artists in turn took the opportunity to let it all hang out.As a kid with a passion for pop, I would invariably have my bedside radio tuned to the local Top 40 station to help lull me into slumber. But some of the songs that slipped into my subconscious mind probably twisted my impressionable psyche for life.Clarence Carters R&B hit "Patches" concludes its wrong-side-of-the-tracks love story with—spoiler alert—a murder and consequent suicide. Rod Stewarts "The Killing of Georgie," true to its title, chronicles the murder of the homosexual title character by a bunch of gay-bashers. In Helen Reddys "Angie Baby," a young man tries to rape a mentally disturbed girl and is somehow eliminated by her supernatural abilities. Terry Jacks "Seasons in the Sun" adapts Jacques Brels "Le Moribond," in which a dying man tearfully bids farewell to each of his loved ones. And then there’s Ringo Starrs cover of "Youre Sixteen You’re Beautiful (And You’re Mine)," which ought to have been subtitled “(And Im 33).”At least Warren Zevons "Werewolves of London," with its account of little old ladies getting mutilated, was clearly played for laughs, but the bulk of these songs were unflinchingly earnest, and their 70s soft-pop trappings only made them all the more unsettling to a young mind. But go try and get a dour six-and-a-half minute song about a shipwreck where nobody survives into the Top 10 today—as Gordon Lightfoot did back in ’76—and see how far you get.

Click here to add to Spotify playlist!When The Get Down premiered on Netflix last August, it won plaudits for its smart evocation of New York music in the 1970s. But with the second half of its first season debuting on April 7, it’s a good time to revisit its meticulously curated soundtrack—and what aspects of the era it overlooks.The Get Down is structured around the rise of hip-hop culture in the Bronx, with Ed Koch’s mayoral campaign and the citywide blackout on July 13, 1977 as key events. On the one hand, the music supervision values precise period authenticity—the lack of anything from Saturday Night Fever initially seems like a major omission, but the film was released at the end of 1977 and its soundtrack didn’t dominate the airwaves until 1978. But at other points, that logic goes out the window: The show features Machine’s “There But for the Grace of God Go I,” released in 1979.At any rate, The Get Down is a historical fantasy. At best, it completely dispenses with reality, whether it’s the kung fu sequences that mark the first episode, or the discotheque shootout that ensnares drug dealer and budding DJ Shaolin Fantastic, a fictional protégé of real-life hip-hop pioneer Grandmaster Flash who is recruiting MCs into the group The Get Down. Besides, why use sappy soft pop tracks like Chicago’s “Hard To Say I’m Sorry” and bland quiet-storm ballads like The Manhattans’ “Kiss and Say Goodbye” when you can cherry-pick the funkiest disco and soul of the early to mid-’70s?Perhaps the second half of The Get Down will broaden beyond the South Bronx park jams, community rec centers, and grungy neighborhood discos to include settings and music from different parts of New York in the late 70s. Maybe Marcus “Dizzee” Kipling, the graffiti artist who drops ecstasy and almost experiments with same-sex romance at a gloriously overcooked loft party, will stumble into a Manhattan bathhouse or check out a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show; it’s possible that Ezekial “Zeke” Figuero, the teenage poet whose halted attempts at rapping to his would-be disco-queen girlfriend set the story in motion, will journey down to CBGB and check out a Ramones set; or maybe Marcus’ knuckleheaded kid brother Boo-Boo channels his anger into a KISS Army fan club.We’ll find out what The Get Down kids get into next when the series returns. For now, enjoy our selection of ’70s pop chestnuts that didn’t make it into the first half of the inaugural season—and hopefully will make the cut for the second.

Barry Walters delivers this great overview of the 70s soul scene in Philadelphia. With its funk intonations and more polished arrangements, Philly Soul is sometimes overlooked by R&B neophytes, but, as Barry proves here, the scene produced some of the sweetest and most memorable music from that decade. Much of the credit belongs to Gamble and Huff and their Philadelphia International Records, but the scene was bursting with talent. Check out this great retrospective of one of our favorite scenes.