(EDIT: Here are Part 2, Part 3, and a discussion.)
The rules in brief: One per artist: Parliament-Funkadelic counts as one entity; the Jackson 5 and MJ are separate except one of them didn’t make it in any case. Compilations are eligible if they were released in the Seventies and they feel Seventies, determined subjectively but no 25th Anniversary in Show Business Salute to Ray Charles obviously. Non-musical misbehavior only matters on the margins (sorry, Derek’s other Dominos.) In annoying countdown format because people love seeing numbers by things; rankings are highly approximate until the top 25. Expect some fudging. Statistics, navel-gazing, and reflection on what it means to “hate the Seventies” later.
77. Cátia de França: 20 Palavras ao Redor do Sol (Brazil, 1979)
The beginning of a sporadic recording career that eventually got her a 2024 Latin Grammy nom. Her rock b/w whichever Nordeste style has lotsa triangle (looks it up: baião) veers between smooth and jagged, with the average about right. She sings appealing syllables, and if translations don’t render the songs obviously queer, I’ll take her word that if you knew, you knew.
76. Astor Piazzolla: Libertango (Argentina, 1974)
Ornette’s Friends & Neighbors was a late cut, so the only other guy on my ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s albums lists is (spoiler but c’mon) Miles, and Tango: Zero Hour has a hell of a lot better chance of making my ’80s list than Star People. As an album, this isn’t as much of a slam-dunk as Adios Nonino—Piazzolla wasn’t immune from the schlock spreading worldwide like stagflation—yet ‘it has “Libertango” (and “Violentango”) on it’ makes up for a lot.
75. Curtis Mayfield: Super Fly (1972)
Once the gangsta era started, this and its countless derivatives became the funk foundation of rap because its strings and wah-wahs do carry out a glamorous seduction—one that Curtis tries to dispel with his lyrics, but rappers are as good at ignoring inconvenient lyrics as anyone else. “Don’t wanna be like Freddie now, ’cause Freddie’s dead” seems pretty clear to me though.
74. Idrissa Soumaoro & l’Eclipse de l’I.J.A.: Le Tioko-Tioko (Mali, 1978)
Les Ambassadeurs’s organist took a day job at Bamako’s school for the blind, where the pupils included guitarist Amadou Bagayoko and singer Mariam Doumbia. Almost no one outside East Berlin heard any of this until Mr Bongo put “Fama Allah” on The Original Sound of Mali in 2017 and we realized it was the peak slab of late ’70s Afrofunk north of Fela himself.
73. Van Morrison: Moondance (1970)
Set aside, as the Man did, Astral Weeks as essentially unrepeatable. This is what he’s been trying to achieve for the rest of his career, to not entirely diminishing returns: the best instance of him as a great soul singer, folding his mystical schtick into digestible four-minute packages. His attack on the titular chorus is one of his most thrilling moments.
72. Chabuca Granda: Tarimba Negra (Peru, 1978)
The fruit of a career spent showing Black and creole sounds could be integrated into Lima’s urbane forms. If this sounds a bit “Debbie Harry invented rap”, Granda’s sophistication and womanism are beyond doubt, putting additional twists on songs that already read well on paper, like “Lando” and the Violeta Parra-inspired “Cardo o ceniza”, showing even the most human concerns exist in particular ecologies.
71. Eno: Another Green World (1975)
Sure, he invented ambient, but at this distance his major achievement is managing to make all kinds of modes fit together, from the classic pop song “St Elmo’s Fire” that morphs into Robert Fripp creating perhaps his greatest guitar solo by pretending to be an electrostatic generator, to “The Big Ship” letting multiple movies read whatever they want into it.
70. Le Seigneur Rochereau à l’Olympia (Zaire 1971)
It’s disputed whether these 2 LPs (abridged to 1 CD) are actually what Afrisa played in their cultural victory at the club most famous for Edith Piaf’s residencies, but it’s clear they’re great music, with saxist Deyesse and the Michelino-led guitar section in top form. Post-Nico/Roger, Tabu Ley finds his definitive sound (complete with soundalike harmonizers), and his concessions to the West aren’t as blatant as his near-future “Let It Be” cover would be.
69. Frank Lowe: The Flam (1976)
Even to 21st century free ears, Don Cherry sideman Lowe’s tenor is remarkably disjunction-filled, jump-cutting from one kind of weird squeal to another to passages that aren’t weird at all. Joseph Bowie’s trombone and Wadada Leo Smith’s trumpet nearly keep up, and the mutual funk groove “Third St. Stomp”, powered by the Alex Blake–Bobo Shaw rhythm section, foreshadows all manner of downtowns.
68. Spinners (1973)
Even close-listening, it’s hard to tell Philippé Wynne and Bobby Smith apart until the closing “Could It Be I’m Falling in Love”, when after Smith’s done, Thom Bell finally lets Wynne cut loose on the outro. (Next: work out if Wynne sings “you just got to fuck her” on “One of a Kind”.) The other great vocal performance is the backing by the Sweethearts of Sigma, as crucial to the Philly Sound as the Andantes were to Detroit.
67. Bembeya Jazz National: Hommage à Demba Camara (Guinea, 1974)
Demba Camara’s the sweet-voiced singer, dead in a car crash in 1973. Sékou Diabaté’s up with post-Nico guitar trends, yet you can hear the kora in his lines. The rhythm section plays both kinds of music, Afro and Cuban. Several songs are among the biggest Guinean hits of the era; some are dedicated to Sékou Touré but they kind of had to. Once, the backing vox meow.
66. Anthony Braxton: Creative Orchestra Music 1976
Braxton assembles a who’s who (Frederic Rzewski!) to make up a big band to play not just the kitchen sink but six different kitchen sinks, including an Ellington update, a warped Sousa march, some horsey sounds. You’d better believe the experiments work given the talent, not least a trumpet section so strong that Leo Smith could put his instrument down to conduct the opener.
65. Hermeto Pascoal: Slaves Mass (Brazil, 1977)
As you’re figuring out while reading this list, I’m not the target audience for psychy-fusiony exploration, and I wasn’t optimistic during the nine-minute opener, but the catchy prog ditty “Little Cry for Him” won me over. The musicianship is undeniable, and even beyond the singing pigs there’s a genuine off-kilter feeling, aided by avant-Brazil mainstays Flora Purim and Airto Moreira, that keeps things interesting.
64. The B-52’s (1979)
Contra so many subsequent bands with retro hairstyles and callbacks to stuff they saw on TV as a kid, you can’t just fake weird. Fred knew committing to the bit was more important than whether you were singing about Satanic butter. Ricky understood you could get more from fewer guitar strings. Kate and Cindy sound like they’ll make weird go pop one day.
63. Thomas Mapfumo & the Acid Band: Hokoyo! (Zimbabwe, 1978)
“Hokoyo” means “watch out”; the Rhodesian government thought (rightly) it was about them and threw Mapfumo, whose attitude is clear enough to those who don’t speak Shona, in jail. The music’s simple enough for a revolution—mbira lines repurposed for guitar and sometimes backing voices, with a pretty relaxed sax, all considered. Things would get complicated once he opposed Mugabe.
62. Led Zeppelin IV (1971)
Metal, which as a genre-inclusivist I refuse to retcon Zep out of, deserves more than one spot on the list, but while I like Sabbath well enough, find me an album of theirs that doesn’t have a too-dumb-to-live moment. Zep’s not all heavy, but they’re always building towards the catharsis that more than any specific tuning or amp setting is the essence of \m/.
61. Nass El Ghiwane [Disque d’or] (Morocco, 1973)
Debut from multiregional modernizers formed in Casablanca and still around (with one original member) today. Scorsese called them Africa’s Stones and everyone else calls them trance. To outsider me, they’re consumate entertainers, with a beat you can headbang to, blazing banjo, and some of the era’s most thrilling group singing from any continent. Singing about what? Megahit “As Siniya” is a complaint to a tea tray, apparently.
60. Les Plus Grands Success De Chic: Chic’s Greatest Hits (1979)
You could argue for Collins or Shakespeare or Makwela as top bottom-ender in the best decade for bass on record; my pick would be plectrum eschewer Bernard Edwards. Of course a big reason is that he sparked recorded rap, but he’d be an all-timer even if nobody worked out “Good Times” was fun to add your own (or Grandmaster Caz’s) words to. Plus Nile Rodgers: also pretty good at what he did!
59. The Congos: Heart of the Congos (Jamaica, 1978 mix)
On original release, falsettoist Cedric Myton, tenor Ashanti Roy, and not-on-the-cover Watty Burnett didn’t sound too avant-garde. Then Lee Perry got a new toy phaser and re-processed as much as he could with the four tracks he had available. The result: apocalyptic music that actually sounds otherworldly, with harmonies from underwater, or from space, or underwater on some other planet with underwater cows.
58. Hannibal and the Sunrise Orchestra: Hannibal (1975)
Hannibal Marvin Peterson (now Lokumbe) spent the early ’70s sidemanning for both Gil Evans and Pharoah Sanders, and you can hear the dichotomy. Great compositions (plus uh “Misty”) with chord changes and all, plus interesting textures including Diedre Murray’s cello and Hannibal’s own koto, culminating in a Malcolm tribute with Hannibal putting in an all-decade trumpet solo. Michael Cochrane’s piano is nearly as stunning.
57. Kraftwerk: Trans Europa Express (Germany, 1977)
you’re telling me this Europa Express is trans
OR
‘Oh, you liked “Autobahn”? What if we made the whole album out of a precision-engineered German transportation network’
56. Yellow Magic Orchestra: Solid State Survivor (Japan, 1979)
Unlike Kraftwerk, Sakamoto and company weren’t interested in analyzing the tension between the synthetic and real; they take it for granted that plastic love’s a thing that already exists in the world. And they sound even more like the future than the ’Werk, if only because Japan moved ahead of West Germany at cultural export in the 1980s. Sure, the tech here’s still Korgs and Moogs, but they were warming themselves and the world up for Rolands and Yamaha, or at least to watch anime.
55. The Roches (1979)
Even if all this were was the best possible setting for “Hammond Song”, it’d be a classic. But the writing, hard-switching between Maggie’s and Terre’s and Suzzy’s points of view like Virginia Woolf was writing them, is witty throughout and often secretly devastating about possibilities open or not to women. And the harmonies! And the unison work on “Hammond Song”!
54. Blondie: Parallel Lines (1978)
Consider the difficulty of working out how to combine punk spirit with pop sheen with no precedent to draw on. Helps to have songwriting from Harry and Stein (plus the rest of the group, barring Clem Burke, a stalwart on drums even if producer Mike Chapman wanted credit for turning him into one), but the band’s sharpened so the ones they didn’t write aren’t a letdown—Jack Lee’s songs never sounded so good again.
53. Caetano Veloso: Bicho (Brazil, 1977)
Even back then he was uneven, but when he was on, as he was here and on Transa and Cinema Transcendental, he’s on to the extent that one believes it’d have been for the best if he (and/or Gil) got Dylan’s Nobel. This one’s my favorite because it’s the funkiest (curiously, the same principle doesn’t apply to Zimmy), and his song of friendship for a musician still to come on this list is very sweet.
52. Batsumi (South Africa, 1974)
Upon Matsuli’s 2011 remaster, this was belatedly recognized as among the very best single-artist albums recorded in apartheid South Africa. Sax player Themba Koyana has a fine tone and Thabang Masemola plays some of the grittiest and best jazz flute ever. Good multilingual singing too, with lyrics that could be read politically, as could their co-option of “Für Elise” (good tune that.)
51. Buzzcocks: Singles Going Steady (1979)
Barring “Ever Fallen in Love”, the all-time bad romance song, the post-orgasmic B’s aren’t totally outclassed by the “why, I can touch it, and often” A’s, a testament to the sound they found off the bat and to how direct they stayed as their scope broadened. Emo’s unimaginable without them (to be clear, this is a point in their favor.)
Previously:
Part 2 tomorrow! Lots more Zaire and Brazil and Jamaica to come!
You know me, very pleased to see Lowe, Braxton and Peterson on this list. no disrespect to the other choises so far.
Hands down my favorite Veloso lp! Front-to-back perfection!