Billy Bob Thornton names the greatest year in music history: “I don’t think there was anything monumental after that”
There can’t be many easier ways to start an argument with a music aficionado than telling them that one year can definitively be called the greatest in the history of music, but Billy Bob Thornton doesn’t care.
It’s an opinion at the end of the day, even if it’s one that’s caused endless debates that rage endlessly into the night. As much as it’s a matter of taste and personal preference, there are some years that stand out more than others that feel deserving of such an unquantifiable honour.
Then again, there’s a recurring theme. Whether it’s 1969, 1977, or 1971, those two decades in particular seem to state a stronger case than most. You wouldn’t find many people who’d opt for a 21st-century timeline as the best year that music has ever seen, so Thornton is at least sticking to some kind of convention.
The actor, filmmaker, and musician, who was raised on a steady diet of classic rock and southern staples, long before he made a name for himself in Hollywood, doesn’t write or perform for the mainstream with his band, the Boxmasters, but the albums and artists he used to illustrate his point are all icons, iconic, classics, or bestsellers.
His personal pipeline began with Frank Zappa, which led him to the Allman Brothers, “because it was southern guys who do something other than country music who are rock and roll guys, but they are jazzy and bluesy and all this stuff.” That led him to Pink Floyd, who showed him the way to King Crimson, which he did admit was “during the drug days.”
“But the year I graduated, 1973, there were all these famous fucking records that came out that year,” he said. “Dark Side of the Moon, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Quadrophenia, Houses of the Holy, Mott the Hoople, Bowie, Lynyrd Skynyrd, all this shit came out that year. After ’73 or ’74, it had all happened. I don’t think there was anything monumental after that.”
It was a jam-packed year, that’s for sure. Beyond the albums Thornton used as the benchmark, 1973 also saw the release of Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions, Iggy and the Stooges’ Raw Power, Bowie’s Aladdin Sane, Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On, Wings’ Band on the Run, Black Sabbath’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and many more, with classic upon classic being rolled out across almost every genre.
“Not that there wasn’t some great music after that,” Thornton clarified, in case anyone thought he said that nothing released after the end of 1973 was worth a damn. “But I would say the eye-opening, cathartic, or inspirational stuff had already happened by the time I was 18.”
Is 1973 really the greatest year in music history? Well, you can’t really answer that, because even if you agree, the person beside you may not. It is for the Sling Blade Academy Award winner, and not without merit, since there were plenty of masterpieces to hit the shelves.
