The top five best-selling classic rock songs of the 1970s, in order
To many music fans, caught up in the vacuum of Beatles supremacy, the end of the 1960s felt like the end of music. The band responsible for creating what so many music fans considered to be modern pop music would cease to exist as the decade turned into the 1970s, and so to many, creativity as they knew it would halt.
As history has proved, there needn’t have been any fear, for the dissolution of the world’s biggest band ultimately resulted in a booming period of musical diversity. The gateways of experimentation had been opened by the Fab Four, and in the slipstream of that came a swathe of new artists ready to capitalise.
The tinges of psychedelia that clouded their later releases were wholly embraced by the likes of Pink Floyd and the Grateful Dead, while their slight foray into heavy rock on ‘Helter Skelter’ was embellished by metal pioneers Black Sabbath. The catalogue of sounds that had been experimented under The Beatles umbrella was now raining over all of music, with colour, excitement and innovation.
All of this fails to mention the burgeoning era of soul and Motown, which ultimately evolved into disco. Marvin Gaye’s voice soared into philanthropic realms during this decade, while the rhythm sections responsible for crafting his sound helped foster the quickened and excited attitude of late-night disco. There was something for everyone, in every part of the world, and so the charts suddenly became a leaderboard of greatness.
Despite all of this, music could never escape the presence of The Beatles. Freeing themselves from the shackles of the pressure that came with the band clearly benefitted their creativity, with Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and George Harrison all going on to have quite outstanding solo careers. While Harrison may have boasted the most intriguing solo record with All Things Must Pass, he couldn’t get one up on his former bandmates, who unsurprisingly asserted their songwriting dominance in the following decade by making it into the top five best-selling songs of the ‘70s.
McCartney made his way into the top five with his second band, Wings. The band slowly earned the trust of music fans with their opening albums, before finally convincing them in 1978, with the Celtic-inspired hit ‘Mull Of Kintyre’. It was the sort of song McCartney would have been itching to write in the latter stages of The Beatles’ career, for it to be simply shut down by Lennon, whose creativity was forging a different path.
It was fitting then that Macca was joined in the top five by his friend-turned-foe, Lennon, who made it with a song similarly representative of his individuality and style. ‘Imagine’ was him at his most philanthropic, refusing to compromise to commercial demands and instead writing a song that served a sole and individual purpose.
However, despite their ever presence, both McCartney and Lennon were toppled by a band who thrived off the back of their experimentation a decade before. The Beatles helped define the idea of elaborate storytelling through the medium of song with ‘A Day In The Life’, which was later embellished by Queen and their epic rock opera ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.
With Freddie Mercury’s voice at the helm, and the band’s stunning instrumentation behind, it cascaded through ideas with unrelenting fury and tapped into this new open-mindedness that existed within the booming ‘70s. Released in 1977, it fought off the spiky rebellion of burgeoning punk music to prove that ambition is still rewarded.
These three songs provide something of a pillar to understanding music in the ‘70s, and were joined alongside two songs that fit on either side of them on the spectrum. One of which was Slade’s ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’, which somehow crept into the top five, proving that even in the depths of music’s most artistic decade, commercialism is an unavoidable evil.
More optimistically, Blondie also made the top five and, in turn, represented the myriad of subgenres that thrived in this new open-minded era. New wave was essentially the lovechild of all the rock experimentation that came in the early stages of the decade, acting as a gateway into a bright new future. A future where rock and dance can live simultaneously, continuing the idea of music evolution as it did so.
The five best-selling classic rock songs of the 1970s:
- ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ – Queen (1975)
- ‘Mull of Kintyre/Girls’ School’ – Wings (1977)
- ‘Imagine’ – John Lennon (1975)
- ‘Heart of Glass’ – Blondie (1979)
- ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ – Slade (1973)
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