What was the best-selling album of 1977?
Pinpointing the beginning of punk is like trying to trace the origin of a wave. But 1977 was certainly the moment that the manic genre crested the shore. Never Mind the Bollocks saw the Sex Pistols define the aesthetics of the booming revolution, and its appeal to youth of the day was affirmed by equally radical releases from the Ramones, The Stranglers, Richard Hell, The Runaways and more.
The way it arose and its impacts on the world could be pored over academically for unending hours, but one thing that it certainly seemed to prove beyond measure was how youth culture is synonymous with a sense of drama. Kids were the main advocates of ‘Anarchy in the UK’, and that makes perfect sense. Everything is dramatic when you’re young.
A break-up with someone you were dating for a fortnight when you’re 15 can feel like a divorce. I can even recall a friend, aged 14, uttering, ‘Maybe love is just not for me’, a moment that now married and mortgaged father has still never lived down. In fact, you could argue that 1977 was the first time that true youth culture was finally reflected in the mainstream with all of its barmy bells and whistles.
Punk provided that in abundance. In its welter was a sense of visceral immediacy and vigour. Say what you like about the Sex Pistols, you certainly couldn’t say that they were boring. Along with their angular peers, they represented a sense of creative abandon. That struck a chord with door-slamming kids searching for something to identify with beyond prog bands who were turning The Odyssey into 19-minute solos.
As Kurt Cobain’s fittingly juvenile definition put it, “Punk is musical freedom. It’s saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster’s terms, ‘nirvana’ means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that’s pretty close to my definition of punk rock.” It is also pretty close to manna from heaven for teenagers who think their life is as fraught as it is ever going to be.
But it also wasn’t immediately accessible. The Sex Pistols only rose to 106th in the US charts, and in their native Britain, where they had been serving headlines like bandits, their only record peaked at 12th. Even now, Never Mind the Bollocks has only sold 1.7million copies. Obviously, ‘only’ is used loosely there, but it does pale in comparison to similarly revolutionary albums like Led Zeppelin’s debut, which has sold around 10.7million copies.
So, what album out-sold punk in 1977?
However, punk wasn’t the only genre that offered melodrama for the masses in 1977. The world of pop was leaning into its own sense of public chaos almost inadvertently with the advent of Rumours. The classic Fleetwood Mac album not only became the best-selling album of the year, but it now firmly sits in the top ten best-selling albums of all time list.
The frenzied backstory embellished the record with immediate appeal. As Lindsey Buckingham would reflect, “Whatever was going in the band, specifically between the two couples, very much informed the material, and I think that was a very great appeal of the album. If you look at the success that the album enjoyed, I think it goes a little bit beyond the music itself.”
There can be no doubt that the tension within the group would leak into everything the album would become, as Buckingham continues: “I think a resonance kicks in that has to do with the interaction of the people, the whole being greater than the sum of the parts and I think a tangible element of that is the fact you had these dialogues shooting back and forth between members of the band about things that were happening to all of us while we were recording these songs.”
Much like punk, the story of the album seems like an inviting ambition to a clueless 15-year-old by virtue of the fact that it cuts through the hormonal adolescent malaise like a drama dagger, but to the same kid, another 15 years on, the very thought of making Rumours may well prompt a panic attack. Thoughts of being in the Sex Pistols might trigger a similar response.
But when you’re young, that same fraught danger appeals and Rumours offered it up on the most accessible level. It was easy sunshine pop, backed by a dark sense of adrenaline. So, in your feted teenage domain, you could happily sit there and think the soppy and stupid thought, ‘Maybe love is just not for me’, but be assured that such a predicament was a positive boon for your inevitable pop-rock band.
It has now sold over 40million copies and the figure is still growing, proving that that point has never lost its timeless edge.
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