THAT 70's SHOW

The seventies were a time when a new generation of youthful people were exposed to new media and hence newer ideas in almost every field. TV and motion picture brought to varied audiences images, lifestyles and music from diverse regions and peoples. This led to the emergence of a new vocabulary and experimentation in music. This later influenced both art rock and progressive rock as well as the punk rock and New Wave genres. The main exponents of progressive rock include Genesis, Yes, Gen Giant, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Supertramp, Pink Floyd and Premiata Forneria Marconi. Also the start of Hard rock in many forms began with the British bands Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. One of the first events of the 70s was the breakup of the Beatles in 1970.

However, the seventies were also when many legendary rock bands started, or hit their peak, including Black Sabbath, Queen, Kansas, Boston, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Electric Light Orchestra, Lynyrd Skynyrd, AC/DC, Blondie, Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Patti Smith, Fleetwood Mac, Status Quo, Family, Free, Aerosmith, Badfinger, the Eagles, Kiss, Heart, Rush, The Who, The Doors, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, and Van Halen, to name a few.
The commercial cinemas around the world tended to imitate nuances of disco beats in their movies to present their movies as western and upbeat. These included the increasingly popular Kung-fu movies in far East Asia and Bollywood movies from India. One of the most successful European groups of the decade was the quartet ABBA. The Swedish group, who are still the most successful group from their country, first found fame when they won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest. They became one of the most widely known European groups ever, and were the decade's biggest sellers. "Waterloo" and "Dancing Queen" are two of ABBA's most popular songs.

To many people, the Seventies will be most remembered for the rise in disco music. First creeping into dance clubs in the mid-seventies (with such hits as "The Hustle" by Van McCoy), songstresses like Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Dalida and Anita Ward popularized the genre and were described in subsequent decades as the "disco divas." The Village People scored a Top Ten hit with "Y.M.C.A" and the Bee Gees had a string of #1s following their collaboration on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.

As quickly as disco's popularity came, however, it fell out of favor with the new decade, due to a religious revival and the rise of conservatism. Disco came to be associated with gays and minorities. Conservatives such as Steve Dahl spoke out against disco and held demonstrations against it. Due to this tremendous backlash, disco effectively died in 1981.

The 1970s saw a rise in Funk music which spawned the genre Disco. Artists such as James Brown, The Meters ,Parliament-Funkadelic and Sly And The Family Stone pionered the genre. It then spawned commercial artists such as Stevie Wonder, The Brothers Johnson, Earth, Wind & Fire, Bootsy's Rubber Band, Tower of Power, Ohio Players, The Commodores, War, Kool & the Gang, Confunkshun, Slave, Cameo, the Bar-Kays, Zapp, and many more.

Towards the end of the decade, Jamaican reggae music, already popular in the Caribbean and Africa since the early 1970s, became very popular in the U.S. and in Europe, mostly because of reggae superstar and legend Bob Marley as well as his band, The Wailers his former bandmate Peter Tosh and other artists like Burning Spear and Jimmy Cliff. The late 70s saw the beginning of hip hop music with the song Rapper's Delight by Sugarhill Gang.

Country music remained very popular in the U.S. In 1977 it became more mainstream after Kenny Rogers became a solo singer and scored many hits on both the country and pop charts. He achieved the biggest crossover success ever for the genre (although he would later be replaced by Garth Brooks).Waylon Jennings was very big and Willie Nelson released Red Headed Stranger.