1970s: Music

Musically, the 1970s was a decade of great variety. Hard rock got harder, soft rock got softer, and artists frustrated with standard musical forms tossed them aside and started their own. For fans of such new forms as funk, disco, punk, or new wave music, this innovation was wonderful. But others hated the music. Groups formed to express their hatred of disco. Some thought that punk culture was the sign of the downfall of civilization.

Hard rock had emerged in the 1960s as a way of protecting the angry and rebellious spirit of rock and roll. In the 1970s, musicians like KISS, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Alice Cooper (1948–) took hard rock in different directions. KISS was less famous for its music than for its outrageous costumes and explosive stage shows, and they blazed the way for rock as spectacle. Led Zeppelin inspired a cult following, encouraged by the band's hard-living reputation and its almost mystical lyrics. Rock got softer in the 1970s as well, thanks to performers like the Carpenters, Barry Manilow (1946–), the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, and the Swedish group ABBA, the most successful pop group of the 1970s. Although mocked by youths, their hits were played more widely on adult radio stations.

In punk and new wave music, rock split off in other directions. Punk music was an expression of the punk subculture, which protested the dullness and uniformity of society. Played by bands like the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and the Clash, the music was loud, fast, and angry. New wave bands like the Talking Heads, the Pretenders, and the Cars also engaged in cultural commentary, but with a wry sense of humor and much more polished playing. New wave music—later called alternative music—grew to be an important if somewhat hard-to-define branch of rock music.

Combining rock, rhythm and blues (R&B), jazz, and soul, funk music was an African American musical form that came to be associated with "Black Pride" and the civil rights movement. Its most famous practitioners were James Brown (1933–), Sly and the Family Stone, Parliament-Funkadelic, and Curtis Mayfield (1942–1999). Disco emerged out of funk in the late 1970s, as white and black bands combined funk and rock in order to make popular dance music. Like punk, disco was both a music and a culture. Disco featured flashy dance moves, mirror ball lights, and silk shirts. The music and culture of disco were captured in the 1977 hit film Saturday Night Fever, starring John Travolta (1954–). Hard-rock fans so hated disco that in Detroit, Michigan, and Chicago, Illinois, they engaged in open protests against disco. Such was the era of the 1970s, where musical styles often clashed.