The 1970s had the largest variety of music genres over any other decade. Soft rock, soul, R&B, disco, funk and hard rock all hit the No. 1 spot on the Billboard charts. It was the golden era of affordable vinyl records for everyone who owned a record player.
But the 1970s also marked the end of a music era when the world’s most popular group, The Beatles, split up, along with the sudden deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janice Joplin. The music made famous by these artists in the 1960s made way for new music from Britain with the emergence of Elton John, The Bee Gees, Led Zepplin, The Who and Black Sabbath.
In the early part of the ’70s, music was heavily laced with the symbolic representation of U.S. politics and the Vietnam War. This later morphed into soulful love ballads and reminiscents of happier days. But like that gregarious friend who likes to make an entrance at parties, disco exploded onto the scene, and the world of music was forever changed.
Here’s a list of Billboard’s top-ranking tunes for each year released. We guarantee some of these ’70s songs will bring back memories or, at the very least, become an earworm.
