1972
1971 had a seen the release of some great albums, but as a whole it hadn’t reached the heights of 1970 as far as ‘heavy music’ was concerned, 1972 would see this lull corrected. 1972 must rank as one of the great years in 1970s rock music without any shadow of a doubt. This was a year that saw some of the greatest albums ever released in Yes
Close to the Edge, David Bowie
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Wishbone Ash
Argus, Allman Brothers Band
Eat a Peach, Neil Young
Harvest and Lou Reed’s
Transformer. This quality was also mirrored by the bands at the top end of my list for 1972 and there were some stellar albums and guess what? Led Zeppelin didn’t even record a studio album in 1972, so there will be a new number one on here for 1972! Under the moniker of ‘heavy music’ hard rock continued to be the driving force yet again and the genre now slowly started to move further away from its overtly blues influences, they would still be there of course but not quite so obvious as before. 1972 would also especially in the UK, see the emergence of the ‘glam rock’ scene and it was obvious that glam could live with music at the heavier end of the spectrum and Alice Cooper had already proved this and Mott the Hoople would also prove it as well. Also anybody reading this, would have noticed how British bands more or less ruled the roost in terms of producing the best heavy bands band for band, a factor which would probably remain true for the rest of the decade. But throughout the decade, the Americans would always have a band that could live with the best and 1972 would see the arrival of the Blue Oyster Cult, which would give America their most stable hard rock band since Grand Funk Railroad. The year was so good, that I had to cheat in order to get some albums into the “Top 10” list and I did this by doubling up albums released by the same artist. What I mean by doubling up will become apparent when looking at the list. Enjoy as it’s a fantastic year and one of the very best of the decade.