1975
The mid 1970s were always something of a lean time as far as I’m concerned in the history of rockdom. Firstly the vibrant carry over from the late 1960s had long disappeared. Secondly progressive rock was on the slide and it would never recover itself as a main force again and glam rock had burst its bubble. Thirdly, the heavy genres of hard rock and heavy metal were both firmly established and finally middle of the road rock acts were dominating the charts both sides of the Atlantic. The quality of music though was certainly still there, but the creativity certainly wasn’t, it would be a few more years yet until creative boundaries were challenged again as they had at the start of the decade. But what the mid-1970s did give us depending on your point of view, were great production values with the aim of giving the listener a crisper overall listening experience, hence the birth of the highly polished AOR which would be especially dominant stateside. Like always though, the heavy genre threw up a whole host of quality albums that again had me deciding on what to leave out. Big boys such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple are again in the list, but this time for a last hurrah as these bands had truly reached their initial creative lifelines! The year also didn’t throw up much in the way of new acts making impressive albums either and it was more of a case, of other established bands putting out some of their best albums both quality wise and commercially. So the albums in the main top 10 list are very much the cream of what came out in 1975 and it’s one of those years were my own list probably marries itself completely, with other listings that I’ve seen on the internet for 1975.