1977
1977 was such a pivotal and exciting year in rock music as a whole, in fact despite the brilliance of the early 1970s, no year since 1967 had thrown up a batch of albums that challenged the traditional hierarchy of rock in such a way. Despite the similarities of the two years, 1977 was quite different to 1967 in that 1967 had established artists adopting a psychedelic stance over more traditional rock, whereas 1977 had new bands doing new things to challenge the existing hierarchy. The explosion of punk, new-wave and off-the wall rock bands was simply quite staggering at this time, as was the quality of the debut albums on show from the Clash, the Damned, the Stranglers, Dead Boys, Television, Talking Heads and the meanest sounding of them all from Cheap Trick! Not to be outdone the established order of Fleetwood Mac, Styx, Steely Dan, Rush, Pink Floyd and a revitalised David Bowie had put out cornerstone albums, in an age which also saw the rise especially in the USA of the disco era, just think the Bee Gees and you’re away. So where did this leave the bulk of hard rock and heavy metal bands? Well if you were an already established act such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Kiss, Aerosmith and Blue Oyster Cult you were still selling by the bucketload and filling out concert arenas, regardless of whether you were putting out quality stuff or not and in the case of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath most definitely not! Other bands such as Budgie, Uriah Heep and Nazareth just to name a few where feeling the pinch creatively and looking a shadow of their former selves, despite the last two who were looking to fight back! Thus leaving bands like UFO and Thin Lizzy to keep the flag flying quality wise, along with recent breakthroughs in acts like Judas Priest and AC/DC. What this meant though at the bottom end of the spectrum in terms of new bands coming through, was that these bands were going to struggle in trying to take-off. So between 1977 and 1979 new music at the heavier end of the spectrum, just wasn’t getting the same amount of exposure as a lot of newer and older established genres. Despite this negative, 1977 would still throw up a strong selection of albums to keep the flag flying and in the shape of an unlikely rock opera
Bat Out of Hell by Meatloaf, the genre would have one of the biggest selling albums of all time.