Why did the 1970's have to happen?

the real question is why did the 1980s have to happen. I like the music, actually, but the whole mindset of let's go rushing back to corporate America and beg them to forgive us for ever straying. That is the real problem here.

The 80's were vastly superior to the 70's.

80's music is still alive and well today, being used in commercial advertising and also making a comeback.

The 1980's were sophisticated.

The 1970's was vomit inducing.

Let me guess. A post by a dopey Gen Z or millennial?

Disco was largely great music. It got overplayed and overcopied like grunge (and like every other style the industry tries to shit out on an assembly line).

not actually questioning the music, r2, more the mindset that came roaring back in. But actually, have you seen this?

Let’s leave the disco hatred — which was really homophobia in disguise — to the straight assholes of that era.

Eat a dick op.

Are you insane, OP? The 1970s gave us five of the most important musical masterpieces ever to be written: Company, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, Sweeney Todd and, of course, Follies. You are insane if you want to erase the decade that gave us Follies. If we only had to live with one piece of music for the rest of our lives, it would be the score to Follies.

The decade also gave us such gems as A Chorus Line, Mack & Mabel, Pippin, Ain’t Misbehavin’ and On the Twentieth Century. Dorothy Loudon debuted “Fifty Percent” in the 1970s.

Anyone who would want to erase Follies is a moron and certainly not gay.

[quote]The 1980's were sophisticated.

Are you Eric Trump? The best that can be said for the 70s is that they have perennial camp value, but the 80s were sophisticated only in an ersatz way, as if the 70s kept all its vulgarity but ditched the honest garishness in favor of stuffed-shirt prep school pretensions. The ultimate sign of 80s "sophistication" is a display of broken lacrosse gear and a leatherbound book in a mall Ralph Lauren shop.

If nothing else happens this decade, we got to get over this corporate mindset. it's been poison for 50 years. that shit has to stop.

I loved the 70s

OP take a lude and relax, the seventies were the decadent, groomed and good time decade. Reflexive to the dirtier 'earthier' sixties, they were about synthetics and exaggeration, and the last real carefree decade the world has seen.

okay, OP, so you're heartbroken, you sit around mopin, crying, crying, dig this:

Everyone looked like they stunk in the 1970's.

The ugly polyester and corduroy.

And the horribly mis-matched colors.

You people clearly have ZERO taste.

The 70s were great! R11 captures it best. The 80s brought AIDS, Reagan, Trump, and Scaasi poof.

It might sound odd, but I have a kind of fascination with the 70s. But perhaps it's not odd because I wasn't alive during them, so I'm looking back in an interested-but-didn't-have-to-live-through-it way. Friends of mine from that decade look back in horror at the fashion. Though I have to say, I'm quite attracted to the skinny male ideal of the time. What is probably particularly weird though, is that it's not a fascination with the 70s as the US saw them, but rather as Europe saw them, ie the decade seems quite dark in a lot of ways, things breaking down etc, but still has the remnants of that 60s ideal before the horrid 80s corporate/yuppie scene came along.

Haha, ok I honestly don't know what I'm talking about. I can't explain it at all well. I'm sort of always drawn to the less glitzy times. My mother travelled the world throughout the 70s, and I probably romanticise that too. I have that non-sensical "things seemed so much easier then" view of the times that only someone who wasn't alive during them can have, you know?

And there must've been a sense of dread or doom at the time. David Bowie has that song "Aladdin Sane 1913-1938-197?" which implies to me that people were concerned about something happening, even despite detente.

Has anyone seen Scarfolk Council, which takes a humorous look how terrifying 70s media was in the UK? That's the kind of thing I mean, I guess.

As far as music goes, to me one of the best periods in music ever was the late 70s, early 80s... say 77-83 at its limits. Punk, New Wave, interesting synth riffs, dark funk/disco, whatever the weird shit people were doing in the early 80s that managed to get to the top of the charts. I love all that stuff. The 80s post '83 became way too shiny and bland until '89.

Funny thing is, I don't really like disco from the 70s still - but I really like a lot of the disco comeback music that started up again in the late '90s.

oh, OP, you have lost the spirit of L'Amour. I hope you get it back.

Just look at all of that ugly hair and flair!!!

And those stupid sideburns!!

I'm fucking triggered, because I cannot believe that anyone is defending this horrible decade.

R11 mentions the last real carefree decade... that's sort of one of the things I was trying to get at in my ramble above. From the future, it does seem to have been quite carefree.

how do you think people look now, in this pandemic. hey, honey, there is a lot of hair going on. And speaking of hair.....

Why would someone prefer the era of the onset of AIDs to the carefree days of the 70s when a Jimmy Carter could be elected and Nixon was consigned to hell? Reagan ushered in the junk bond era and deregulation which created the evil cabal of billionaires we have now. Companies were broken up and their pensions looted so some Wall Street asshole could buy a Lear jet and a swiss chalet. Nothing went condo in the 70s. I had a one bedroom overlooking Lake Shore Drive in the area formerly known as Boystown and paid $300. Go watch Annie Hall and pay attention to the part where Woody rips Diane Keaton for paying $500 for a studio in the upper East side. Good times.

The '70s were also:

The Clash, The Ramones, Blondie, Joy Division, Squeeze, Talking Heads, The B-52's, The Cars, Devo, The Boomtown Rats, Joy Division

Robert Altman, Brian DePalma, Wim Wenders, John Carpenter, Andrei Tarkovsky, Francis Ford Coppola, Dario Argento, Sidney Lumet, Fassbinder, Scorsese

Stephen King, Tom Tryon, Tony Morrison, Deliverance, Roots, Ragtime

Plus one of my all-time favorite songs (Alive N' Kickin' "Tighter, Tighter") and two of my all-time favorite films (Barry Lyndon & Seven Beauties)

and the birth of the mini-series

Bite me

The only thing I liked about the 1980s from a design point of view was that it was the decade that historic preservation became mainstream in the US and pretty much any old house or building of any style started to be seen as interesting.

This might not have happened if the vast bulk of architecture in the 1970s had not been so dismal.

These are sixth graders from the 1970's.

But they all looked like they were in their 20's!!!!

Why did people look so old back then?

and since I'm in a religious mood, I'm going to throw some Helen Reddy at OP.

The fashion of the 70s interests me in some ways because at different points it seems to have harkened back to the 50s, the 30s and the Edwardian era.

thoughts and prayers for OP to come into the light.

R18 not to idealize it because it was grim economically, energy crisis, but people were more social in an impossible way today. Casual sex was just that, and that hasn't been true since. Rurally, I know several older women who literally saw the country travelling as hitchhikers, and more to a more urban crowd the club scene was so freeing, fashion didn't take itself seriously, the prints, cuts, and a lot of iconic cars from that era. But it was the beginning of the end as everyone knows what the 80s brought on.

Not to mention a golden age of film in it's own right.

What was wrong with 70's hair?

The 70s were not carefree. But they were the last decade when the basic outlook of our society was that of adults.

[quote]Why did people look so old back then?

R24 - It's not that they looks so old as much as contemporary kids looking increasingly immature & naive.

I think there were definitely issues, no doubt, as r28 points out, but this idea that we don't need to be stuck in a 1950s, or really an 1850s world, that was kind of lovely. we need to get back to that mentality, if nothing else.

Because the 70s came after the 60s, OP. That's how it works.

Rofl R29!

I guess many of you oldies have forgotten about gas lines from the 1970's.

and again, will not deny that I love a lot of the 80s, but this still is out there, being awesome from the 70s:

Thanks R28, I enjoyed reading that.

Hair is the 60's r19.

well dammit, r37, but you are right.

Hey OP, did you forget about me?

Early 70's music was great. From 1975 onward, it got worse.

I turned six in 1970, so I remember the decade as a child would regarding personal experiences, but in retrospect, there was a lot of foreshadowing of bad things to come. The Vietnam War permeated the early 70's, when, especially to families like mine who dreaded news that a son, brother, uncle, cousin, or neighbor was killed. By the mid-70's, international news was abysmal – kidnappings/killings, airplane hijackings, wars in the Middle East and Northern Ireland, oil embargoes – it seemed like Doomsday was nigh. The brief exuberance of celebrating the bicentennial of the US, mid-75 to mid-76, was the bright time for this gayling.

The economy got worse in the late 70's. My steelworker, union dad was on strike more than at work. A second oil crisis spread across the world and in 1979 the Islamic radicals in Iran stormed the US embassy. That lasted until January 20, 1081. Jonestown. Elvis ODed. Three Mile Island. It really was a "time of malaise," as Jimmy Carter proclaimed.

Alas, there were some memorable events. Aside from the bicentennial celebrations, Roots aired over several nights in 1977 and it seemed like every single person in America watched. Must-see TV shows aired, like Charlie's Angels, the Love Boat, All in the Family, M*A*S*H, etc. They really were cultural touchstones of the era.

R15 you're welcome

R34 your post in redundancy seems more relevant to mine at 28...and the energy crisis was the second issue cited, thanks for the reiteration.

The 70s was the beginning of rap..

the important thing is OP gets his love, cause he is sorely lacking:

Retro fashion was very 'in' R26 . You saw all those influences because they were being used. Those tiny little beaded disco dresses were flapper influenced big time. Just shorter. I wore those wild polyester print shirts but I usually paired them with jeans. I had a baby blue one with clouds all over it ,I loved that shirt ! Id wear that now,if I had that 1975 body again. I often thought the 70s were the 1920s repeating itself . All that hedonism right before the crash (aka as the 80s) .

R40

[quote] By the mid-70's, international news was abysmal – kidnappings/killings, airplane hijackings, wars in the Middle East and Northern Ireland, oil embargoes – it seemed like Doomsday was nigh. The brief exuberance of celebrating the bicentennial of the US, mid-75 to mid-76, was the bright time for this gayling.

The economy got worse in the late 70's. My steelworker, union dad was on strike more than at work. A second oil crisis spread across the world and in 1979 the Islamic radicals in Iran stormed the US embassy. That lasted until January 20, 1081. Jonestown. Elvis ODed. Three Mile Island. It really was a "time of malaise," as Jimmy Carter proclaimed.

These are the kinds of things that fascinate me as a lover of history (20th century history is my thing) and international politics, but yeah, I can totally see how those parts would not be fun to live through. "It seemed like Doomsday was nigh" - this is definitely the feeling I get when I read about and watch things from the 70s. Thanks for the write-up!

The hair in the 70s was great too, Robert Plants mane was gorgeous, Roger Daltrey, the actor playing Tommy Ross in Carrie.

and like the Edwardians, r44, there was an attempt to break away. then it stopped. then we went back to the Victorian era in the 1980s. We need a do-over.

[quote] The hair in the 70s was great too

You have GOT to be kidding, R46.

R44, oh that's really interesting! Plus high-waisted trousers were back in in the 70s too weren't they? I imagine that was 30s inspired as well?

(apologies for bad formatting at R45 too, the second paragraph was meant to be a quote as well, whoops!)

I agree it led to mediocre music although punk had some cool things music and lyric wise, more political than disco. However I think looking back people miss the freedom, lower rents, local book stores, small citizen owned local stores etc...before corporations took over everything.

Playgirl started publishing in the 70s, all those male celebrities who posed full-frontal after Burt didn't in Cosmopolitan. Chest hair and big bushes were coveted. Getting away with feeling up male classmates and the really risky blowjob. It all felt pleasingly dangerous.

I do wish everyone would post there favorite seventies song with every thought.

We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun...

Pretty much everything that has happened in the past 50 years is shit. it's weird to realize that.

My first eargasm.

The clothing, interior design, fabric patterns and color schemes of the 70s were all absolutely batshit bonkers. I love it. I was born in 1973 and I remember the 70s, but seeing it now gives me so much appreciation for how insanely cool, open and radical the culture was back then.

Everything that could be designed was done with such a playful and whimsical spirit. And the concept of "organic" was a dominant thread running throughout the 70s and it influenced culture in a very sensual way. Women going braless, ditching makeup and artifice. Children running around naked by the river. Men with pants so tight that you can almost discern whether they are cut or uncut. Androgyny. Men could have long flowing hair and wear blouses and caftans. Glam, which was ALL artifice but still had a free-wheeling hippie spirit seen through the lens of Art. Rainbow motifs, space age 70s furniture that now looks so charming and quaint in its optimism. Daisies. Nature. Free love. Rock and roll. Cheech and Chong. Disco AND Punk. Dancing. Singing. Holding hands in a circle. New Age heart-centered belief systems. Even the drugs were more laid back.

The idea of community was a given. Everything revolved around community, coming together, helping each other, loving one another. There were communes, kibbutzes everywhere. And still many generations of relatives living in one house.

And all the black influences!! Black culture was off the hook, it was larger than life! The 70s were soulful AF!

I know there were a zillion national and global crises, as there always are. But I mean, things were getting really dialed in from a psycho-socio-spiritual standpoint.

How much of the late 70s awfulness (for me anyway) was due to peak leaded gasoline?

Sorry, but the late 1970s blue-collar Midwest I experienced had air you could see and very angry adults prone to violence.

Wait, there were 70s?

R50 You're nuts.

Thank you R56 as that’s what I remember, too. All that energy! I was in my late 20s-early 30s. We had great clubs in Orange County and Los Angeles. The disco music drove us crazy, and I never left a club by myself. The whole gay thing was just coming into its own, where we could finally be open. We’d pass that bottle of Locker Room (amyl nitrite) around on the dance floor as we defied our tight pants to rip open. The crazier the hair, the better. The louder the clothes, they spoke of a new era. It was a celebration of life, love and sex. To really understand it, you had to be a young horny guy, always ready for all comers.

Ahem

Without the cool and open-minded culture of the 70's, I don't think I would ever dare to offer a blowjob to someone I just met.

Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey, R52.

I do remember a guy with an obnoxiously-colored shirt and pants at a gay bar. For whatever reason, I complimented him on them. He responded: "They were meant to come off..."

R60 YASSSS!!! Wish I coulda been jiving with you on the dance floor with my coke spoon and my tight-ass polyester shirt unbuttoned to my navel, as our blood pulsed in sync to the music, brimming with sexual hunger, freedom, and joy!

But alas, I was 5 years old in 1978.

^^^ R56^^^

R61 Point taken

[quote]Early 70's music was great. From 1975 onward, it got worse.

R40, not at all. The second half of the decade was equally extraordinary. It's the time of Disco, of Chuck Mangione, Chris Cross's 'Sailing,' etc.

From 1976, the Steve Miller Band, 𝐅𝐥𝐲 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚𝐧 𝐄𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐞:

[quote]Can't we just erase this decade from our collective memory?

Only if it would result in OP not exiting, hence this incredibly stupid thread not being started.

"The 80's were vastly superior to the 70's.

80's music is still alive and well today, being used in commercial advertising and also making a comeback.

The 1980's were sophisticated."

You are an idiot.

You are an idiot.

You are an idiot.

THE 70s = BEST MUSIC DECADE EVER. EVER.

Thread closed.

[quote]I turned six in 1970, so I remember the decade as a child would regarding personal experiences...

So did I, R40. However, despite the fact I had a pretty painful childhood, from the standpoint of the surrounding culture - the music, the movies, the television, the look and feel of the 1970s, it was a fabulous time. (I wish I could post this in 'Peignot' typefont.) Of all the decades of my life, it's still my favorite, and in a sense I will always live there. It's a permanent part of who I am.

From 1979, England Dan and John Ford Coley's 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫:

I can read your mind, R70

Oh no! Sorry! Eye in the Sky was from '82. But...it sounds very 70s lol. In the best way.

BLACK SABBATH!

Punk rock

Funk and soul music! Classic RnB!

Cholos and cholas! Low-riders! Muscle cars!

SURFING and SKATEBOARDING!

Movies with Clint Eastwood back then were pretty good, i.e. Play Misty For Me

Civil rights movement like gay rights/Harvey Milk, the Black Panthers, Roe V. Wade, Gloria Steinem-era feminism

The advent of Black entertainment like soul train, motown, black television like Good Times, the Jeffersons, blaxploitation films

Comedy and stand-up comedy! Richard Pryor! George Carlin! Saturday Night Live didn't suck back then!

Pot! Psychedelic drugs! Festivals! Willie Nelson!

(I wasn't supposed to be around back then because I was born in '87, but I was anyway! And I fucking loved it! I had a blast!)

I do very much like the Alan Parsons Project, R72. Especially 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 (1980):

Everyone was so effortlessly lean back then. What the hell happened?

I forgot to add MONTY PYTHON and the Holy Grail!

Devo began in the 70s! And they were right about De-Evolution, too, sadly.

Folks were waking up in a big way. We were becoming re-enchanted with Mother Earth, and waking up to what were were doing to her. Pollution and littering were beginning to be taken seriously. We saw the Crying Indian and we felt his pain.

MAUDE

𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐜𝐤: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞 (1975):

𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐬 (1977) original trailer:

What's the purpose of this thread? No decade is better or worse when it come to pop culture unless you grew up in that decade. So what's the agenda?

The 1980s produced the worst hairstyles, make up and fashion of the 20th century.

And home design.

And music.

The 1930s produced better music than the 1980s

Like a couple of other posters above, I also turned 6 in 1970 and 15 in 1979. I look fondly on the 70s as I remember my childhood in the Dallas suburbs. As far as I'm concerned, I had a great time to being a kid. To me, it seems that it was the last decade when kids had fun playing outside, using their imaginations and their energy to keep themselves entertained. We didn't spend all of our time inside glued to a screen (except on Saturday morning watching cartoons). As sophisticated as our electronic play got was a handheld Mattel Electronic Football or Pong hooked up to our portable black and white TV. In the summer, we would head out of the house around 9:00 am, come in around noon to eat a lunch of bologna sandwiches with Cheetos and Kool Aid, then head back out again until we were called back in for dinner. We rode our bikes all over the place. We played kickball in the street in front of our houses and we would set up elaborate Hot Wheels tracks in our garages. We would explore the empty fields on the edge of the neighborhood where we would try to catch crawdads in the creek using a piece of raw bacon tied to a string. Later in the decade, we would let our inner Tony Manero out as we did "The Hustle" at our 8th grade dances. Of course, we were wearing our best polyester print shirts with wide collars and our skintight slacks that flared at the bottom. And our hair was parted down the middle and feathered on both sides. Yeah, looking back now it seems cheesy. But back then, we thought we were the shit! Sure, there was fucked up shit going on in the world. But as 10-year-old, all I cared about during the gas shortage was that it gave us an opportunity to set up a lemonade stand on the corner of our street to serve all the adults sitting in line for the gas station a couple of blocks down the road. "Vietnam" and "Watergate" and "inflation" were just words we heard the adults saying on the 6:00 news while we waited for "Happy Days" to come on at 7:00.

I loved being a kid in the 70s.

Clearly, 1970's fashion has not stood the test of time.

Designers must have all been on crack.

The eighties were so coarse, trashy and overstated. I hate the beauty standards of that decade.

[quote] Everyone was so effortlessly lean back then. What the hell happened?

There were so many activities.

Dancing, roller skating, etc.

Also, cocaine was abundant.

Lots of cheap material and turtlenecks.

Prom Court!

𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐬𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐞 by Vince Guaraldi, played as end credits in 'A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving' (1973):

Wash your mouth out OP!

Highlights.

Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) and Halloween (1978).

I love this photo.

People were a lot less superficial than this current generation who are so empty-handed and uneducated that they adore Kardashians, something that never could have happened in '70s,' 80s, '90s. Real music was still being heard, including the disco. What exactly is the current shit that millennials call music? K-Pop ?? How awful ! Nixon sucked but not as bad as Trump. And thank God, there was no social media. We felt so much better in our skin than what I can observe from our current youth.

I love 70s music and fashion. Heaps better than what came after that!

[quote] Pretty much everything that has happened in the past 50 years is shit. it's weird to realize that.

Um, NO. The last TWENTY years, sure. The 70s through the 90s had most of the best films and music ever made. Not all of it, and sometimes the most mainstream stuff was lame, but come on.

The 70s was the greatest decade of American filmmaking. It’s been mostly downhill from there in a broad sense.

The music of the 70s was great. Give me Bad Company and the Velvet Underground and Thin Lizzy over Cardi B any day.

The clothing was a bit weird, but not everyone wore the craziest fashions, at least not all the time. What’s wrong with tight pants that accentuate a man’s meat and potatoes anyway? And the grooming was the best: musky pubes for days. No shame. Delicious.

Anyone who prefers the extremely tacky 80s over the 70s doesn’t have a clue.

[quote] The 1980s produced the worst hairstyles, make up and fashion of the 20th century. And home design. And music. The 1930s produced better music than the 1980s

100%. And the worst politics, too—until Trump came along.

[quote] No decade is better or worse when it come to pop culture unless you grew up in that decade.

You apparently have been in a coma for the last 20 years. Bad news: it’s worse than you could ever imagine.

Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Farrah Fawcett, Linda Carter, Pam Grier, Robert de Niro, Al Pacino etc, it was another level, far superior to the mediocrity we have now

I'm loving reading people's remembrances on here, as someone not around then. R56 in particular made me think when they mentioned women going braless. That look of the 70s, you know with women just wearing a t-shirt or maybe a short sleeved shirt, polo top etc with simple flared jeans, no bra, and maybe a scarf in the hair... I really enjoy that look. It's simple, but suits a lot of women.

Plus as I mentioned above, the slender/lean look is really nice. I had a look through old family photos and even the older members of the family still looked lean. Overweight wasn't anything near what it is now - were people healthier then, moved about more? I feel like food back then probably wasn't as good as it is now, but maybe I'm wrong.

Here's a question for the Americans... was there a kind of "occult revival" thing going on in the US in the 70s too? When you look back at media from the UK during the 70s (and 60s) there was a big focus on things that were supernatural, pagan, an emphasis on folklore and the occult. I find that interesting. Was this more confined to Europe?

Another thing I'm curious about, is what was going on during the 70s that lead to a revival in a kind of hyper-religious feeling? Both Christianity and Islam by the dawn of the 80s were really taking over in really disturbing ways. Was this a pushback against the more laissez-faire attitudes prior to that or something else? When I read up on it, it almost feels like a conspiracy - like the religious were unfolding some plan for taking over. I don't mean that to sound as off the wall as it probably does. I read Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book and she talks in there about all of a sudden around that time new teacher's coming to school with disseminating real hardline religious thought in schools. And in America, by the end of the decade you have Madonna on TV decrying the "wave of censorship" and how conservative things had become. I've always been curious as to why this happened? Simple pendulum swinging back and forth?

OP - If Disco was so bad -- why is still with us...?

[quote]I read Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book and she talks in there about all of a sudden around that time new teacher's coming to school with disseminating real hardline religious thought in schools

I wrote that really badly, sorry. I should've said: "around that time, new teachers were coming to school and disseminating a real hardline sort of religious though in schools" or similar.

There was no botox yet. Natural beauty was so much more powerful. I want to go back to the 70s and 80s. If anyone found out about the time machine I would jump in without any regrets or hesitation.

Natural beauty really is powerful, I agree. I find the botoxed look really unappealing. The fashion seems to be to make it look like you have had some sort of surgery. I have this really strong feeling that in 20-30 years time we're going to find out how bad that is for us, and people will look back on us using botox the way we do when we hear of women swallowing tapeworms or something.

Gee, your hair smells terrific!

We didn't have our noses glued to our phones all day which made us much less sedentary and required us to see each other in person. People were still writing handwritten letters. It was really a beautiful time but we didn't know it

The 90s were bland and forgettable.

The style of both the 70s and 80s sucked.

R109 Obvious troll

The music was definitely NOT horrible. Fuck that.

[quote] The 1980's were sophisticated.

The 80s? Really? It was the decade of the rightwing counterrevolution in which the labor unions were broken, deregulation unleashed, and wealth disparity was set in motion — all to get us to the “gig economy, worship the stock market” world we live in today.

The 80s were a dark decade, except for some fun movies and tunes.

The artists of the 70s. There was not only Disco:

Stevie Wonder, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, John Lennon, The Beattles, Eagles, David Bowie, Marvin Gaye, Queen, James Brown, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Gladys Knight, Diana Ross, Bob Marley, Earth, Wind & Fire, Bruce Springsteen, The Clash, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Aerosmith, Bob Dylan, Joe Cocker and on and on....

Poor Millenials, they don't even have one single good artist. All copycats, all mediocres.

Oh that’s not true r113.

R114 Ahaha good one. Poor Millenials, really.

While I imagine that Bowie's glam rock period is probably his most beloved (happy to be proved wrong though), to me the apex of his career is that period between and including Station to Station (1976) to Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980). I just can't get enough of that weird, paranoid sounding mixture of funk, Krautrock and whatever it was we call that excellent adventurous music of the very early 80s. Those five albums are fantastic.

The Carpenters' "Close To You" (1970); Queen "We Will Rock You" (1977); Pink Floyd "The Wall" (1979); Harry Chapin "Cat's In The Cradle" (1974); The Kinks, "Lola" (1970); The Stones "Some Girls" (1976); Paul McCartney and Wings "Silly Love Songs (1976); Lennon's "Imagine" (1971); David Bowie "The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust" (1972); America "A Horse With No Name" (1971); Fleetwood Mac "Rumours" LP (1977); Boston's "More Than A Feeling" (1976); Michael Jackson's "Off The Wall" LP (1979); The Who "Won't Get Fooled Again" (1971); Elton John "Benny and the Jets (1973); Donna Summer "I Feel Love" (1977); KC and the Sunshine Band "Get Down Tonight" (1975); 10 cc "I'm Not In Love" (1975); Cat Stevens "Trouble" (1970); Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" (1972); ELO "Turn To Stone" (1977); Blondie "One Way Or Another" (1978); Lou Reed "Take A Walk On The Wild Side (1972); Devo "Are We Not Men?" (1978); Wild Cherry "Play That Funky Music" (1976); ABBA "Dancing Queen" (1976); The Cure "Boys Don't Cry" (1979); Cheryl Lynn "Got To Be Real" (1978); Led Zepplin "Kashmir" (1975); Neil Young "Heart of Gold (1972); The Commodores "Brick House" (1977); The Clash "London Calling" (1979); Saturday Night Fever (1977); The Ramones "Beat On The Brat" (1976); Public Image Ltd "Public Image" (1978); Talking Heads "Psycho Killer" (1977); The Cars "Just What I Needed" (1978); The Stranglers "No More Heroes" (1977); Joni Mitchel "Help Me" (1974); B-52s "Rock Lobster" (1978); Bob Dylan "Tangled Up In Blue" (1975); George Harrison "My Sweet Lord" (1971)

I don't know what you call the type of music, but in 79-80 there was this really excellent stuff I often think of as 'dark disco' but it's not actually disco, maybe more funk? I'm thinking songs like: "Rapture" by Blondie, "Walking on Thin Ice" by Yoko Ono, "Give Me Back My Man" by The B52s... and some of it gets quite pleasingly sinister sounding, like "A Forest" by The Cure, and "Israel" by Siouxsie and the Banshees. I can't get enough of this type of music.

PLUS: Siouxsie and the Banshees; Wire; Jim Croche; XTC; The Specials; The Pretenders; Steve Miller Band; Cheap Trick; The Fall; Black Flag; The Psychedelic Furs; Richard Hell; Laurie Anderson; T-Rex; Robert Palmer; Chicago; Christopher Cross; Toto; Hall and Oates; Black Sabbath; AC/DC; Slade; Gloria Gaynor; The Eagles; Journey; Styx; KISS; Credence Clearwater Revival; Foreigner; Steely Dan; Rush; Aerosmith; Olivia Newton John; Neil Diamond; and Ray Stevens' "The Streak" must I go on??

Yes, R118. Yes.

I mean, Klaus Nomi, you guys. The 70s got pretty outrageous there in the last couple years of the decade. The decadence really hit a peak. You could go out at night and be super duper weird, and super duper gay. FASHION, baby! Cocaaaaine!

Ok, I have (yet another) question for those of you who lived through the 70s.

Do you personally think, if it weren't for HIV/AIDS that gay rights would've been further along earlier, based on what you were seeing at the time? I have heard some people say that gay people were beginning to being viewed fairly well until the 80s and suggesting that we may have had rights earlier otherwise. Thoughts?

OP is singlehandedly trying to erase Our Faye’s glorious 70s oeuvre.

And that will not be allowed.

This thread has inspired me to sit down tonight and start watching Mindhunter again from the start. Not only was in an excellent series, but the 70s/early 80s aesthetic and most of all THE MUSIC, are so wonderful.

R24 Notice how no one is wearing black & most have on brighter friendlier colors.

In the 90s onward, everyone was dressed like they were trying to be tough or at the least looked like they were headed for a funeral/s.

The 70s get stereotyped by certain trigger words like "disco" (never funk,rap,etc.) & "paneling" (never ceramic tiles, etc.) but the decade offered more than what those memories recall.

Notice again in R24 above that very few in the photo have any plaid but some fool will yell :plaid" when talking about 70s clothes.

Most of the boys shirts, belts & pants could be found today in department stores. Most of the girls shoes (5 out of 6) & outfits (9 out of the 15) could be worn today without causing a stir.

The 70s was the most experimental decade in human history. Everything was questioned from religion, politics, fashion, entertainment & social traditions. Nothing was safe behind any type of force field.

AIDS in 1981 brought down the sexual revolution but it bounced back after about 15 years when it no longer was a death sentence.

The photo that R125 is now "forbidden," so I uploaded it somewhere else.

It's a cute photo, but those are NOT sixth graders.

They're so old looking, and they look like they're in high school!

Someone said in another thread I saw on here once - perhaps it was about historical accuracy in films? - that the fashion changed so quickly during the 70s that the clothing someone is shown wearing during that decade can pinpoint the year exactly. I find that really interesting if true.

R125 these kids aren't old looking at all. If you say they're not dressed stylishly I agree but so what?

Typical 80s fare

Yes R21 it was a decade when directors were less tethered to genre films (like super hero film) storytelling had depth and acting saw a new level of authenticity. I think the 2nd British wave in music also had a positive influence, however short lived.

I'm boiling mad. r84 posted our shared childhood experiences before I could.

Also, I know 40 or so years into the future an adult will write some variation on what I will here, but the topic is the 70s, not the 2020s. It's about Christmas time.

I'll state right off the bat that there are legitimate, real reasons lots of adults and children dislike the holidays of November and December.

I credit my working, lower middle-class parents, though, and the genius of the 70s mass commercial, retail and consumer industry for making Christmas time one of magic, excitement and meaning.

Our current constant, perpetual, sensory overload from our cellphones, media, TV- streaming and otherwise social networks has killed that anticipation, excitement, wonder, and awe.

Hey man, at Christmas time in the late 60s and throughout the 70s NOTHING compared to the excitement of Dad and Mom getting the station wagon ready so my siblings and I could pile in and briefly fight ( Mom and Dad wouldn't put-up with more than briefly) over the ultra dangerous child seat that faced the back windshield.

We were to venture forth, bundled up in our heavy jackets, mittens and hats, for the annual look-at-the Christmas lights ride. We would start in a few residential neighborhoods but us kids really were waiting for one show-stopping, rousing, finale - Dad turning onto Wisconsin Ave in Milwaukee.

There was Boston Store! and then, Gimbels! Attached to their names were giant, faux, garishly lit Christmas trees and giant ornaments. And in between those two anchors were all the other stores in all of their schlocky glory that never failed to thrill us. I'd look at the shoppers on the street and ask myself, "I wonder what they're looking for."

Then we became teenagers and ours eyes insisted on replacing the lens of innocent gullibility with all of its never-to-be-experienced-again awe with the lens of seen-it-before.

The 1970s mass, retail consumerism whose apotheosis was the big department stores was an experience I'll always miss and be grateful for.

1964 to 1975 was one of the peak periods for music, so the first half of the 1970s saw a lot of great and classic music produced. Second half of the 1970s was mainly disco, punk and novelty hits.

Sock it to me?

Don't Give Up On The 70's-David Soul

It helps to be really,really stoned to appreciate this masterpiece .

The legal drinking age in the 70s was changed from 21 to 18. Because of the draft, the legislation changed, and it was different from state to state but marijuana use wasn't that big a problem, (if even detected, not too high up on the priority board). But because kids got reckless with packing 6+ kids in a car to go out drinking and driving led to a lot of horrible accidents killing many involved. That's when MADD had things changed back in the earlier 80s.

Things were events, The Wizard of Oz would play every year at Christmas, things like that were looked forward to, spending the night watching the same screen, together.

Shocking given the state of things today. Its funny to see the fashion used to illustrate how bad everyone looked, but that was all cheap catalog crap. Looks and aesthetics were more eclectic, there wasn't the same kind of divide that came with Reaganomics. Thrift stores were gold mines in the right towns. Seemed to be the last decade original fun with fashion that was homespun or homemade and unpolished and imperfect and real.

Also was the decade rock really matured into, to the extent that the best selling albums in recent years are bands that reached their peaks in the 70s.

Not enough can be said of that era relative to film. The 60s thumbprint is on practically every frame of most of its work, and I love it personally but its beyond dated. The 70s felt more real and visceral in film which was an aspect to its greatness.

The backlash to the tune in, turn on dropout mentality of the sixties facilitated the surge in cults and extremism in group, community and religious involvement for some, so add that to the negatives, but religious extremism is awful today so we haven't evolved far.

OP, the female dancers in the video you posted look terrific. Those knit midi dresses that were form-fitting on top and flared out to the knee were probably the most flattering women's apparel ever made.

Yes, men's fashions in the Seventies were awful (everyone looked like pimps, basically) but I'd argue that it was one of the best decades for women. Halston and Calvin Klein led the way in creating shapes for the female form as it really is-- not trying to mold it into something it isn't.

OP, if the 70s didn’t happen there would be no ALL IN THE FAMILY

If there was no ALL IN THE FAMILY, there would be no MAUDE

If there was no MAUDE, Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan might not have become established television stars

If Bea and Rue remained unknown to TV audiences, there would be no GOLDEN GIRLS

If there was no GOLDEN GIRLS, the very website you’re posting on might not have survived its modest beginnings on the World Wide Web.

Watch what you wish for, OP.

I remember going to a " hair salon " in 1973, to make that radical changeover from the 60's side- part, combover to the "SHAG" I wasn't even sure I could go to high school the next day!

The '80s were a flop for those goddamn shoulder pads alone.

Those 80s shoulder pads were influenced by 40s fashion.

There is a reasonable argument that the 70s were the best decade for American film, perhaps only exceeded by the 30s "Golden Age". The 30s were the product of the studio system; the 70s were quirky American auteurs.

The Godfather (I and II) Apocalypse Now Taxi Driver Chinatown Dog Day Afternoon Nashville The French Connection Network Barry Lyndon One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest Mean Streets Annie Hall Harold and Maude Eraserhead Alien The Conversation Badlands The Last Picture Show Don’t Look Now Mash Serpico Kramer vs Kramer Being There Five Easy Pieces

No, rr141, they were influenced by linebackers.

^ r141

I feel like the 1970s are somewhat Biden's fault.

For those of us 70s kids who spent their Saturday mornings in front of the tube...

And I'll admit I don't hate the eighties music or some of the style, but I hate the mindset that set in: That we're all adults now and it's time to get back to being corporate whores and bigots and worshiping some stupid Daddy figure.

R147

The 60s - Love is all you need The 70s - Look inward and seek bliss The 80s - Greed is good The 90s - Tech will change the world The 00s - Tech will dehumanize the world The 10s - Q-anon

Entropy fer days....

R142, the 70s films far exceeded the 30s films. Are you kidding?

[quote] I don't know what you call the type of music, but in 79-80 there was this really excellent stuff I often think of as 'dark disco' but it's not actually disco, maybe more funk?

That’s darkly melodic New Wave and post-punk you’re describing, R118.

R150 Who wrote better poetry, John Milton or Walt Whitman? It's kind of a matter of taste, and comparisons are futile if not odious. But many cineastes accept that the 30s earned the description as "The Golden Age" of film:

City Lights

Modern Times

Stagecoach

M

Gone With The Wind

Wizard of Oz

39 Steps

Ninotchka

Grand Hotel

Frankenstein

It Happened One Night

Bringing Up Baby

Mr Smith Goes to Washington

Mutiny on the Bounty

Top Hat

Etc.

I agree with the person who said that all males looked like pimps in the 1970's.

And those huge ugly ass gigantic Cadillacs, Lincolns, and Buicks just added to the effect.

Fate struck them all a cruel blow with those horrible gas lines.

The 1970's was full of excess and hedonism, and the 1980's were a backlash and punishment for that. HA!

Ahh, thank you R150! I shall use "post-punk" in future to describe what I mean, I think that's a good descriptor.

By coincidence, before I saw this thread yesterday, I happened to be watching a YouTube video of this girl who discusses fashion across the years. One of those YouTube people who dress up and design clothes from the past, you know? And she happened to be talking about retro fashion and she said that the 70s were the first time in history that retro fashion was in. Before that she said that the fashion always did look to the past for inspiration but that inspiration was set to the contemporary silhouettes. Retro first became a thing in the 70s, going to thrift stores, wearing old stuff, all that kind of thing. I thought that was interesting.

I do think it's amazing when it comes to film from the 70s that you can put those movies on today with a bit of remastering and many of them still look amazing and in some cases like they could've been done today (but they look better because people look like everyday people in them).

Speaking of the 80s, while I can look back into the past and might laugh at bad fashion choices etc, there are only two recent decades that make me feel nauseous when I look at the fashion. One is the 1980s. The other is the 1940s, which is quite similar in a way, big shoulders and big hair. I see someone else noted that above too.

I don't know who the Beattles are, but the Beatles broke up in 1970, they were hardly a big part of the 1970's.

The 70s were a kind of Golden Age for film, too. These are examples of it:

Klute

Dirty Harry

A Clockwork Orange

The French Connection

Harold and Maude

Deliverance

Cabaret

The Godfather

The Exorcist

American Graffiti

Chinatown

The Godfather II

Don't Look Now

Death Wish

Jaws

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Taxi Driver

Dog Day Afternoon

Carrie

Network

Star Wars

Eraserhead

Saturday Night Fever

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

The Conversation

Network

Halloween

Annie Hall

Alien

Being There

Raging Bull

Nashville

R155 meet R142

[quote]I don't know who the Beattles are, but the Beatles broke up in 1970, they were hardly a big part of the 1970's.

R154, all four of them continued performing and producing music independently throughout the 70s. Although no longer a group, "the Beatles" was and is still a fair way of collectively referring to them.

R157 Well, exactly. Imagine, All Things Must Pass, and Band on the Run are all three listed on most "best albums of the 70s" list... rated highly.

I know a lot of people think the 70s was a bad time for interiors, but I fucking LOVE IT. Why aren't we still living in outrageous, colorful spaces with interesting furniture shapes and crazy patterns and color combinations? I think there would be less depression if everyone lived in these kinds of wacky interiors. It's some fun shit!

SLEEPER from 1973

The best movies (and best actors). Most classic rock was from the 70s, actually. And the high fashion of the time (ie Halston, Paco Rabanne) was actually chicer than anything.

And like people have said here, it was the last socially permissive and open minded time and when entertainment was still geared towards adults. And also a time when liberals espoused things like anti censorship and open mindedness and not cancelling people for not thinking exactly like them.

Sign me up.

R159 Maybe a conformity started to become popular during the 80s. After 9/11 definitely.

I used to think the 70s were ridiculous. But I had no idea what ridiculous was until the 80s came along.

R162 Do you think 9/11 has had irreversible affects on American culture? Can you speak about it a little?

R164 I think it might have had an irreversible effect, even after it was revealed the Saudi family was involved in planning. If you search war protests its all pics from the 60s. But when you're outraged by US bombing of Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria etc...you are likely to be called an extremist- even for questioning the CIA and MIC. And corporate welfare, privitization of prisons and lobbying is considered no big deal.

But these are issues that used to be championed by Democrats. I think we have become more simplistic less probing of our candidates so long as they are on our side of the aisle. And more willing to accept authority. Overall I think American culture is more shallow now.

OP the 70s had to happen so we could get to the fabulous 80s !

I agree R159.

The fashion at the 1978 Oscars wasn't all plaid & patterns that the decade gets saddled with.

Lots of solid colors abound with many styles that could be worn today =

With a few exceptions (like the crazy Gary Busey) the 1979 Oscars had many fashionable moments =

R167 God, look at that list of talent, too. I miss those days!!!!

So the OP is a big fan of the "wonderful" 80s presidents named Raygun & Bushchaser.

I was just on the phone with an older friend of mine who did live through the 70s (aged between 13-23) and I brought up a lot of what was in this thread and was asking him about it too. He felt the same on a lot of things similar to others here, definitely with the ease of sex, and before I even brought up what another poster said here he mentioned trousers so tight you could see if someone was circumcised or not. He also was saying he really liked a lot of the women's fashion, but he thought towards the end of the decade the makeup was ridiculous - lots of blush and blue eyeliner, which he didn't like so much.

^EyeSHADOW sorry, not eyeliner.

Everyone in the 1970's looked like they smelled bad.

Everyone in the 1980's looked like they smelled like perfume.

Everyone in the 1990's looked like they smelled of b.o. and ball sweat.

As a former child of the 1990s I can tell you, everyone smelled like Lynx deodorant (boys) and Impulse (girls).

[quote]the best periods in music ever was the late 70s, early 80s... say 77-83 at its limits. Punk, New Wave

Completely agree R15

^Great to find someone likeminded! 😊

To the 1970 five year old who lists "Elvis died" as a big 1970s deal - it was only how the media exploited it. For years before his death Fat Elvis was an embarrassment. Very few had though much about Elvis for years before his death.

Was this only an Australian product? It makes me laugh so much. There was a show in the 90s here in Australia called "Funky Squad", a take off of the 70s police shows, and they put real 70s ads in the middle of it, and this was one of them.

"Very few had though much about Elvis for years before his death."

He was still a major celebrity but not like he used to be. He was obviously in bad shape, but had still had his fans and they came out to seem him during his tours. His death DID have a major impact. Despite his decline it was still a shock when he died and his fan base was devastated by it. His death was viewed as a great tragedy. He'd been such a vital, dynamic entertainer; he was "The King of Rock and Roll." But by the time of his death he was in terrible health, drug addicted, and seemed like an old man. His death was very affecting. I remember where I was when I heard he was dead. I heard it on the radio. I remember feeling very bad about it.

How about artistic freedom??? Disco music played at a good gay club was da bomb. If you weren't around to partake, you will never , ever experience the fun we had

Most people in 2020 don't even give the 1970's a second thought.

You'll notice that GenZ is emulating the 80's and 90's fashion and music. They couldn't care less about the rancid 1970's.

r177, we had a girl in our class at school that went potty over Elvis nobody cared . Marc Bolan died shortly after and that was a huge deal for our age group.

[quote] Nothing went condo in the 70s.

No one could afford it because of the recession.

Adding vid of Marc chatting just because he was 70's icon to me

[quote] OP, if the 70s didn’t happen there would be no ALL IN THE FAMILY If there was no ALL IN THE FAMILY, there would be no MAUDE If there was no MAUDE, Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan might not have become established television stars If Bea and Rue remained unknown to TV audiences, there would be no GOLDEN GIRLS If there was no GOLDEN GIRLS, the very website you’re posting on might not have survived its modest beginnings on the World Wide Web. Watch what you wish for, OP. —TV Land Butterfly Effect

That point may be arguable as it was Susan Harris who wrote Maude’s abortion. On the other hand, there also wouldn’t have been a [italic]Who’s the Boss[/italic], unquestionably the worst show that production company made, which means there never would have been a [italic]Growing Pains[/italic] either, and if those lousy shows had never existed, [italic]Full House, Saved by the Bell[/italic] and [italic]Friends[/italic] never would have, either.

We might also not have to deal with AIDS or COVID to the extent we do now.

The 70s were perfect. We knew how to be bipartisan.

Huh?

The 70s also brought us Women's Liberation and Gay Liberation. And Roe v. Wade.

Also, not liking Disco is essentially racist.

[quote]Folks were waking up in a big way. We were becoming re-enchanted with Mother Earth, and waking up to what were were doing to her. Pollution and littering were beginning to be taken seriously. We saw the Crying Indian and we felt his pain.

I was thinking the same thing, R78. The first Earth Day was in 1970. The EPA was created in 1970. Many of the environmental protections for clean air and water were created, or expanded, in the 1970s. The 'dirty hippies' of the 60s evolved to be the 'Earth Mother Folksies' of the 70s.

What gets me about the 1970s is that we didn't realize how completely ridiculous it was at the time. Maybe it was just kids who didn't realize it, because I was only a kid (born in 1971), but in retrospect I think back on things like the Bicentennial, KISS, the tackiness of the King-Riggs tennis match, the drug-fueled kids shows, adding an alien to the cast of "Happy Days," all sorts of pop culture travesties happening amidst actual tragedies like the terrible economy, the airplane hijackings, the hostages, the Israeli athletes massacred, the Kent State massacre, and more.

It was awful and for years I thought to myself that I was glad to have gotten that decade out of the way when I was young. Now I feel like we're in a similar decade and it's not as easy to just sail through it when you're older and know what's going on.

You want to see nostalgia of the 70's? Watch the original "Tales of the City" (1991) which inspired a lot of clubs to have 70's nights which included a lot of disco which dance clubs still have when open.

Every decade has things that are cringe-worthy, and while some things about the 70's make me cringe badly, there are many more things about the past two decades that make me cringe even more. Fashion had its highs and lows, but certain elements of 70's fashion keep coming back (and going out, to be replaced by other elements of other era's fashions), and for those of us, even as kids at the time, will get a sense of nostalgia when we hear a certain song.

Someone mentioned "Follies" upthread, and that indeed was pastiche. But Broadway also had hit revivals of "No No Nanette", "Irene" and an all-black "Guys and Dolls" as well as several returns of "Dolly" with Pearl & Carol, and the very nostalgic "Grease" and the hokey but fun "Sugar Babies". If anything, the 70's was the potpourri decade.

[quote] Everyone in the 1990's looked like they smelled of b.o. and ball sweat.

Everyone in the 2020s looks like a leper.

1970s bashing is deplorable propaganda.

R193 Obviously some SJW's want to erase everything cultural prior to 2010.

That makes them deplorable wolves in progressive sheep’s clothing. The 1970s was the only truly progressive decade in American history and that’s the only one for which nostalgia is not deeply, deeply offensive.

You will apologize for your sins against wokeness with three choruses of “I Am Woman” and two [italic]Maude[/italic] reruns.

How does this have anything to do with deplorables or SJWs? People have been discussing the oddness of the 1970s for years, it's not some new SJW or Trumpster thing.

Even Nixon looks like a commie pinko compared to Trump, who makes Hitler look progressive by comparison.

I have a better idea. Let's erase you from our collective memories. Just another hateful post by a dumbass faggot punk piece of shit!

Shut up, honky breeder!

I wish I hadn't fallen for the 'free love' birth control pill shit show. Had no idea it was more for the mens than it was for us, but I still had some fun believing I was in charge of my reproductive rights.

Wasn't a disco queen, but loved and danced to it outside of the clubs. I was more into the Clash and the Talking Heads in that time period. I also loved the Police, so shoot me.

The 70's were awesome in a lot of ways that the 80's just had to suppress. Too bad. That decade was also smack in the middle of the longest period of peacetime our country has ever known. Raygun and Grenada ended it, but it's no coincidence that disco and dancing had it's zenith during prolonged peace - an America not at war, but in love with itself.

How odd the 70s were is something that interests me in particular. As someone who didn't experience it personally I'm so curious: Did it feel odd at the time, or is it just when looking back?

Now that I think about it, the fact that a lot of media was being made by the people doing a lot of drugs in the late 60s may explain some of it haha. But when you look back at say, children's TV, shows like "Children of the Stones" or "Sapphire and Steel" - they're pretty creepy and I'm not sure you'd see that nowadays (which is kinda a shame because all I hear are people with great memories of those types of shows). So much of the decade has this fascination with the paranormal, with the pagan, with occult.

And just general weirdness, there are old clips of Sesame Street you can see online that are so trippy: an orange singing Carmen, kaleidoscope images set to tunes by Philip Glass, all that kind of stuff. It's bonkers and I love it.

If it wasn't for the 70's, we wouldn't have Kermit and Miss Piggy!

I just found that Kermit made his debut in 1955 and Miss Piggy in 1974. I guess Piggy is into older frogs.

Anybody remember a show that was on 5 or 6 years ago called Swingtown? About swinger couples. That show captured the 70s more than any other show I remember.

R204 That reminds me of the All in the Family episode with Rue McClanahan and Vincent Gardenia as swingers. Also very 70's.

Are you fucking kidding me? Pornstaches Sideburns Short shorts with knee socks Crosby Still & Nash Disco Pre-AIDS free love & sex

It was awesome!!!!

It really was r206. I loved that HBO show The Duece. Pimps, porn, whores, crime and cocaine. Doesn't get any better......

"You'll notice that GenZ is emulating the 80's and 90's fashion and music. They couldn't care less about the rancid 1970's."

GenZ are pretty stupid. So are you.

I wouldn't mind a return to the slender silhouettes of the 70s. Don't get me wrong, I do like a buff guy, but that's been going on for awhile now, a change to lean and tight would be fun.

The 1977 Oscars also has some fashionable moments such as the lady at10:12.

Ann Margaret looked good doing the opening number.

Life felt normal in the 70s, as it does today. You see things change around you and you adapt. We can look back fondly (or not) but there was nothing special about being in the moment. You live. Immediate goals were the things we spent time on, having a job, raising a family, making sure your bills were paid, a vacation in the summer, maintaining a home, the occasional splurge...like taking your family to McDonalds... Not much has really changed, you just inhabit an environment and you do the best you can.

"Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin takes me back to the summer of 1975, in a warm night in the backyard, in the dark looking up at the moon. Followed by this one, also in the dark backyard:

Why did the 70s have to happen?

Uh....because the 60s ended?

How did the janitor's daughter sneak into the photo at R126's link?

You're an ass, R214.

R113 At least half the Musicians on your list are Silent Generation. Why do Boomers always try to take credit for the accomplishments of those older than them? Same with those classic films celebrated here. Not directed by Boomers!

[quote]Why did the 1970's have to happen?

Well, the 1960s were over. Sorta seemed like a natural progression.

THIS was the 70s....listen and weep all of you who never got to live it

" Why do Boomers always try to take credit for the accomplishments of those older than them? Same with those classic films celebrated here. Not directed by Boomers!"

You appear to be unhealthily fixated on "Boomers." Perhaps you should seek help for that. You seem very unhappy.

[quote]After 1969 should they have gone to 19610 instead?

R217 - well, I suppose the French could say they did, at least, haha.

Sure r181, that's why "Dreams" by that group from the rancid 70's Fleetwood Mac, has suddenly become such a hit again.

I have no idea how a gay man could wish the 70s had never happened. Even leaving aside the new liberation and the dance music, the over-the-top straight culture gave us five decades' worth of camp material to work with.

OP must be trolling. The 70s were the best years of most DLer's lives.

[quote]If Disco was so bad -- why is still with us...?

The 21st century is an era dedicated to bad musical taste. Why wouldn't disco be part of it?

My usual '70s outfit.

R225, no one in the 70s buttoned the top button of an Izod shirt.

You're absolutely right, r226. Unfortunately, google images wouldn't take me back that far when I searched for "chemise lacoste levi 501." Mea maxima culpa, bitch.

Favorite album (for the guy who asked): Linda Ronstadt's Hasten down the Wind.

Neither would my forearms have been so vascular, r226 (if you want to be a complete priss about it).

R216, he didn't say "boomer musicians." He said "artists of the '70s."

Getting ready to go out music..

R230 Thanks. that base solo at 2:30... Louis was a great bassist in the Funkadelic tradition.

The dancers.... one artifact of the 70s that can't be denied... Soul Train and the line dancers. Black twitter is fueled by memes of Soul Train.

^^ Ha, bass solo, not base. It wasn't base, it was ethereal.

The Brothers Johnson was so underrated.

[quote] I have no idea how a gay man could wish the 70s had never happened

You realize that most of us were born after the 1970's, you stupid old BITCH!!

The 70's were fun OP. I don't know why anyone would complain about a decade of disco dancing, great clubs, free love, splashy-tacky fun clothes ... this was a great decade! Were you an incel that couldn't dance and never got invited out for some fun?

Fuck off OP.

You’ve the imagination of a dead beer bug.

The only redeeming movements of the eighties were '80s punk and goth/post-punk.

Bauhaus! Peter Murphy!

Depeche Mode!

Skeletal Family!

The Smiths!

The Eurythmics!

The Sisters of Mercy!

Cocteau Twins!

The Smithereens!

Soft Cell!

New Order!

Agent Orange!

The Adolescents!

Richard Hell and the Voidoids!

Charged GBH!

The Cramps!

X!

The Anti-Heros!

Discharge!

OI!

The Business!

The 4Skins!

CockSParrer!

TSOL!

Husker Du!

Minor Threat!

I'll throw in an honorable mention for the NYC club kids subculture and thrash metal of the eighties just because I love classic old-school Metallica and Megadeth too much to leave them out.

Moustaches? Bell bottoms? Sideburns? Polyester? Afros? Feathered Hair? Elevator shoes? Disco?

No thank you, very much!

The 1970s was the last decade before the obesity epidemic began.

[quote] Everyone in the 1970's looked like they smelled bad.

Those were the ones wearing Polo and Paco Rabanne. I smelled great in Eau Sauvage.

[quote]Everyone in the 1980's looked like they smelled like perfume.

Yeah. The decade of Obsession, in which I was obsessed with getting as far away as I could from anyone wearing that particular odor. What was it that made everyone who liked it wear far too much of it?

I continued with Eau Sauvage.

[quote]The 1970s was the last decade before the obesity epidemic began.

Hon, I used to come to America in the 70s and trust me the BIG PEOPLE were everywhere.

It was all about the pubic hair, those wild bushes make up for the fashion sins.

The fashion sins in more recent years are far worse.

Ooo, sexy!

Those looks have been around since the 1990's, grandma R243/R244.

When I moved to the UK in 2007 and noticed it was the fashion for all guys to wear looser pants and have their bums hanging out, showing off their underwear, believe me, I wasn't complaining.

I was just hard. All the freaking time.

Yes R246 - it is a hot look.

If not for the 70s, 60s teen-heartthrob singer Fabian would never have done this.

At this point, why didn't he just go all the way? Just spread your left leg, Fabian, just a little bit more...

The Disney-to-porn pipeline claimed both John Davidson and the guy who played the head Nazi in [italic]Bedknobs and Broomsticks[/italic].

The 70's were great!

The 1970s was the last truly progressive decade in American history. Don’t worry, it’s never coming back.

R249 do you know more about this?

I would love to see the Broom stick porn.

The porn shoot was separate from the movie and it was for Playgirl.

The naysayers are just jealous they missed the fun, sex and music of the 70's. It must suck to be young in the current times, bad music, baggy clothes and death all around you. I get why you are angry but you sound like petulant children that got grounded for being brats.

I eat piles and piles and PILES of shit!

UUUUMMMM, so we could progress until you could be born, you fucking half-wit.

The 70s had awesome, trippy stuff like this on children's television. In Australia our imported children's television would often be about 5-10 years behind, so even though I wasn't alive in the 70s, by the time I was a little tacker in the 80s we got this stuff. I remember being mesmerised by this. Scored by Philip Glass, how awesome is that?

At least it got great rock music.

More creepy children's TV. No wonder I grew up with an appreciation for the unsettling.

70s gave us hard rock and punk rock. Then 80s came with MTV and wussy synth-pop crap

Some people think little girls should be seen and not hear, but I think...

^ *hearD, dammit!

[quote]Anyone who would want to erase Follies is a moron and certainly not gay.

I would, I hated the fucking 70's and I grew up during that time so no I am not a Millennial. I hated the clothes, I hated most of the slow music, hair bands, heavy metal, KISS and general hetero normative culture. I hated the Avocado refrigerators, the mustard appliances and the sculptured and shag carpet. The ugly brown wall paneling, cottage cheese ceilings and kitchens there were design to looks like an old ships galley.

Don't even get me started on the shitty technology of the day. TV's were garbage and you had 13 channels but only 4 actually had sketchy reception at any given time. And the who stations would shut down and sign off after midnight. Phones were usually one per house hold attached to the wall and dialing took forever. Not to mention everything was charged by the minute and a call outside your town cost a lot more and considered "Long Distance".

Ass hole Republicans like Ronald Regan, oil shortages, gasoline lines, the birth if the religious right, Anita Hill ant-gay crusade. Paraquat sprayed on marijuana that was so weak you had to buy it by the once or lb instead of the gram. The 70's were a cluster fuck of shit, ugliness, homophobia and bad drugs.

[quote]70s gave us hard rock and punk rock. Then 80s came with MTV and wussy synth-pop crap

Yeah and both hard rock and punk are mostly dead. Synth-pop is a derivative of Disco.

R264 They are not mostly dead, they are just underground. Yeah, well disco sucked but absolutely everything mainstream in the 80s sucked.

R263 Yeah, all that hetero-normative rock culture of the 70s...

" Paraquat sprayed on marijuana that was so weak you had to buy it by the once or lb instead of the gram."

Granted the Kansas ditch weed was readily available, r263, but so was Colombian, Maui Wowie, and Thai stick.

*

R267 I havent thought of Maui Wowie in decades ! There used to be this amazing stuff called Gainesville Green that was grown in a greenhouse by some college professor . They finally shut him down about 10 years ago ,but he had like a 40 year run. That weed was so sticky you could throw it against a wall and it would stick. It was very expensive but oh so worth it.

Count your lucky stars you are still alive in the 2020s, R263, so you can appreciate how far we have advanced.

"The 70's were a cluster fuck of shit, ugliness, homophobia and bad drugs."

You think things got better after the seventies? Compared to the way things are now the 70s look positively delightful.

Come on now; when else could you get a toe tapping beat from a song about ringing a bell?

Paris, France 1970's!

J'ai apprécié cette vidéo, merci R272.

R273

Je t’en prie!

This was considered sexy, no thanks.

Everyone romanticizes the 70's and thinks Brady Bunch was how everything looked, but that was not reality. This was:

I had no idea there was a formalized Hustle dance!

Earthy colours were really in, weren't they? My parents, aunts and uncles were all getting married in the 70s and buying their first houses, and as a kid of the 80s I can remember that everything seemed to be brown and orange.

Most kitchens were like this, butt fucking ugly.

Maui Wowie, and Thai stick = one gummy eatable I can get today for a fraction of the price. And legal.

TV's were ugly as fuck too, most came in a cheesy wood cabinet. People shopped for TV's like they were a piece of furniture instead of the quality of the actual screen.

The orange just never stopped. Macrame hanging plants in every house. Nice planters? Why buy what you can make for free.

Ugly wallpaper everywhere. And not they were not being kitchy, people really did think it was high class to have carpet seat cover in the crapper. So luxurious.

Quarts counter tops? Stone? Not on your life. Most houses had these shitty molded plastic thing with a bad attempt to make them look like marble. And since most people smoked, not uncommon for that cig to slip and leave a really deep burn mark as they melted the plastic.

Oh, you want a Diet Coke? Sorry, not invented yet. It's TAB for you.

It tasted as bad as it sounds.

While most people picture the phones as brightly colored Austin Powers kitch, that again was not the reality. Most people bought their homes with the phone attached or left by the previous residence. It really didn't mater because 90% of them look like this ugly beige plastic standard issue model. Everyone's phone looked exactly the same including the color!

This cheap wood paneling was everywhere! It was about 1/4 inch thick, really cheap and could be tacked up on a wall with just a couple small nails. It made the room look "warm & cozy"

^All those things look great to me

It was new and modern compared to what came before it. I’m sure that what looks modern today will seem a little dated 50 years from now.

R277

Ohhh yes!

Straights and gays all learned to get their hustle moves on....

[quote]Why did the 1970's have to happen?

So we olds could look back and remember when times were good.

There are variations (AA community, Italian-Americans, etc...) but to this day at certain events (weddings, BBQ's, family events....) people still do the "Bus Stop". People who think line dancing started with the "tush push" don't have a clue.

R288, I agree, I've been saying for awhile now when our generation looks back at the duck lips, heavily caked on makeup, obvious plastic surgery, bodies squeezed into clothes too small look (and a bit further back, the spray tan so orange look, which some people still do today), people are really going to wonder why they thought they looked good.

I was watching Suspiria (the remake) the other night and it got me thinking... for those alive at the time and living in Europe, was it very scary? There seems to have been a lot of terrorist organisations around then - Baader Meinhof, Brigate Rosse and the IRA - blowing things up. What happened at the München olympics, etc.

When I moved to the UK in the 2000s there was a lot of talk about how the British were a lot calmer re: terrorist attacks that happened in 2005 and the nail bombs going off when I was there in 2007, because of the IRA bombs many of them had lived through. So maybe everyone just got on with things and didn't give it much thought?

I was just curious. As a society these days we seem to be operating on a high level of fear. Did this happen in the 70s too?

dude u missed out if u dint git to experiece da seventys.....good fukin times....omg,

bang a gong.....rockkin good times mutha fugga.

- When did you last see her?

- Oh, uh, well it wasn't so long ago, it was about...

- I remember, dear, it was when she was with that group. Oh, what was it? The Beach Boys? The Beatles?

- No, it was the Baader-Meinhof!

Saw this guy on "Adam-12" - 70's fashion I can still admire!

Oh yeah, R296, I agree!

I find that 70s slender look really works for a lot of guys.

R285 We never had a phone that looked like that & I never knew anyone who did.

Try again.

I also didn't know anyone who had the phones in this article either =

If there wasn't the late 70s, you wouldn't have been able to see Gary Sandy and his bulge every single week on WKRP in Cincinnati. It was highly entertaining, and somehow my jeans were always sticky when the show was over.

A lot of songs from the 1970s are still played and still sound just as good today.

Because that's the way numbers & chronology work.

Agreed R304! In fact, personally I would say especially mid-late 70s to early 80s was a particularly magical time for music. The production suddenly got so much better, the songs sounded quite crisp, instruments were clear and defined, vocals were distinctive and the songs felt like they had room to breathe. By the mid-80s everything got too glossy and tinny and "wall of sound" for my tastes, and production didn't really get better and interesting again until the 90s. But by the mid-00s the loudness wars had begun and music started getting produced in an airless and kinda claustrophobic way. I'd love it if they would bring back some of the production and mixing techniques from say 1979-80 into modern music.

R303 - yeah, I remember!

Some of the best music came out in 1970's with a good part still not only listened to but highly regarded.

Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind" has 17,929,700 views. And that is just this one video; there are others of same recording with similar high counts.

The songs had meaning and conveyed emotions. Unlike today's loud "gangsta" rap nonsense.

People would write letters or something quoting words from a song, and those reading got it.

"If you could read my mind, love

What a tale my thoughts could tell

Just like an old time movie about a ghost from a wishing well

In a castle dark or a fortress strong

With chains upon my feet

The story always ends

And if you read between the lines

You'll know that I'm just trying to understand

The feelings that you lack

I never thought I could feel this way

And I've got to say that I just don't get it

I don't know where we went wrong

But the feeling's gone

And I just can't get it back

Gordon LIghtfoot is quite an exceptional songwriter. He wrote some of the best lyrics and music I ever heard. His "Early Morning Rain" has become a standard. On YouTube I praised his writing that song and some ignoramus said he didn't write it, it's a standard. I said yes it's a standard...and he WROTE it.

R308: you do know "gangsta rap" doesn't exist anymore and really only existed for a couple of years? So if you want to stereotype entire musical genres and people try to do a little more research.

And also, how do you go from Gordon Lightfoot to "gangsta rap "? That's a reach.

I still think the peak of modern songwriting was 1964 to 1974, but there were still some good songs being written in the late 1970s. Everything from the 1980s until today is mostly dreck, with only a few rare gems.

The 70s culture was more interesting than today's and not full of boring WOKE and PC crap. The 1970 Boys in the Band is far superior to the one on Netflix. Talk shows were talk shows not filled with stupid games played by dimwit celebs with Ellen or Fallon

R312 Can't argue with that... there could also be great songs being written today that are now known. Things have fallen apart, there is no "center" to public art like there was in the years you name. The fact that everything is accessible in the digital devices means nothing is accessed.

But, you know, I was listening to this today. Joni Mitchell in her full and strong adultness... 1979. The band, the poetry, the singer, the "art" songs in a jazz that existed briefly... There is no music possible better than this. And it exemplifies a lotus-hungry, rabidly sexual assertion that is all the 70s were (hence posting in this thread). Freedom just on the verge of turning into death.

Joni Mitchell really impressed me when I finally got around to listening to her. I didn't think she'd be my type of music, but there is some great stuff there and she paints some great stories in her lyrics... something like "Raised on Robbery" is so clear in my mind. Oh, and how wonderful is "The Hissing of Summer Lawns"?

I take the 70s ANYTIME over what's happening today!

I think of the 70s as tasteless and shallow...bland music, idiotic clothes etc

I agree with r1, the only real problem with the 70's was it was followed by the 80's!

Yeah the 80s sucked too, nothing to define it but Ronald Reagan.

I thought the seventies were bad. Then came the eighties. And I looked back at the seventies with wistful nostalgia.

Why did YOU happen? Ask Gina's mom

[quote] I thought the seventies were bad. Then came the eighties. And I looked back at the seventies with wistful nostalgia.

Yeah, because the 90s took everything wrong with the 70s and 80s and made them worse.

All the men in the 1970's dressed like pimps.

Really? You're going after the 70s after we just experienced 2020?

Not to mention the loser insurrection of 2021?

And I'm not even a fan of these nostalgia threads for a variety of reasons.

I mean, I could tell you a story about The Hustle.

But I'm not.

You're welcome in advance.

Lol please tell me about The Hustle, R324.

Now you've really piqued my curiosity.

I need to know!!! Tell me now!!

[quote] All the men in the 1970's dressed like pimps.

All the men today dress like slobs. Saggy baggy jeans should be illegal.

This is a long thread and it's already been mentioned several times, but I'll echo it: the 1970s were a highpoint of American filmmaking

Yeah, R327, if you only include movie musicals for children made under the influence of psychedelics. Most of those “New Hollywood” films were narcisstic Boomer crap that just copied the French New Wave and Italian Neorealists while adding nothing new of their own except a sense of entitlement a mile long.

Narcissistic

Where would you bitches be without the farewell to the 70s, Xanadu.

The movie [italic]Polyester[/italic] by John Waters is as good an explanation for why the 1970s played out the way it did as any other for those of us who missed it the first time around by not being born yet.

True R327, but unfortunately all that bad taste in clothing is forever memorialized on film.

What we need are 1970's movies with 2020 fashion sense.

[quote]What we need are 1970's movies with 2020 fashion sense.

At least back then men knew that underwear went under the clothes.

I loved the 70s. The Sixties seemed to carry on until around 1972. The Seventies took hold with Watergate and the end of Vietnam. The Seventies came to a screeching halt in 1979 with the Iranian hostage crisis, followed by the election of Ronald Reagan, and then 1981, AIDS.

The Eighties were nightmarish, full of parachute pants, frizzy Marie Antoinette-electrocuted hair, worship of wealth, money, and business, Jesse Helms, Newt Gingrich, Orrin Hatch, Chief Justice John Rehnquist, Phyllis Schlafly, trash tv (due to ending FCC regulations), ramped up war on drugs, crack cocaine, drive-by shootings, the rise of Evangelical Christians and their marriage to right wing conservatism, God how I hated the fucking 80s.

The Seventies enabled both Scott Baio and Tony Danza to have careers. We're still paying for both of those two no-talent bozos to this day.

"I think of the 70s as tasteless and shallow...bland music, idiotic clothes etc"

You must have made a typo because it was the 80s that was "tasteless and shallow...bland music, idiotic clothes etc." The 70s was a flawed decade but at least it MEANT something. The 80s were meaningless.

The 1980s was the last decade before everybody got fat.

My favorite

OP Shouldn't the question be why did the the 2020s have to happen?

Who said '70s fashion was bad? (Guess which one of the two is gay).

r334 has finally got it right. The 70s were kind of the last vestiges of "innocence" and the music kind of reflected that era. I remember listening in high school to Jethro Tull, Yes, Moody Blues, BB King, Van Morrison, Cat Stevens, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, etc etc. The 80s are what I remember as being dull, depressing, "corporate" mindset everywhere, bureaucracy. As far crazy colors go, everyone wore the same: jeans, jean jackets, t-shirts.

A lot of seventies music was garbage, but a lot of it was some of the greatest. Not like today. Music sucks today.

[quote] OP Shouldn't the question be why did the the 2020s have to happen?

To rub it in the face of all those heathen Mayans who thought the world was going to end sooner than that.

This thread was such a pleasure to reread, seriously one of my faves since I signed up on DL. So many interesting stories.

I was searching for "underrated disco" to see if I could find some lesser known disco tracks that I might like (I'm not the hugest fan of it), and the first song came up was this one below. The reason I want to share it is that the video is mostly a slideshow of 70s men with little clothing on. I've found that I am liking a lot of the look of the 70s man myself, and I thought others might like this too.

^Just want to put in my vote that the guy at 30 seconds in, more down to earth looking I know, but he really does it for me. I think it's in part the casually open hoodie/hairy chest combo.

I was talking about the 70s yesterday with my friend who lived through it and he was saying how bad the fashion was and that "women were always getting yeast infections from the tight pants", which shouldn't have made me laugh because it sounds god awfully uncomfortable, but it did.

But I just love looking back and seeing the tight pants on men and the short shorts. Mmmmmm... My manager and I were watching a clip from some cheesy late 70s movie the other day, and the first thing out of her mouth was noticing how tight the pants were and secondly: "Wasn't everybody [italic]thin[/italic]?" I was born too late, a slender boy in the era of the muscle man, haha.

I'm a couple of episodes into a podcast called Fiasco, about the AIDS crisis, and they were talking about sex in the 70s for gay men and it sounds really extreme. Was this really the case for gay guys generally, or just some of them. They spoke to people who remembered that STIs were rampant - everyone would get gonorrhea or crabs. One interviewee said that before AIDS, herpes was the big thing that people were scared of. "They'd say 'If I get herpes I'll kill myself', and then everyone got herpes and no one killed themselves".

When reporting their sexual activity in the early 80s, men were reporting sleeping with between 2 to 3 THOUSAND partners.

I get it. There was sexual liberation, gay men didn't have to worry about knocking a woman up, maybe self hatred in some men played a role too, but I guess I wasn't expecting to hear it had been SO full on as that. I wonder if it was harder for the more romantic minded gay man to find love then? Would be fascinating to hear stories. It must've felt pretty amazing for some men in the middle of it all.

[quote]it was only how the media exploited it. For years before his death Fat Elvis was an embarrassment.

I watched the Weird History video of 1977 last night and they showed him performing not long before his death, and he looked terrible, like he could keel over at any minute. They also mentioned how disappointed everyone was with him and how embarrassing they found him.

I see a similar thing happening with Madonna.

Funkytown

Nights are Forever Without You

America - Ventura Hwy, entire album

Honkey Chateau, Elton John

To name a few.

[quote]America - Ventura Hwy

I feel kinda silly that until recently I thought that was a Janet Jackson song, haha.

You gotta be kidding, OP? I guess you had to be there,but the 70's were great. The 80's are what sucked.

R177 Elvis was still in good shape in 1970. See Elvis: That’s The Way It Is. His other concert documentary film Elvis on Tour (1972) won a Golden Globe. It seems it went downhill after that.

Was it drugs with him or just overeating? I've heard people talk about his deep fried peanut butter sandwich diet, or whatever it was.