Everybody in the world has Frampton Comes Alive. If you lived in the suburbs you were issued it. It came in the mail with samples of Tide.
My Tide came, but no Frampton.
I won’t repeat all the great music already listed, but the music of the '70s/'80s is why I keep the car radio tuned to the music of that era. That said, I have to mention Santana Abraxas.
If I were to compile a list of 5 rock albums that defined the 70s, Frampton Comes Alive would definitely be on it. Probably Born to Run too, but I’d have to think about. Hmm, Dark Side also.
Frampton Comes Alive didn’t make the transition from vinyl to digital for me, but to this day I listen to Born To Run, Fleetwood Mac, Rumours and Dark Side of the Moon.
Another one that seems overlooked here is America, by America, of course. It has all things 70s: tortured lyrics, drug references, etc.
Yeah, that definitely counts. Otherwise, there won’t be no one for to give you no pain.
Ya know - that might be a good metric for identifying the album that defines the (x decade). If everyone owned it on vinyl, but then when you transitioned to digital, did you buy the CD/download it, or keep it as one of the few albums you retained.
I think Frampton Comes Alive is probably at the top of the list. Pretty sure I bought a copy, but also pretty sure I stopped listening to it pretty quickly, and used it for nothing other than cleaning pot.
There is another category of music that seems very 70s to me. Kinda forgettable arena rock. Like REO Speedwagon, UFO, maybe even Yes. Those groups filled arenas, then dropped off the radar. But I’m just reminiscing - not suggesting albums/groups that defined the 70s.
And I’m not sure there has been mention of Blue Oyster Cult yet.
I mentioned Agents of Fortune in a list of a about a half dozen titles. But I identified the band as BOC, so if you searched the thread for the spelled-out name, you wouldn’t have found it.
Regarding Frampton Comes Alive, I don’t think there’s any doubt that culturally, it would have been one of the defining rock albums for reasons explained. And I have this perception (perhaps falsely) that it touched off a major avalanche of live albums from other folks, so there’s that as well. I’ll also say I’m the oddball and didn’t buy it. I thought “Do You Feel” was a spiffy track, but the other singles didn’t appeal to me, and the radio play was preposterously overdone.
The titles I mentioned upthread are, per OP, “albums which immediately transporter you [me] to the 1970s.” Frampton doesn’t do that for me because the live album faded from my consciousness in regard to being anything prominent as soon as the radio play trailed off.
I was listening to a lot of prog rock in the seventies. If you play some Henry Cow for me, that’s sure as hell going to transport me back. I can think of them as a band that was active in the seventies, and I liked (and still like) them quite a bit. But I’d be reluctant to say they had any part in defining the decade.
For me in Canada, iconic bands of the 70’s included Lighthouse, April Wine, Rush, Triumph, Chilliwack, Prism, and most definitely Supertramp. Supertramp was more popular in Canada than in their home country of the UK, as I recall. They were all over the Canadian music charts in the mid to pate 70’s. The most popular album (other than Breakfast in America) was Crime of the Century.
Also, Eagles - Hotel California has to be on the list.
I really like Frampton Comes Alive. The 25th Anniversary 2CD set sounds great on my system. The band was tight and Peter’s singing and playing is top-notch. Of course, being at Winterland that night in 1975 might have something to do with my affinity for the album.
I’m listening to ‘Infinity’ by Journey right now. While Journey as a band is probably better known for their 80s work and tours, listening to Infinity definitely sounds like the 1970s.
Infinity couldn’t exist in any other era, it just has that 1970s arena rock sound. Just the first few seconds of ‘Lights’ and you can see the cigarette lighters going up and smell the distinctive scent of 70’s weed.