The most 70s song

Cafe Society
1

You know the drill* - music buffs, I’m after your suggestions for the song that is most evocative of the decade in which it was made, my metric being if you played it to 1000 randomers the more who get that it’s from the '70s the more '70s it is.

This time, we’ve turned up the difficulty considerably. There’s so much going on in the '70s, so many different phases, isolating one song as ‘the most’ of the decade is pretty much impossible. But let’s try anyway!

I know I’m going to get ripped to shred for this one and they’ll be many many better suggestions, but my tentative answer is the Bee Gees - Stayin’ Alive from 1977.

  • Oh, and last one of these I’ll post. I don’t know enough about the '50s and don’t care enough about the '90s/00s/10s.
2

First thing that comes to mind is the Eagles’ “Hotel California,” but there are a hundred equally worthy picks.

3

Thread over.

4

I agree with you. Fairly or unfairly, when someone says “70s music” I immediately think of disco. No other song embodied that era quite as well.

5

For me, the quintessential Seventies songs are:

“Straiway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin

“Color My World” by Chicago

I don’t particularly LIKE either song (even if I once did, I’d be sick to death of both), but those songs immediately transport me to the mid-Seventies.

6

Oh dear. Really? Disco was a late entry to the 70s - 1977 at best.

IMHO the 70s were as rich a decade as the 60s for new pop/rock music. David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Emerson Lake and Palmer, The Sex Pistols, the Ramones etc etc.

Heck, even Supertramp. Disco was a bland fun blight on the music landscape, played in pubs but not at the parties I went to.

7

Bohemian Rhapsody closely followed by Blinded By The Light.

8

Backstabbers.

I know there are more iconic songs, but this one is what came to mind when I read the thread topic.

9

For some reason, the theme from Shaft is what first came to mind.

10

When I saw 70s, Elton John popped into my head, and then “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”

There are no doubt other songs that exemplify the 70s better.

11

Dobie Gray - Drift Away

It may not be one of the first hundred you think of, but that wasn't the stated criterion. This song, the sound screams SEVENTIES!!! to me, and I'm guessing to your test group as well.
12

Going in a different direction, I’m going to say something like Do You Wanna Make Love

-because it is absolutely impossible to listen to that song in any time other than the 70s. It is the opposite of “timeless.” It is only 70s.

13

I think Levon to me is the song that exemplifies the 70s.

But, perhaps to be truly a 70s song, it needs a Fender Rhodes piano.

14

Fleetwood Mac, “Dreams.”

Take that, “Hotel California”!

15

The Who: ‘Won’t get fooled again’.

16

Bloody Well Right?

My first thought was More Than a Feeling by Boston.

17

“Philadelphia Freedom,” (blecch) by Elton John. Personally, I’d choose “More than a Feeling.”

18

Non-disco: American Pie.
Disco: Dancing Queen.

19

Not really true. “Love Train” by The O’Jays, “The Love I Lost” by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes and “Rock The Boat” by The Hues Corporation were all considered disco, and were released in (respectively) 1972, 1973 and 1974. '74 was also the year NYC’s WPIX started the first disco radio show and when Love Unlimited Orchestra’s “Love’s Theme” went to #1 (thanks, Wiki).

Anyway, to me personally, I’d pick either “Dancing Queen” or “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

20

These threads just show how different the era was to different people. I can’t disagree with most or all of the choices so far, yet I offer another most 70’s song.

Chevy Van, by Sammy Johns