Post #24.
Forgot to mention: Point shirts (the ones John Denver wore in concert).
I cringe every time I watch a movie or tv show from the 70’s. The hair. THE HAIR!
That, and the clothing can only be explained by psychedelic drugs.
No pretty charts, but rates didn’t top 15% until early 1980.
Everyone is missing what is most important and focusing on hair, jeans and cars, but the 70s represented a profound change in US society. It was the beginning of the end for the level of prosperity enjoyed by a large section of the US people, and the youth in the first place. Are young people still leaving college debt free and grabbing a backpack and spending the summer in Europe? Are they still going to San Francisco without a dime in their pockets, getting a minimum wage job and renting a one bedroom for a couple of hundred dollars and hanging out in coffee houses? Are there still one income families living in three bedroom homes, while working at the same job for decades and then enjoying a decent defined benefit pension?
No, this is not happening. What did happen was that the ruling class reneged on the social contract forged in the New Deal and decided to reverse the progress of the middle class. See the chart here which tells it all.
Everyone is missing what is most important and focusing on hair, jeans and cars, but the 70s represented a profound change in US society. It was the beginning of the end for the level of prosperity enjoyed by a large section of the US people, and the youth in the first place. Are young people still leaving college debt free and grabbing a backpack and spending the summer in Europe? Are they still going to San Francisco without a dime in their pockets, getting a minimum wage job and renting a one bedroom for a couple of hundred dollars and hanging out in coffee houses? Are there still one income families living in three bedroom homes, while working at the same job for decades and then enjoying a decent defined benefit pension?
No, this is not happening. What did happen was that the ruling class reneged on the social contract forged in the New Deal and decided to reverse the progress of the middle class. See the chart here which tells it all.
The 1970s in the UK was epitomised by labour unions at war with the government. The economy was in a desperate state and international news was all about the Oil Crisis and the Cold War conflicts. Northern Ireland developed into a low level civil war with IRA bombings were frequent.
Strikes and demonstrations were everywhere, an emboldened working class flexed its muscles and people were quite proud to boast of their bigotry with respect to race, gender and sexuality.
The music was dominated by annoying disco. The only class acts came from the Motown. Fashion was, quite frankly, embarrassing. Velvet jackets, pointy collared shirts with frills, flared trousers and those awful perms and mullet hair cuts!
Google ‘men’s perm 1970s’ to see how bad it got.
I misremembered the number, but not by much. This page shows CD rates in late 1979 at 13. 97%. Close enough for my aging memory. Hell, it was close enough for my memory when it wasn’t aging! 
I came of age in the 1970s, and probably it’s the politics that stands out. Watergate loomed large. I got my first job the same month Nixon resigned. Voted for Carter in my first election, 1976. Felt the Carter love in the wake of Watergate. Etc.
Is it the rock? It sure isnt disco
Heroin? Coke? Yea no thanks to either
Nixon? More memorable than carter or ford
long hair? since before the 70’s, scissors = evil
Kurtas? Sure, on girls
Or long hair? No mohawk please
Or the Sex Pistols? was there a choice there?
Led Zeppelin? yes who?
denim and leather? Cant wear a leisure suit, my name isnt Larry Laffer
psychedelic drugs were required to believe you looked good in the clothing.
Hence my sticking with good old pre 70’s levis and leather
That’s the thing though. In the 1970s, we thought not only did we look normal but we were the first generation in history finally not to look goofy. Makes you wonder how people will cringe 40 years from now looking at this decade.
Really? I always considered the 70’s to epitomize looking goofy. Between the leisure suits and big hair and shoulder pads, I can’t remember any time where goofy was embraced outside of fashion catwalks and Emmy awards.
Well, I was certainly not into leisure suits (although my father did offer to buy me one). But those weren’t popular during the entire decade anyway, just a small part of it. I’m telling you, for us young bucks, the 1970s were THE epitome of cool … or o we thought at the time. Now I find the hair and fashions cringe-worthy, but they really seemed super fashionable back then.
Apartheid
I was in high school in the mid seventies. Let’s see:
- Girls with Farrah Fawcett style hair
- Ugly cars (the Gremlin and AMC Pacer were the worst)
- 1950s nostalgia (American Graffiti, Happy Days, radio stations playing do-wop music)
- And of course - Disco
They may have been the most “non-traditional” but I wouldn’t call them the ugliest. I’d nominate the '77 Ford LTD II as the ugliest.
Followed by every other car in the late '70s with vertically stacked rectangular headlamps.
I know you’re South African so your experience is very different from mine.
Just to add a comment to your post: I don’t feel like Apartheid really hit the general consciousness of the USA until the 80s. We still had too shitty of a record on race relations ourselves in the 70s to think about other far away nations. We had major labor unrest, the Vietnam debacle, Watergate, Iran Hostages, gas crisis, inflation and race riots of course. Also crime was out of control in most inner cities and urban flight was at its max. The 70s really was a shitty decade.
Indeed, Apartheid was not on the minds of many Americans until the 1980s, or at least anti-Apartheid was not a big movement in the US until that decade. But as for the rest of your post, even though all those things were true, the '70s were a great decade for me. It was not all gloom and doom.
1976 was when things here really kicked off, and didn’t settle down until apartheid was over.
Fisher Price Little People.
As a child growing up in the 70s, I had the great fortune of receiving the Sesame Street set as a gift. I was quite upset when the Oscar in the trashcan got chewed up by the lawnmower.
FP Little people were great in the bathtub. And between my playmates I experienced lots of other sets in whole or odds ‘n’ ends:
[ul]
[li]the Farm (with the mooing door)[/li][li]Airport[/li][li]House[/li][li]Bus[/li][li]Parking Garage with the cool cars and dinging elevator[/ul][/li]
Last Friday on the way to work, I kid you not, one of these station wagons was on I90 next to me heading towards Wisconsin.
I looked hard to see if the bald man with the green base and yellow-haired lady with the squinty-eyelashy eyes were inside.