From Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” in 1970 to The Clash’s “London Calling” in 1979, here’s one song for every year of the ’70s. The playlist moves through soul, funk, country, reggae, rock, and disco in release order.
The years refer to the first release of each recording. Some of the videos use remastered audio of those same performances. For more on the styles behind the playlist, see what music was popular in the 1970s.
1. “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon & Garfunkel (1970)
Art Garfunkel starts over a quiet piano, close enough that you can hear the space he leaves between phrases. The arrangement keeps growing until the final verse has the scale of a hymn. The restraint at the start makes that ending feel earned.
2. “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye (1971)
Party chatter and a saxophone draw you into the room before Gaye begins to sing. His overlapping vocals make the questions sound like a conversation, even as he asks listeners to reckon with violence and division.
3. “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder (1972)
The clavinet has a sharp, almost guitar-like bite. Wonder’s drums set up the groove, then the keyboard riff locks in and the horns punctuate it. Follow the riff into the first verse to hear how it keeps its shape around the vocal.
4. “Jolene” by Dolly Parton (1973)
The picking pattern keeps going underneath Parton’s plea. She sings the name again and again, letting the urgency come from repetition and that tightly wound guitar figure. The single appeared in 1973, a few months before the album of the same name.
5. “No Woman, No Cry” by Bob Marley & The Wailers (1974)
The studio take from Natty Dread has a brisker pulse than the familiar 1975 live version. Marley looks back on life in Trenchtown, and the backing voices give his words of reassurance the warmth of people singing together.
6. “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen (1975)
Queen moves from close vocal harmonies and a piano ballad into a burst of mock opera, then lets the guitars take over. Listen for the gap before the hard-rock section and the way the song eases back to a quiet ending.
7. “Dancing Queen” by ABBA (1976)
The tumbling piano pulls you straight onto the dance floor. Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad bring a touch of wistfulness to the chorus, even while the rhythm keeps everything moving.
8. “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac (1977)
Stevie Nicks sings a breakup over a rhythm that hardly seems to raise its pulse. The steady drums and bass leave room for her phrasing, and the soft backing harmonies change the color of the chorus without disturbing the groove.
9. “Le Freak” by CHIC (1978)
Nile Rodgers’s clipped rhythm guitar leaves room for Bernard Edwards’s bass to move. The chorus is easy to join, but the space between those two instruments is what gives the record its bounce.
10. “London Calling” by The Clash (1979)
The guitar chords hit like a warning and the bass keeps advancing under Joe Strummer’s voice. After the invitation to dance in “Le Freak,” this tense broadcast from London is a sharp turn to end the decade.
To hear how differently the decade filled a dance floor, play “Superstition,” “Dancing Queen,” and “Le Freak” back to back. The first runs on a keyboard riff, the second on the sweep of its melody, and the third on the push and pull between guitar and bass.