The 76 Best Albums of 1976

Hall & Oates, ‘Bigger Than Both of Us’

Welcome to 1976, the kind of year where the hottest boy-boy duo in pop history could introduce themselves with the question, “Do you believe in hot cars, leather bars, and movie stars?” Philly dogs Daryl Hall and John Oates hit the spotlight with their breakthrough album Bigger Than Both of Us and their first Number One smash, “Rich Girl.” It also has the awesome Me Decade pep talk “Do What You Want, Be What You Are,” where Daryl sings the wise words, “The strong give up and move on/While the weak give up and stay.” “John and I have never been lovers,” Daryl confided to Rolling Stone. “He’s not my type. Too dark and short.” But 50 years later, they’re still on top of… [touches earpiece] Wait, seriously? They brokeup?Why? Get it together, you two! But Bigger is an archetypal 1976 pop classic—and the perfect place to start this party.–Rob Sheffield

James Brown, ‘Get Up Offa That Thing’

In 1976, the Godfather of Soul was starting to key into the disco sounds of acts like Earth, Wind & Fire and the Ohio Players. But he wasn’t interested in their lavish productions, and his sound stayed as raw as ever. His second LP of three he’d released in 1976 opens with the in-the-red shriek that kicks off its title track, a nine-minute jam inspired by an audience at a show in Fort Lauderdale, Florida that stayed seated during Brown’s set. Their lameness is our lucky break — the song is one of his last true classics. Get Up Offa that Thing also has “I Refuse to Lose,” an empowerment anthem for the doldrums of the stagflation-plagued Seventies, and the good-footin’ workouts “Can’t Take It With You” and “This Feeling.”–Jon Dolan

Al Stewart, ‘Year of the Cat’

Scottish singer-songwriter Al Stewart started out on the London folk scene of the mid-Sixties, briefly sharing a flat with another unknown guy on the scene named Paul Simon. By the mid-1970s he was riding the soft-rock wave, with a yen for literary lyrics, meticulous arrangements, and lithe, airy guitar work. Stewart had his biggest success with his seventh album,Year of the Cat. “On the Border” floats an evocation of anti-colonial struggle in on a sea-breeze melody; on “Flying Sorcery” planes in a fog are a metaphor for doomed lovers; “Broadway Hotel” is about a lonely woman having an affair with a hotel room service attendant. It all flows into the hit title track, a Casablanca-inspired intrigue about a man on an exotic vacation who falls for a mysterious Patchouli scented woman and gets his travel itinerary upended and his life turned upside down.–J.D.

Loretta Lynn, ‘When the Tingle Becomes a Chill’

By the time Loretta Lynn’s 27^th solo album hit shelves, she’d already spent the last few years releasing songs that redefined how a woman in country music was able to sing about sexuality and desire (“The Pill,” “Rated X”). Made at producer Owen Bradley’s barn in Mount Juliet Tennessee, When the Tingle Becomes a Chill boasted a title track, written by Lola Jean Dillon, that charted what happens when the spark leaves a relationship and the bedroom (“the body performs but the soul has no will,” ouch). Lynn also offered a gloriously glossy version of Glen Campbell’s hit “Rhinestone Cowboy,” the moody misdirection of “Red, White and Blue” and “All I Want From You (Is Away),” that showcased her snappy sonic sense of humor. –Marissa Moss

Kiss, ‘Rock and Roll Over’

Following the conceptual stretch of their other 1975 album, Destroyer (see Number 25), Kiss got back to straight-ahead hard-rock on their fifth studio LP, hailed by some fans as their finest release. It was their first time in the studio with super-reliable producer Eddie Kramer, who’d mixed their breakthrough 1975 live album AliveI, and the sound is much punchier than their sometimes murky-sounding earlier records. “I Want You” starts off as sensitive acoustic schlock but quickly turns into irresistibly swaggering pop-metal, and the solid songs keep on coming, from “Take Me” to “Calling Dr. Love” to “Hard Luck Women,” originally written for Rod Stewart and containing a spot-on Rod impression on vocals from drummer Peter Criss.–J.D.

Burning Spear, ‘Garvey’s Ghost’

Garvey’s Ghost was the pioneering dub version of Burning Spear’s radical reggae statement, Marcus Garvey. Winston Rodney was on a tear in 1976 — he also released Man in the Hills. Garvey’s Ghost was mixed in London, but the goal was taking dub somewhere new sonically. “Now you get lots of artificial dub effects in Jamaica,”producer Jack Ruby explained in Sounds, “but I used none with this record, not to get in the way of the music.” The spectral grooves cast a spell by zoning in on individual instruments, especially Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace’s drums, for an eerie sense of dread. “Jamaican surf music,” Greil Marcus called it. “Which is to say that slave ships are visible on the horizon.”–R.S.

KC and the Sunshine Band, ‘Part 3’

A disco celebration, with a great big rainbow on the cover. On Part 3, KC and the Sunshine Band offer a tripartite plan for spiritual unity: (1) shake shake shake, (2) shake shake shake, (3) shake your booty. Then start back at the top. The Miami funkateers, led by Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch, felt like strutting their stuff after their 1975 self-titled smash. So they upped the ante, refining disco bliss into pure tantric repetition: “Shake Shake Shake (Shake Your Booty),” “I’m Your Boogie Man,” “I Like To Do It,” and best of all, “Keep It Coming Love.” KC and the Sunshine Band appeared on Dolly Parton’s variety show in December ’76: you haven’t lived till you’ve seen Dolly jam with them on “That’s the Way I Like It.”–R.S.

Merle Haggard, ‘My Love Affair With Trains’

On Merle Haggard’s twentieth album, My Love Affair With Trains, the slow death of the black iron horse is a metaphor for the loss of a way of life and a vision of America itself. On the Dolly Parton penned title track, Merle plays a settled down family man whose hobo blood boils every time he hears that lonesome whistle blow. “Here Comes the Freedom Train” chugs through our nation’s history with democratic progress pumping the engine and heroes from Washington to Lincoln to MLK as conductor. The heart of the album is in the nostalgia of “Where Have All the Hobos Gone” and “No More Trains to Ride,” songs that, in Hag’s words, “may make you a little bit sad when you realize what we’re leaving behind.”–J.D.

Foxy, ‘Foxy’

It was a golden age for funk upstarts, and Foxy were quintessential class-of-’76 disco weirdos. After KC and the Sunshine Band became stars, Foxy took over as the new house band at the crucial Miami indie-dance label T.K. Records, with Cuban-born bandleader Ish Ledesma. Their 1976 debut is an underground funk cult item, trashy and proud, with club hits like “Get Off Your Aahh and Dance,” an orgiastic conga groove where even the flutes sound like they’re panting lasciviously. Foxy went Top 40 with their 1978 hit “Get Off,” a perv-disco banger that spawned sequels like “RRRRRock.” (Take that, Charli XCX.) Ledesma moved on to a strange career writing/producing for one-hit wonders, like Oxo’s 1983 pop hit “Whirly Girl” and Company B’s 1987 freestyle classic “Fascinated.”–R.S.

Genesis, ‘Wind and Wuthering’

Genesis kickstarted 1976 by dropping their first post-Peter Gabriel LP, A Trick of the Tail (See Number 36), toured North America and Europe, and then headed right back into the studio to craft a follow-up, which they got into stores just a couple of weeks before 1977. Phil Collins was the face and voice of the band at this point, and still had his old job as drummer, but he hadn’t come into his own yet as a songwriter. This created space for guitarist/bassist Mike Rutherford to write the ballad “Your Own Special Way,” keyboardist Tony Banks to compose the ten-minute prog epic “One For The Vine,” and for everyone to come together on the soaring instrumental suite “Unquiet Slumbers for the Sleepers/In That Quiet Earth.” Guitarist Steve Hackett’s departure after this album solidified the three-man lineup that would go on to very big things it the Eighties.–Andy Greene

George Harrison, ‘Thirty Three and a Third’

The Beatles were riding a massive resurgence in 1976, years after they broke up—they shocked the industry with the blockbuster hit anthology Rock & Roll Music, while “Got to Get You Into My Life” became a Top Ten smash a decade after it was released. But George was coming out of a few hard years, with his voice, health, and career in rough shape. Fortunately, the Quiet One came back strong on Thirty Three & 1/3, revitalized by his new love Olivia Arias Harrison, with his tributes “Beautiful Girl” and “Learning How To Love You.” It also has one of his most soulful love songs ever: “Pure Smokey,” where he thanks the Lord for giving the world the genius of Smokey Robinson, always one of the Fabs’ biggest heroes. “Pure Smokey” was never a hit, but it’s George at his most humane and lovable.–R.S.

Bob Seger, ‘Live Bullet’

Much like Cheap Trick, Kiss, and Peter Frampton, it took a live album to break Bob Seger. In his case, it followed a decade of grueling roadwork, and an astounding eight flop albums. But these lean years turned Seger and the Silver Bullet Band into a ferocious live band, and gave them a repertoire of songs like “Turn the Page,” “Travelin’ Man,” “Beautiful Loser,” “Heavy Music” and “Katmandu” that crushed every time they went onstage. And once the public finally heard this live album taped across two nights at Detroit’s Cobo Hall in September 1976, Seger finally found the audience he long deserved. Many studio albums followed, and a handful of live ones, but none of them quite captured the magic of this one. It’s an artist right on the cusp of superstardom with a lot to prove. There’s simply no way to recreate that.–A.G.

Rod Stewart, ‘A Night on the Town’

The cover of Rod Stewart seventh album, based on Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s painting Bal du moulin de la Galette, gives you a clue to its grand ambition. “Tonight’s the Night,” pushed the envelope for suggestive radio ballads with the line “Spread your wings and let me come inside.” He closes side one with the Dylanesque story song “The Killing of Georgie (Part I and II),” about a gay friend of Rod’s who gets killed by a street gang in New York. The albums choice of covers is exquisite – a rollicking version of Hank Thompson’s honky tonk classic “The Wild Side of Life,” a bar band rip through Manfred Mann’s Sixties sunshine-pop tune “Pretty Flamingo,” and sensitive readings of Cat Stevens’ “The First Cut Is the Deepest” and “Trade Winds,” a politically minded ballad originally cut by Roberta Flack for her landmark debut First Take.–J.D.

George Jones, ‘Alone Again’

A year after his divorce from Tammy Wynette, which she credited to “his nippin’,” the country icon opened Alone Again with “A Drunk Can’t Be a Man,” a devastating portrayal of alcoholic paralysis. The existential gut punches continue with “Ain’t Nobody Gonna Miss Me” and “Stand on My Own Two Knees.” Alone Again is one of the best albums Jones made during his historic run with producer Billy Sherrill, all heartbreaking ballads full of sad newly-single-guy angst and longing for anyone to take the pain away. The scorched earth mood is interrupted by one upbeat novelty tune, “Her Name Is,” where George imagines the woman of his future with an electric clavinet chiming in every time he wants to say her name because he hasn’t found her yet and it doesn’t sound like she’s going to show up any time soon.–J.D.

Bryan Ferry, ‘Let’s Stick Together’

Bryan Ferry, a man of wealth and taste, was also a man without a band on Let’s Stick Together. Roxy Music split up after their 1975 gem Siren, and would take a few years to reunite, though almost everyone in Roxy played on Ferry’s next solo album. Let’s Stick Together is a strange but seductive collage, with the Divine Bryan embracing his new vocation as the ultimate art-rock lounge crooner. He interprets blues standards and pop ballads from the past, but also a batch of Roxy Music songs, giving them a jazzy new groove. Roxy played “Casanova” as a guitar screamer, but here it’s a smoldering torch song, as Ferry dismantles his own Don Juan image. The swinging title tune’s video stars a temptress in a tiger-stripe dress—played by his paramour Jerry Hall. Bonus points for Ferry’s brief fling with facial hair — nobody rocks a louche Seventies mustache like Bryan.–R.S.

Lynyrd Skynyrd, ‘One More from the Road’

Lynyrd Skynyrd were one of the era’s great road bands, so thank the rock gods these Southern boys got to leave a definitive live testament, just a year before the fatal plane crash. One More From The Road is a blowout from the Fox Theatre in Hot’lanta. Ronnie Van Zandt sang barefoot—as he says in Cameron Crowe’s famous liner notes, “I love to feel that stage burn.” But the grease hits the skillet at the end of the night, when Ronnie asks the crowd one final question: “What song is it you wanna hear?” Shockingly, everyone in the 404 area code screams, “Freeee Birrrrrrd!” This album is why annoying people still yell “Free Bird,” a gag that started as soon as the album dropped. As Rolling Stone’s Greil Marcus noted in his review of the Band’s Last Waltz concert that Thanksgiving, “Damned if somebody didn’t yell for ‘Free Bird.’”–R.S.

Queen, ‘A Day at the Races’

As its title suggests,A Day at the Races is a kind of sequel to the Queen’s 1975 breakthroughA Night at the Opera. Songs like “The Millionaire Waltz,” and “Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)” reach for the Galileo grandeur of “Bohemian Rhapsody” without the same magnifico results, and there isn’t a standout pop hit like “Your My Best Friend.” Still, there are great moments here: “Tie Your Mother Down,” written by guitarist Brian May back in the band’s pre-Queen days, is pop-metal thunder. May sings lead on “Long Away,” a lovely light-touch moment of Beatles/Beach Boys prettiness. The peak is “Somebody to Love,” with one of Freddie Mercury’s toughest, realest heart-hungry vocals, an Olympian solo from May, and a mountainous build-up towards a grand finale — killer Queen indeed.–J.D.

Son Seals, ‘Midnight Son’

A native of Osceola, Arkansas, where he grew up playing in his father’s juke joint, blues guitar great Son Seals moved to Chicago and broke out with his excellent second album, Midnight Son, widely regarded as one of the 1970s best blues LPs. Unlike most upstart bluesman, he didn’t fill out his records with covers, giving Midnight Son a potent coherence. Backed by a sharp horn section, Seals’ playing on songs like “I Believe,” “Telephone Angel” and the searing seven-minute closing track, “Going Back Home,” is explosive and precise, gritty and piercing, fitting the raw intensity of his singing, whether he’s lamenting the crummy Windy City job market or threatening to get his rod to settle a romantic situation.–J.D.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, ‘Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’

Don’t let the leather jacket and bullets on the album cover fool you: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were not a punk band. “Call me a punk and I’ll cut you,” he kindly told the press. And while it was their debut, they were hardly a new band, having spent years on the road as Mudcrutch, to little commercial success. The record showcased not just how seasoned they were as a band, but how much potential they had. Of the 10 tracks, two would become future hits: “Breakdown” and “American Girl,” the latter the best song of their career, fittingly recorded on the Fourth of July. How’s that for a little punk? -Angie Martoccio

Paul McCartney & Wings, ‘Wings at the Speed of Sound’

Paul McCartney spent the summer at Number One with Wings at the Speed of Sound, a concept album about filling the world with silly love songs. (And what’s wrong with that? We’d like to know.) The band at Number Two? The Beatles, with their surprise posthumous hit Rock & Roll Music. Speed of Sound has awesome lonely-yachts-club grooves like “She’s My Baby,” plus Linda’s first (and last) lead vocal, “Cook of the House.” Then there’s “Let ‘Em In,” one of the most stoned-sounding Top Ten hits in history, about being too catatonically zonked in your bean-bag chair to get up and answer the damn door. That trombone solo alone was enough to get 1970s hippies reaching for the Visine. Speed of Sound remains influential—you can hear it all over Harry’s House, from Wings superfan Harry Styles. (The fact that Paul immediately added “Let ‘Em In” to his set list proved he’s a “Grapejuice” girlie.)–R.S.

Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band, ’Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band ’

One of the most out-there and inventive products of the disco era, Dr. Buzzards Original Savannah Band was the vision of Stony Browder Jr and his brother Thomas Browder (who adopted the stage name August Darnell), a band of Black and Latino musicians coming out of the Bronx who dressed like 1940s hep cats, sang in four languages, and reimagined the Big Band refinement of Cab Calloway for the anything-goes Seventies club scene. Highlighted by the hit “Cherchez La Femme” (a plush showcase for singer Cory Daye), the kids-choir urban pastoral “Sunflower” and the swing banger “I’ll Play the Fool,” this joyously sophisticated album plays like the soundtrack to a night out in heaven.–J.D.

The J. Geils Band, ‘Blow Your Face Out’

You were nobody in the 1970s rock hustle until you made a live album—but it was real boss behavior to crank out two of them. The J. Geils Band’s Blow Your Face Out was a frenzy of double-live gonzo, just three years after Live Full House, yet a whole different kind of fire-breathing blues-rock house party. The Geils gang raise hell onstage in Detroit and Boston, two quintessential live-album towns, with a gloriously scruffy desecration of the Motown classic “Where Did Our Love Go,” as Magic Dick honks his Hohner. But the peak is “Musta Got Lost,” with Peter Wolf’s epic intro monologue, a madman preacher testifying, “This is a song about L-O-V-E!” He riffs on fairy tales (“What’s the name of that chick with the long hair?” “Rapunzel!”) and proclaims himself the “Woofa Goofa with the green teeth.”–R.S.

Bunny Wailer, ‘Blackheart Man’

Bunny Livingston co-founded the Wailers alongside Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, and contributed  spiritual stunners “Pass It On” and “Hellujuah Time” to 1974’s Burnin’, his last album with the group. His debut is a musically multi-faceted statement of his Rastafarian ideals. Rather than sweeping Marley-size  anthems, he goes for the subtlety of his down-to-earth singing, sticky grooves and melodies, and ingenious musical flourishes, such as the Jew’s harp on the incredible title track, the laidback sax on “Bide Up,” and the utopian synth on “Dream Land.” Bunny balances urgent political messages and playful escapism (see “Fig Tree,” about sitting in one), and he can sound equally deep whether or he’s stoking revolution, prophesying armageddon, or simply advising “drink water children.”–J.D. 

Boz Scaggs, ‘Silk Degrees’

John Travolta said that when he was working on his moves for Saturday Night Fever he was “dancing to Stevie Wonder and Boz Scaggs.” Everybody in America was in 1976. Boz Scaggs’ multi-platinum hit Silk Degrees had the perfect mix of Southern rock, soul, and disco, sculpted with A-list L.A. session guys like keyboard player David Paich and drummer Jeff Porcaro. Ohiio-born, Texas-raised Scaggs was a veteran with a long track record, and he lent a subtle old-soul warmth to the sublime slickness of “Lido Shuffle” and “Lowdown,” as well the Mott the Hoople swagger of “Jump Street,” the reggae-tinged “Love Me Tomorrow” and the New Orleans R&B bounce of “What Do You Want the Girl to Do.”–J.D.

Blue Oyster Cult, ‘Agents of Fortune’

In the summer of 1976, Patti Smith spoke about why she thought Blue Öyster Cult’s new album was gaining traction. “After six years together, they finally decided to let each guy emerge personally,” she said. “They wanted to gamble, like the cover shot, to take risks, shoot for the stars.” Agents of Fortune did exactly that, making it the first — and only — Cult album to feature each member on lead vocals. Smith, who was dating guitarist-keyboardist Allen Lanier, also took the reins on the gloomy rocker “The Revenge of Vera Gemini.” And oh yeah, the record also contains their biggest hit: “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper,” Buck Dharma’s haunting rock & roll odyssey about eternal love, the inevitability of death, and the importance of using the cowbell. “Reaper,” Laurie Strode’s toking song of choice, inspired Stephen King to write The Stand and one of the best SNL sketches in history. Shooting for the stars, indeed. —A.M.

Marvin Gaye, ‘I Want You’

Three years after Let’s Get it On, Gaye linked up with co-writer and producer Leon Ware for his most sensual album yet, inspired by his second wife, Janis Hunter. “The time when we didI Want You had to be the most happy time in Marvin’s life,” Ware recalled. “Because he was freshly in love, and the album exhibits that atmosphere.” Come for the sugary funk of “Come Live with Me Angel,” stay for the sexy conga-filled “Soon I’ll Be Loving You Again” and various “I Want You” jams. “When I’m told by different people all over the world how many babies that album has made,” Ware said, “The record stands so high in my life.” —A.M.

Led Zeppelin, ‘Presence’

For Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin’s seventh album was about pure survival. “There won’t be another album like it, put it like that,” he told us. “It was a cry from the depths, the only thing that we could do.” Led Zeppelin were hardly in a good place when they recorded Presence. Following their 1975 masterpiece Physical Graffiti, a frightening car crash on the Greek island of Rhodes left Plant unable to walk. Shows were cancelled, and they headed into the studio to record new material. Besides the opening 10-minute epic “Achilles Last Stand,” several of the tracks remain underappreciated, like the jaunty “Hots on for Nowhere” and the searing “Tea for One,” both of which the band never performed live. “Presence was pure anxiety and emotion,” Jimmy Page said. “We didn’t know if we’d ever be able to play in the same way again. It might have been a very dramatic change, if the worst had happened to Robert. Presence is our best in terms of uninterrupted emotion.” —A.M.

Max Romeo and the Upsetters, ‘War Ina Babylon’

Michael Hurley, The Unholy Modal Rounders, Jeffrey Fredericks & the Clamtones, ’Have Moicy!’

Few albums have aged as well as Have Moicy!, the ragtag folk supergroup opus from a collection of musicians (Peter Stampfel, Michal Hurley, Jeffrey Frederick, and Paul Presti, to name just a few). The album, per the critic Robert Christgau, “renewe[ed]” the concept of American folk music as a bizarre apotheosis of the post-hippie estate.” To say it’s become an influential cult classic is an understatement: the album has gone on to spin its tendrils into just about every corner of anything on the anti/freak-folk-outsider roots-indie-singer-songwriter spectrum in the 50 years since its release, resulting in covers from everyone from Yo La Tengo to Cass McCombs to JP Harris.–Jonathan Bernstein

The Runaways, ‘The Runaways’

The Runaways were put together by sleazy L.A. rock mogul Kim Fowley as a teenage all-girl novelty band, but they broke through that cliche and immediately had their own identity and sound – “the Queens of Noise, the answer to your dreams.” The Runaways become pathfinding feminist heroes, playing hard rock with punk’s spirit and energy on fantastic songs like “American Nights,” “Thunder,” a  hot-wired version of Lou Reed’s “Rock N Roll,” and the iconic album-opener “Cherry Bomb,” later covered by 1990s riot grrrls Bratmobile. Along with putting out this killer debut, The Runaways were the launching pad for the legendary careers of guitarists Joan Jett and Lita Ford.–J.D.

Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser, ‘Wanted! The Outlaws’

Rose Royce, ‘Car Wash’

Rose Royce were R&B funk legends from L.A., led by the heavenly voice of Gwen Dickey. Car Wash was officially the soundtrack to the funky comedy flick, one of the best movies either Richard Pryor or George Carlin ever acted in. Director Michael Schultz had the soundtrack recorded before filming started, so the actors at the car wash would hear the same actual music as the audience. Motown legend Norman Whitfield produced and wrote, with the social-realist disco classic “Car Wash” (“This ain’t no place to be if you planned on being a star”) and the anti-capitalist funk chant “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.” But Dickey’s voice makes the ballads irresistible—“I’m Going Down” and “I Wanna Get Next to You” have been classics ever since.–R.S.

The Stills, ‘Young Band, Long May You Run’

“I don’t think there’s anybody who writes like Neil,” Emmylou Harris once said. “His songs are an odd combination of being straightforward and elusive at the same time.” It’s an astute description for a song like “Long May You Run,” the most romantic song anyone has ever written about a hearse. Nostalgic for their Buffalo Springfield days, Young linked up with Stephen Stills for a joint album down in Miami, yielding underrated Young gems like “Midnight on the Bay” and “Fontainebleau” (after the luxury hotel on Miami Beach). That unique combo of straightforwardness and elusiveness leaked outside of the music, as well. Graham Nash and David Crosby recorded backing vocals on the tracks, but Young ended up removing them. Then he briefly toured with Stills, only to abandon ship and leave a note. “Dear Stephen, funny how some things that start spontaneously end that way,” it read. “Eat a peach, Neil.” As Harris said, nobody quite writes like him. —A.M.

Bob Marley, ‘Rastaman Vibration’

Marley’s gift at smuggling radical politics in a smooth package was on prime display on his eight album, his first to make the Top 10 in America. He kicks it off with two statements of optimism, “Positive Vibration” and “Roots, Rock, Reggae,” setting up the dire urgency of the tragic “Johnny Was,” anti-colonial protest anthems like “War” and “Rat Race,” the working man’s blues  “Night Shift,” and “Crazy Baldhead,” a diatribe against corrupt politicians (“the conman/Coming with his con plan”). With vocal trio the I Threes in peak form backing him up over bright, bedrock grooves, every one of these jeremiads is butter.–J.D.

Tom Waits, ‘Small Change’

We can argue which of Tom Waits’ Seventies albums is the best, but Small Change sure is a top candidate for the rawest, darkest, and drunkest, perfecting the gloriously dank Louis Armstrong-meets-Captain Beefheart growl that’d become his signature as he delivers bone-deep dispatches from the lowbrow margins. Titles like “Tom Traubert’s Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)” and “Jitterbug Boy (Sharing a Curbstone with Chuck E. Weiss, Robert Marchese, Paul Body and The Mug and Artie)” indicate the scope of Waits’ noir literary ambition. The centerpiece is his existential barfly masterstroke “The Piano Has Been Drinking,” and he plays a surreal speed-freak pitchman hawking a fake dream product on “Step Right Up,” one of the funniest songs he ever wrote. Best pitch: “It’ll find you a job/It is a job!”–J.D.

Peter Frampton, ‘Frampton Comes Alive!’

Nothing is more Seventies than a live album. And nobody packed more Seventies ambience into a live album than Peter Frampton. Frampton Comes Alive! remains the essence of the form, with radio hits, guitar jams, ecstatic crowd noises, open shirts, and a gatefold sleeve that doubles as a rolling tray. His talk-box was a sensation—teens thrilled to hear this guy make his guitar say, “I want to fwaaaaawnk you!” The readers of Rolling Stone voted it Album of the Year. “Show Me The Way” and “Baby I Love Your Way” are classics, but “Do You Feel Like We Do” is the 14-minute highlight, where Frampton’s call-and-response with the crowd is downright beatific. You hear this album a few times in Dazed and Confused—in Pink’s car, the drive-in, the party—as if it flowed like one continuous 8-track loop, all summer long.–R.S.

Al Green, ‘Full of Fire’

The hit single from Green’s tenth album is its high-energy title track, an ode to partying all night driven by drummer Howard Grimes’ sleek Memphis soul groove. The rest of the album is more subdued and at times spiritually inclined, foreshadowing Green’s turn to gospel music in the 1980s. The opening song “Glory, Glory,” is a romantic ode haloed with gospel tropes. On the ethereal “I’d Fly Away” he delivers a gorgeously subtle performance as he dreams of taking flight and heading for the “City of Angels,” and “As Soon As I Get Home” imagines being reunited with loved ones in Heaven. He closes it out with another uptempo highlight, “Let It Shine,” advising us to “please be kind” and thanking the Lord for his daily bread as he blesses the dance floor with his holy love.–J.D.

AC/DC, ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’

The third AC/DC album wouldn’t get released in the U.S. until 1981, after the blockbuster success of 1980’s Back in Black. Had it come out in 1976, the title track and single-entendre slammer “Big Balls” would’ve been rock-radio classics years ahead of schedule. Dirty Deeds is peak early AC/DC, with Bon Scott snarling his legitimately sketchy lyrics with licentious glee, Malcolm and Angus Young playing guitar like kid brothers wrestling in the backyard, drummer Phil Rudd kicking out nail-gun grooves with disco swing. Along with riff-hammering highlights like “Problem Child,” “Squealer,” and the seven-minute “Ain’t No Fun (Waiting Round to Be a Millionaire), there are twists like the punk-speed rockabilly of “Rocker” and the borderline introspect of the slow ZZ Top-style blues “Ride On.”–J.D.

Linda Ronstadt, ‘Hasten Down the Wind’

“When Heart Like a Wheel went to Number One,” Linda Ronstadt told us of her 1974 breakthrough, “I just walked around apologizing every single day.” The apologies kept coming, as the Queen of L.A. continued her reign with the bestselling follow-up, 1975’s Prisoner in Disguise, and then Hasten Down the Wind, named after her Warren Zevon cover on the album. But as with all of her albums, Ronstadt did more than just cover other artists — these were her interpretations she put her own spin on the original, from her delightful take on Willie Nelson’s “Crazy” to two Karla Bonoff cuts: “If He’s Ever Near” and “Someone to Lay Down Beside Me.” But perhaps the most revelatory is “Lo Siento Mi Vida,” marking the first time the Mexican-American sang in Spanish — paving the way for her future releases. —AM

Funkadelic, ‘Hardcore Jollies’

George Clinton was moving fast in 1976 — Hardcore Jollies came out just a month after Tales of Kidd Funkadelic, recorded at the same sessions. It’s a showcase for the band’s new teenage guitar stud Michael “Kidd Funkadelic” Hampton, as well as longtime P-Funk axeman Eddie Hazel, who zones out in a bizarre demolition of the campfire folk song “Comin’ Round The Mountain.” “There wasn’t much of a concept for Hardcore Jollies other than what the title says,” Clinton says in his memoir. “It’s about playing the shit out of your instrument—or, if you’d prefer, getting your rocks off by getting your rock & roll on. That’s why I dedicated the record to ‘the guitar players of the world.’”–R.S.

Genesis, ‘A Trick of the Tail’

For anyone who caught a Genesis concert in the first half of the 1970s, the thought of them existing in any form without Peter Gabriel must have felt ludicrous. But few realized they had a secret weapon behind the drum kit in Phil Collins, who emerged, very reluctantly, as their lead singer in 1976 after Gabriel lect the band. The remaining quartet of Collins, keyboardist Tony Banks, guitarist/bassist Mike Rutherford, and guitarist Steve Hackett crafted a majestic suite of songs like “Squonk,” “Ripples,” “Entangled,” “Dance on a Volcano” and “Los Endos” that moved away from the pastoral, distinctly-British imagery of the Gabriel era towards something more universal and arena-friendly. In a respectful nod to their founder, however, they end the album with an ode to Gabriel by quoting a couplet (“There’s an angel standing in the sun/Free to get back home”) from his 1973 masterpiece “Supper’s Ready,” paying respect to the mad genius who got them here.–A.G.

Peter Tosh, ‘Legalize It’

Soon after Peter Tosh left Bob Marley and the Wailers in 1976 — in part because Island Record prez Chris Blackwell wouldn’t let Tosh release a solo album — the singer put out his shelved debut LP Legalize It. Th album is best known for its stoner classic title track, a reggae rallying cry to decriminalize ganja in the face of Jamaica’s crackdown on marijuana at the time. “It’s good for the flu/Good for asthma,” Tosh sings, 20 years before medical marijuana was legalized in California in 1996. While “Legalize It” was banned in Jamaica, it became an international hit, with the album — which also featured Tosh classics like the ballads “Why Must I Cry” and “Ketchy Shuby” — catapulting Tosh out of the Wailers’ shadow and setting the stage for the singer’s solo masterpiece, 1977’s Equal Rights.–D.K.

Billy Joel, ‘Turnstiles’

To the suits at Columbia Records in 1976, Turnstiles, which only made it to #122 on the Billboard album chart, was the realization of their fears that Billy Joel peaked commercial with “Piano Man,” and was perhaps not even worth keeping on the label. But to Billy Joel fans, Turnstiles was his first truly masterful album. It kicks off with his Ronettes tribute “Say Goodbye to Hollywood,” carries on with the brilliantly depressing ballad “Summer Highland Falls,” perhaps the single best song he ever wrote, and side one ends with “New York State of Mind,” the state’s unofficial anthem. And then side two gets even bolder with arena-ready “Prelude/Angry Young Man,” and the sci-fi anthem “Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway).” Song-for-song, Turnstiles ranks very high on the list of Billy Joel’s best albums, perhaps only topped by his 1977 classic The Stranger.–A.G.

Thin Lizzy, ‘Jailbreak’

Thin Lizzy finally broke through in America with their sixth album, thanks to the rock-radio hallmark “The Boys Are Back In Town,” a song about soldiers coming home from Vietnam that remains the best ever to hear as you’re walking into a bar. Jailbreak is a perfect statement of singer-bassist Phil Linot’s soulful Irish hard-rock vision, driven home by the dual guitar attack of Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson – from the Van Morrison-esque “Running Back,” to the Springsteen-meets-Sly Stone urban romance “Romeo and the Lonely Girl,” and the scorching title track. “Warriors” is a song about drugs told from the perspective of drugs, “Cowboy Song” runs free with the buffalo, and “Emerald” radiates Celtic pride.–J.D.

Electric Light Orchestra, ‘A New World Record’

Higher and higher, baby. Jeff Lynne was a mad scientist of the studio, masterminding a string of rock classics as Electric Light Orchestra, making fans bust out their air-cello moves. Always a mystery man, hidden behind his shades/beard/‘fro uniform, he wrote some of the decade’s most hauntingly lonesome love songs. And the best of them are on A New World Record, ELO’s greatest album—full of modern alienation and isolation, like Kid A with more violins, with hits like “Livin’ Thing” and “Tightrope.” “Telephone Line” is so sweet and catchy on the surface, yet it’s a late-night creep show, the ballad of a broken-hearted guy who spends his blue days and black nights dialing his girlfriend’s number and singing sad songs to her phone, even though he knows she’ll never pick up.–R.S.

Jorge Ben, ‘Africa Brazil’

The Wild Tchoupitoulas, ’The Wild Tchoupitoulas’

This left field party record didn’t sell enough to make the album charts in 1976, but it’s about as fun as anything that came out that year, or any other. Wild Tchoupatoulas were a group of Mardi Gras Indians led by George “Big Chief Jolly” Landry, proud participants in a New Orleans tradition that went back to the 1800s. Teaming up with local funk heavies the Meters and Landry’s nephews the Neville Brothers on backing vocals, they made their only album, belting out call and response chants about marching uptown and getting in fights with rival crews. Songs like “Meet De Boya in the Battlefront,” “Hey Hey (Indian Comin’),” and “Big Chief Got a Golden Crown” are insanely infectious chant-along jams. At the height of slick international disco, here was an album full of raw celebration that had deep local flavor.–J.D.  

Jackson Browne, ‘The Pretender’

“For me, The Pretender is just the right blend of pessimism and endurance,” Browne told us in 1976. He’s right: Browne wasn’t yet 30, but he’d gone through a lot since last album Late for the Sky two years prior, marrying and losing his wife Phyllis Major to suicide (“Your Bright Baby Blues” and “Sleep’s Dark and Silent Gate” are about her). The album is produced by former Rolling Stone writer-turned-Springsteen manager Jon Landau, with cameos that include Don Henley and David Crosby. The finest moment is the finale, a triumphant title track about a person stuck in auto-pilot — who makes lunch, goes to work, and is one happy idiot. Is Browne “the pretender” he sings about? Kind of. “In truth there is a bit of the pretender in me,” he said. “It’s anybody that’s sort of lost sight of some of their dreams, and is going through the motions and trying to make a stab at a certain way of life that he sees other people succeeding at.” —A.M.

Donna Summer, ‘A Love Trilogy’

Art-rockers and singer-songwriter auteurs weren’t the only artists kicking out grand concept albums in the 1970s. Disco queen Donna Summer released a series of thematic and ambitious LPs during her reign as the First Lady of Love. A Love Trilogy opens with the seventeen-minute “Try Me, I Know We Can Make It,” with Summer doing falsetto cartwheels as she begs “try me, just one time,” across Georgio Moroder’s lavish motorik groove. She gives Barry Manilow’s soapy ballad “Could It Be Magic” an overheated makeover, kicking the song off with her deeply horny one-minute intro “Prelude to Love,” and relaxes back into some prime space-age synths on ‘Wasted.” The whole album is only five tracks in 33 minutes but it feels like an epic journey into her erotic mirrorball paradise.–J.D.

Rainbow, ‘Rising’

By 1976, Deep Purple’s signature Burn had flicked to an ember, but original guitarist Ritchie Blackmore was already flying high with his own hard-rock group, Rainbow. Rising rocks harder than Rainbow’s self-titled 1975 debut thanks to Blackmore’s forceful guitar riffs and Ronnie James Dio’s gritty vocals on side one’s “Lady Starstruck” and “Do You Close Your Eyes.” But it’s side two that made this LP’s legend: “A Light in the Black” is an upbeat, progressive hard rocker that showcases some of Blackmore’s best fusions of bluesy and classical soloing, while the frankly stunning “Stargazer” tells the vivid story of a huckster wizard who convinces his followers to build a tower “in the heat and the rain” to see him fly, only to watch him fall. In 1981, Kerrang! readers dubbed Rising the all-time best heavy metal album, while it bowed at a respectable Number 48 in 2017 when Rolling Stone editors made its own ranking.–Kory Grow