How Good Was The Year (in music) - 1976?

Leaderboard:

Rank Year Rating Top Album Top Song
1 1997 8.60 Radiohead - OK Computer The Beta Band - Dry The Rain
2 1967 8.48 Love - Forever Changes Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood - Some Velvet Morning
Premise:

Rate the music of the year out of ten, based on the albums, singles, gigs, whatever that stand out for you that year. Non-musical nostalgia is welcome in the thread but that’s beside the point of the poll.

Everyone may nominate one album and one song from the year which will then be collated into side-polls on the final day of the thread (in one week) - please make it clear when you post, e.g

Nominate Album: Artist - Title
Nominate Song: Artist - Title

Otherwise feel free to just spam the thread with chat about as much music from the year as you like.

This week we move forward nine years to 1976 .

It was the year of the first commercial Concorde flight, the Apple computer company was founded, The CN Tower in Toronto was completed and opened as the tallest free-standing structure in the world, Fidel Castro became president of Cuba, NASA unveiled Enterprise, the first space shuttle and the UK had one of its hottest heatwaves in living memory.

We said goodbye to Agatha Christie, Sid James (whilst performing on stage in front of an audience who thought it was part of the show), Howard Hughes and Vince Guaraldi, and said hello to Ronaldo, Benedict Cumberbatch, Reese Witherspoon and Emma Bunton.

How good was the music?

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
0 voters
2 Likes

Some lists for inspiration:

1 Like

Before we get to the deep cuts, here are four tunes fro '76 that you might have heard before to set the scene.

NOMINATE ALBUM - RAMONES BY RAMONES

The original and the very, very best

NOMINATE SONG - CHASE THE DEVIL BY MAX ROMEO

7 Likes

From the albums list looks like ‘76 was real peak prog and heavy rock. I guess this is a year or so before punk went into the mainstream.

The sexiest record of all time

4 Likes

Album: Roy Ayers Ubiquity - Everybody Loves The Sunshine

Song: Stevie Wonder - Sir Duke

7 Likes

Not sure what to nominate as favourites yet, but two of the best dub albums ever where released this year

Harry Mudie & King Tubby - In Dub Conference Vol.1

Augustus Pablo & King Tubby - King Tubbys Meets The Rockers Uptown

(whole album doesn’t appear to be on YT)

6 Likes

Album: the residents - third reich and roll

Single: krafwerk- radioactivity

5 Likes

song:

7 Likes

Yeah, 77 was when punk took over.

76 did have new rose though (as well as the ramones ofc)

1 Like

And the Saints

2 Likes

Album

The Modern Lovers s/t

Song

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers - American Girl

7 Likes

Nominate album: Mort Garson - Mother Earth’s Plantasia

Absolutely love this album. It’s only half an hour, it’s a batshit concept and it brings me so much joy.

Nominate Song: Jaco Pistorius - Come On Come Over

So funky.

4 Likes

70s feels like a bit of a void in my music knowledge singles wise but there’s generally a few disco hits I love in each year so for my single nomination I’ll go for Thelma Huston.

Lots of albums to consider so I’ll ponder a little longer.

2 Likes

Nominate Album: Funkadelic - Tales of Kidd Funkadelic

Feel like its one of the more underrated Funkadelic albums. Love ‘I’m Never Gonna Tell it’

Nominate Song: The Spinners - Rubberband Man

Just an alltime great party song, never fails to cheer me up.

3 Likes

Modern Lovers - s/t

4 Likes

It was the year that inspired the song that broke grunge into the mainstream:

1 Like

Nominate album: David Bowie - Station to Station

5 Likes

The list are useful, so I appreciate you posting, but that singles list is a nightmare with so many reissues from previous years! For example, Radioactivity is '75 but shows up in '76 too. This happened lots with Bowie too.