Music of the United Kingdom (1970s)

Progressive rock bands sometimes used "concept albums that made unified statements, usually telling an epic story or tackling a grand overarching theme.

The term was applied to the music of bands and artists such as Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Kate Bush, Soft Machine, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

[7] Kate Bush became the first solo woman to have a self-written song become a number 1 UK single and became a sensation, drawing on art rock, literature, dance and mime.

[11] Key acts included British Invasion bands like The Who and The Kinks, as well as psychedelic era performers like Cream, Jimi Hendrix Experience and The Jeff Beck Group.

Led Zeppelin added elements of fantasy to their riff laden blues-rock, Deep Purple brought in symphonic and medieval interests from their progressive rock phase and Black Sabbath introduced facets of the gothic and modal harmony, helping to produce a "darker" sound.

Despite a lack of airplay and very little presence on the singles charts, late-1970s heavy metal built a considerable following, particularly among adolescent working-class males in North America and Europe.

[16] The flamboyant lyrics, costumes, and visual styles of glam performers were a campy, playing with categories of sexuality in a theatrical blend of nostalgic references to science fiction and old movies, all over a guitar-driven hard rock sound.

[18] A significant moment was the release of Fairport Convention's 1969 album Liege & Lief, which developed further in the 1970s, when it was taken up by groups such as Pentangle, Steeleye Span and the Albion Band.

Several pub rock musicians joined the new wave acts such as Graham Parker's backing band, The Rumour, Elvis Costello & the Attractions and even The Clash.

[23] This was taken up in Britain by bands also influenced by the pub rock scene and US punk rock, like the Sex Pistols and The Clash, The Damned, The Jam, The Stranglers, Generation X, The Buzzcocks, Sham 69, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Tom Robinson Band, who became the vanguard of a new musical and cultural movement, blending simple aggressive sounds and lyrics with clothing styles and a variety of anti-authoritarian ideologies.

[24]During the second half of the 1970s and early 1980s musicians identifying with or inspired by Punk rock also pursued a broad range of other variations, giving rise among others to the post-punk movement.

During 1976–77, in the midst of the original UK punk movement, bands emerged such as Manchester's Joy Division, The Fall, and Magazine, Leeds' Gang of Four, and London's The Raincoats that became central post-punk figures.

[27] Significant popular British New Wave acts at the end of the decade included The Boomtown Rats, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, and Lene Lovich.

[29] In 1977 Ultravox member Warren Cann purchased a Roland TR-77 drum machine, which was first featured in their October 1977 single release "Hiroshima Mon Amour".

[30] The ballad arrangement, metronome-like percussion and heavy use of the ARP Odyssey synthesiser was effectively a prototype for nearly all synth pop and rock bands that were to follow.

Others were soon to follow, including Tubeway Army, a little-known outfit from West London, who dropped their punk rock image and jumped on the band wagon, topping the UK charts in the summer of 1979 with the single "Are Friends Electric?".

This prompted the singer, Gary Numan to go solo and in the same year he release the Kraftwerk inspired album, The Pleasure Principle and again topped the charts for the second time with the single "Cars".

[34] Individuals who enjoyed successful pop careers in this period included Gilbert O'Sullivan, David Essex, Leo Sayer, Rod Stewart and Elton John.

[36] The most successful of these was Ralph McTell, whose ‘Streets of London’ reached number 2 in the UK Single Charts in 1974, and whose music is clearly folk, but without and much reliance on tradition, virtuosity, or much evidence of attempts at fusion with other genres.

It blended avant-garde electronics experiments (including tape music, musique concrète, white noise, synthesisers, sequencers) and a punk sensibility.

Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae had been introduced to the United Kingdom in the 1960s, largely due to the Windrush immigration of the 60's and 50's, and the genres became especially popular with Mods, skinheads and suedeheads.