The Music of 1975

This is not about the band called The 1975. I know they exist, but I am not really familiar with them. I like so many bands from Manchester that I probably should check them out, but not right now.

Having arrived at another holiday weekend, I was concerned that reviews that I posted today and tomorrow might get lost in the shuffle. Christmas is on a Thursday too, so I will have to figure out something for that week as well, but for this week I am replacing the normal band reviews with other writing about music. For today, that centers on an upcoming project.

Currently the songs of the day have been mainly songs by bands I have reviewed. (Though again, to keep anyone from getting ignored, today will not be one of those.) I am almost done with the current list, and I got the idea that next I wanted to do a countdown to my birthday.

From December 5th through January 17th, each day will be a year, and the song of the day will be something associated with that year. Ideally it will be a song from that year that has some emotional or symbolic significance for that year of my life, but sometimes there is a more apt song from a different year. Looking at the charts, for these last two years there will be nothing that charted that I will give any kind of notice (too many auto-tuned abominations).

Covering the earlier years is more difficult, because there are things I don't remember, and also I was not really culturally aware until we got MTV. I was trying to think of the earliest records I could remember. All three candidates came out in 1975.

They are not representative of 1975, except for maybe one of them. I am pretty sure that they did not even come to me in 1975, except maybe for a different one. Let's just get into talking about them.

Toys in the Attic, Aerosmith

This is the first record I remember picking out in the store. I was drawn to it by the cover art. My brother told me I wouldn't like it, and he was right, but it was more that I wouldn't like it yet.

At the time, I remember putting it on, and it was nothing like I thought it might sound. I remember how I thought it should sound, but I could not remember how it actually sounded until I brought the songs up today. I would end up liking some of those songs later.

I could not tell you if it was representative of the musical landscape at the time, but it was more likely than the other two candidates. However, I am pretty sure that I did not get the record in 1975 anyway, because I remember my older sister picking out Book of Dreams by the Steve Miller Band, and that didn't come out until May 1977. I believe she also picked hers out for the artwork - a horse with rainbow wings - but it worked out better for her because I remember her playing it multiple times. I remember "Jungle Love" and "Swingtown" pretty clearly. (We shared a room.)

Based on that release date, at the very earliest our ages would have been 5, 10, and 12, which are somewhat different demographics. That kind of leads me to the next one.

Happy Birthday From Sesame Street, the Sesame Street cast

My first memory of choosing a record was Toys in the Attic, but I had been given records before that, and there was a lot of Disney and Sesame Street in that collection, which I loved unironically and still have fond memories of.

When I first looked this up, I saw 1975 as its release date, but now I see 1977. It is possible that some of the songs appeared on the show prior to the album. I think it was a birthday present, so with a January birthday, I probably got it the year after it was released.

Regardless, I can tell you the one that stuck with me was "Blow Out The Candles" by Bob, and it was awkward because it kind of gave me a crush on him. Frankly, that increases the likelihood that this was from 1977, because that was about the same time that I got a vocal crush on Shaun Cassidy, which is more embarrassing.

At the same time, there are sometimes combinations of music, lyrics, and vocals, where it stirs an emotional response. That's part of what makes music great, embarrassing crushes aside.

At the Hop, various artists

This is the one I might actually have heard in 1975. It was a part of my life as far back as I can remember.

Generally speaking, I thought of music in the early '70s as a vast wasteland. Some things I was not ready to appreciate yet, and some things I was just never exposed to, but I remember hearing a lot of depressing, horrible things. Because of that, I mainly listened to older music.

I thought of it as '50s music. Later I found that a lot of it was from the '60s, but the title track here was from 1957, and one of my other favorite albums from then was Cruisin' 1956, so that may have been my ideal range right there.

One thing I hadn't realized until I started researching is that the song "At the Hop" experienced a kind of resurgence after being used in the 1973 movie American Graffiti. The compilation album I loved so much may have been a result of the movie, but it also makes me think that perhaps I wasn't the only one who found '70s music dismal.