While 1977 has gone down in music history as the year punk broke, a look at that year’s album charts and radio playlists shows that the likes of Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned made little impact on the mainstream.
Instead, classic rock ruled the roost, with mega-selling albums from Fleetwood Mac, Meat Loaf, Queen and Pink Floyd on millions of turntables across the world. So here are the greatest classic rock albums of 1977, and not a safety pin in sight.
The best classic rock albums of 1977
15. Steve Miller Band, Book Of Dreams
While the success of 1973’s The Joker pushed blues rockers the Steve Miller Band into the spotlight, the demands placed on Miller left him burnt out. Following nearly a year of heavy touring, Miller took a year off to focus on songwriting and recording.
It was the best decision he ever made – joined by drummer Gary Mallaber and bassist Lonnie Turner, Miller workshopped a huge amount of material and in September 1975, the trio spent just 10 days recording the basic tracks for two albums. The first of these, Fly Like An Eagle, was released in May 1976 and catapulted Miller to a whole new level of success, selling four million in the US alone.
A year later, Book Of Dreams took flight thanks to the success of lead single, a heads-down blues rock cover of Paul Pena’s ‘Jet Airliner’. Other stand-out moments included the joyful ‘Swingtown' and the boisterous 'Jungle Love'.
Key track: 'Jet Airliner'
14. Cheap Trick, In Color
Cheap Trick’s second album smoothed some of the rougher edges of their self-titled debut (also released in 1977 – they didn’t hang about) for a power-pop masterclass. Highlights included the melodic tour-de-force ‘Southern Girls’ and the so-dumb-its-clever singalong gem ‘Come On, Come On’.
But despite many of its songs becoming fan favourites (as well as breaking them in Japan), the band were never satisfied with producer Tom Werman’s sound on In Color. "He made it safe for radio," drummer Bun E Carlos later said, "but the album sounds like it was done in a cardboard box."
In the late ’90s the Trick set about re-recording the whole thing with Steve Albini (Nirvana, Pixies) – though they didn’t complete the project, some tracks have leaked, giving fans a sense of how the band always wanted In Color to sound.
Key track: 'Southern Girls'
13. KISS, Love Gun
Though KISS shared a love of make-up with punk pioneers New York Dolls, that’s where the similarities ended. Love Gun, the fifth album from the theatrical pomp rockers was their biggest to date – their first entry on the US Billboard 200, hitting No 5 and selling a million in the States alone.
It was also the first KISS album to feature a lead vocal from drummer Ace Frehley (on the tough rocker ‘Shock Me’). Its greatest moment comes with the title track, one of the band’s singnature tunes. And they had a surprise up their sleeves at the end, with a distortion-drenched, gender-swopped cover of The Crystals’ 1963 hit ‘Then He Kissed Me’.
Key track: 'Love Gun'
12. Heart, Little Queen
Looking for a hard rocking anthem of female empowerment from 1977 that became a worldwide hit and is still so beloved that Chappell Roan has covered it? Well, you won’t find it in the punk of 1977, but it’s there on Heart’s third album, Little Queen.
Ann Wilson wrote ‘Barracuda’ after an ad paid for by the band’s then-label Mushroom Records in Rolling Stone showed her and sister Nancy in a suggestive pose – which led to a Detroit radio promoter insinuating that the pair were in a relationship.
Incensed, Wilson wrote ‘Barracuda’ that evening, "'Barracuda' could be anyone from the local promotion man to the president of a record company," Wilson later said. "That is the barracuda. It was born out of that whole experience."
But Little Queen was about more than that hit single – ‘Kick It Out’ and the title track were sassy rockers and elsewhere, ‘Love Alive’ and ‘Dream Of The Archer’ were folk rockers that showed another side of the band.
Key track: 'Barracuda'
11. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Street Survivors
The fifth album by southern rock giants Lynyrd Skynyrd will forever be tinged with tragedy, as it was released just three days after the October 1977 plane crash which killed three band members – backing singer Cassie Gaines, guitarist Steve Gaines and lead vocalist Ronnie Van Zant.
Adding to the sense of loss, Street Survivors was designed as a showcase for Steve Gaines, who’d only joined the band a year earlier and had already taken the lead, writing or co-writing four of the album’s eight tracks.
Among them were the quicksilver blues of ‘I Know A Little’ and the sizzling boogie rock of ‘You Got That Right’, co-written with Van Zant. Gaines’ guitar lights up the swaggering ‘That Smell’, an anti-drug anthem written by guitarist Allen Collins and Van Zant.
Key track: 'That Smell'
10. Eric Clapton, Slowhand
In 1977, Eric Clapton was in a bad way, drinking and drugging heavily. He later saw the making of his fifth solo album, Slowhand, as an escape from his personal problems.
"It was a haven, a sanctuary," he told Rolling Stone in 2016. "The music counterbalanced the difficulty in my personal life. The strength of Slowhand was in the people playing together – [bassist] Carl Radle, [drummer] Dickie Sims, [guitarist] Jamie Oldaker. That unit was on fire."
Producer Glyn Johns captured the magic in the room, resulting in stand-out tracks such as a raunchy take on JJ Cale’s ‘Cocaine’, the jaunty country blues of ‘Lay Down Sally’ and the tough blues of ‘The Core’, as well as the slushy megahit ‘Wonderful Tonight’.
Key track: 'The Core'
9. The Doobie Brothers, Livin' On The Fault Line
The Doobie Brothers operated somewhere between the smooth country rock of the Eagles and the sophisticated jazz-pop leanings of Steely Dan. Their seventh album, Livin’ On The Faultline, emphasised the growing influence of singer and keyboardist Michael McDonald, who’d joined back in 1975.
McDonald’s golden voice and the jazz chops of former Steely Dan guitarist Skunk Baxter bring a finesse to tracks such as soft fusion of the title tracks, the knotty ‘Chinatown’ and the mellow ballad ‘You Belong To Me’, co-written by McDonald and Carly Simon.
Key track: 'Livin' On The Fault Line'
8. Electric Light Orchestra, Out Of The Blue
In April 1977, while the punks of London were finding inspiration on the capital’s grimy streets, ELO leader Jeff Lynne took off to a chalet in the Jura Mountains of Switzerland to write his band’s next album.
But when it rained solidly for the first few weeks, Lynne struggled to write. But then, Lynne’s luck changed, "One day I got up and the sun was shining, all the mountains were lit up, and I came up with 'Mr Blue Sky'."
From that point, Lynne wrote a song a day, leading to that most un-punk of things, a double-album. While that euphoric sunshine anthem inevitably takes the headlines, Out Of Blue is crammed with memorable moments, from the glammed-up ‘Turn To Stone’ to the proggy hoedown of ‘Wild West Hero’.
Key track: 'Mr Blue Sky'
7. Jackson Browne, Running On Empty
While punk rockers might’ve sneered at the very idea of a concept album about life on the road, Jackson Browne’s fifth album Running On Empty ended up being one of his beloved albums, not to mention his biggest-selling.
During his summer 1977 US tour, Browne hit upon the idea of recording his new material – written exclusively about life on the road – and a bunch of thematically suitable covers at gigs, soundchecks, hotel rooms and even on the tour bus.
The title track captures the narrator at a state of physical exhaustion but still in thrall to the romance of touring; the soulful ballad ‘Rosie’ is a tongue-in-cheek exploration of self-pleasure; and ‘The Load Out’ pays tribute to the roadies who make the show happen before ‘Stay’ acts as an encore.
Key track: 'Running On Empty'
6. Pink Floyd, Animals
Though Pink Floyd are exactly the sort of band that the punks were railing against – indeed, John Lydon famously wore a Floyd T-shirt that he’d modified with the words ‘I hate’ above the band name – the prog veterans were better connected to the new generation of rock than many of their contemporaries, with drummer Nick Mason producing The Damned’s first album in 1977.
Released the same year, Pink Floyd’s 10th studio album, Animals, was a damning critique of capitalism loosely based on George Orwell’s Animal Farm, with two lengthy suites (‘Dogs’ and ‘Sheep’) linked by three short pieces representing pigs.
‘Dogs’ is among the band’s angriest moments, with Roger Waters’ lyrics taking aim at the greed of big business ("You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to / So that when they turn their backs on you / You’ll get the chance to put the knife in"), with his ire matched by David Gilmour’s furious guitar.
Key track: 'Dogs'
5. AC/DC, Let There Be Rock
In late 1976, AC/DC were up against it. Though they’d had some hits at home in Australia and were finding a following in Europe, their US record label rejected third album Dirty Deeds Done Cheap, suggesting the sound was too thin and finding fault with Bon Scott’s vocals.
With their backs to the wall, the band found their sound – relentless heavy riffs, bristling with energy and recorded live in the studio and faster, harder and sharper than anything that came before.
The same went for Scott’s lyrics, with his fondness for winking innuendo replaced with a harder and more cynical edge, no doubt influenced by the band’s music industry troubles. From this point on, they didn't look back.
Key track: 'Whole Lotta Rosie'
4. Fleetwood Mac, Rumours
With its gleaming production and FM radio-ready melodies, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours was the antithesis of punk’s DIY aesthetic. Songs such as ‘Go Your Own Way’, ‘Dreams’ and ‘Don’t Stop’ helped Rumours sell more than 40 million copies and made the band megastars.
But unlike many of the classic rock acts who made great albums in the year punk took off, Fleetwood Mac ended up looking to the new sound for inspiration, with guitarist Lindsey Buckingham’s love of punk informing their following album, Tusk.
"Punk had a fairly huge impact on me," Buckingham told Uncut in 2004, "it gave me a little room to deprogram and reaffirm things – to retrieve my own style, which I had when I joined the band in ’74… I was inspired by the honesty, integrity and sensibility of bands like The Clash and Gang Of Four.”
Key track: 'The Chain'
3. Steely Dan, Aja
While the wild young things of punk prided themselves on their lack of musical skills, Steely Dan – at this point Walter Becker and Donald Fagan – pushed their crack session musicians to new levels on their sixth studio album, Aja.
Over 40 musicians were involved in Becker and Fagan’s quest for perfection, including drummer Bernard Purdie, guitarist Larry Carlton and sax giant Wayner Shorter.
The results were spectacular, from the elegance and sophistication of the title track to the jazz-rock nirvana of ‘Deacon Blues’ and the effortless cool of ‘Peg’. It was the band’s biggest album, selling over two million in the US alone – nothing punk about that.
Key track: 'Deacon Blues'
2. Queen, News Of The World
Is there a more stadium-conquering 1-2-3 than the opening of Queen's News Of The World? First up, the immense stomp of ‘We Will Rock You’, then the sound of triumph itself, ‘We Are The Champions’, followed by the glam thrills of ‘Sheer Heart Attack’.
Once it catches its breath after that opening onslaught, News Of The World moves between courtly balladry (‘All Dead, All Dead’), lascivious funk-rock (‘Get Down, Make Love’), bossa nova (‘Who Needs You’) and smoky jazz club showstoppers (‘My Melancholy Blues’).
But it’s that opening trio which makes News Of The World one of Queen’s greatest moments.
Key track: 'We Are the Champions'
1. Meat Loaf, Bat Out Of Hell
While Meat Loaf might’ve shared a taste for theatrics with Sex Pistols singer John Lydon, the similarities end there. Bat Of Hell is a huge-sounding, magnificently overblown, melodically bombastic rock opera; a classic rock behemoth which crushed punk upstarts underneath its snakeskin boots.
Amazingly, it was Meat Loaf’s debut album – has there ever been such an emphatic statement of intent as its near-10-minute colossus of a title track?
And that wasn’t the only hit up the puffy sleeves of the dream team of writer Jim Steinman, producer Todd Rundgren and powerhouse vocalist Meat Loaf – ‘You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth’ was a power ballad for the ages, ‘Dead Ringer For Love’ was a rabble-rousing blast and ‘Paradise By The Dashboard Light’ is up there with the greatest duets of all time, with Meat and Ellen Foley acting out the fiery end of a relationship.
And where punk albums barely dented the charts, Bat Out Of Hell became a worldwide sensation, eventually selling over 40 million copies.
Key track: 'Bat Out Of Hell'
All photos Getty Images / Album covers Amazon
Top image Meat Loaf performs onstage at the Riviera Theater, Chicago, Illinois, October 29, 1977
