This essay was originally written in 2020 and shared with a limited audience on Facebook during the early days of the pandemic. I’m reposting it here so that more people can read it, and because I want to revisit the music and memories myself. It’s part of a four-part look back at the music of 1974, a year that sounded a lot different than I remembered.

1974 Part II – Albums

1974’s top songs don’t line up well with the albums I remember or still listen to today.

Take Sheer Heart Attack by Queen, for example. “Killer Queen” charted, but no other songs from the album did. I listened to it with friends, but didn’t like it much. We were mostly fascinated by how Queen’s sound moved around our stereo headphones. I liked “Stone Cold Crazy,” but that was about it. Listening to the album now is painful.

On the Beach by Neil Young didn’t produce a hit song, and I wasn’t aware of it at the time. But I play it now. It’s become background music, something to put on when I need to work and tune out the world. “Revolution Blues” stands out, especially since I recently learned it was inspired by Charles Manson.

Diamond Dogs by David Bowie gave us “Rebel Rebel,” a solid hit, but the album got some brutal reviews. One critic called it “a bummer, a bad trip, no fun.” That feels about right. I hated this glam-rock monstrosity then. Decades later, I still consider it mostly 70s glam rock garbage.

Genesis released the prog rock classic The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway late in 1974. I don’t recall seeing a song from this album on the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 in either 1974 or 1975, yet the album is still considered a classic. It gets regular airplay. Spotify keeps recommending “Abacab” and “Invisible Touch,” but if I want to hear 70s Genesis, I go back to this album.

Aerosmith released Get Your Wings in 1974. I wish I could say I bought it after hearing “Train Kept a Rollin’,” but it would take Toys in the Attic a year later to turn me into a die-hard fan. Get Your Wings released three singles, but none charted. My favorite track is “Seasons of Wither.” It doesn’t get much airplay today, but I still catch myself humming it.

An album I listen to at least once a month is Natty Dread by Bob Marley and the Wailers. No singles charted, but it ranks No. 181 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and it’s a personal favorite. The whole album is beautiful. Picking a favorite is hard, but I’ll go with “Them Belly Full (But We Hungry).”

We all have favorite albums. One of mine is Crime of the Century by Supertramp. It didn’t chart a hit, though “Dreamer” and “Bloody Well Right” got some airplay. I didn’t know the album when it was released. My sister Lisa brought it home a year later, along with Pink Floyd’s Animals. I became a lifelong fan of both bands. My favorite track from Crime of the Century is “School.” I was a proud member of the Supertramp Army then, and I still am.

Watch composer Roger Hodgson perform it live: “School” – Live

Read more here – 1974 Part I – Let’s Slow Things Down