I lived through the 1970s – aged seven in the first year of the decade and seventeen when it ended. And I’m still struggling to figure out what I think about the 1970s. Your thoughts would be very welcome. On balance, I believe it was a fascinating time full of amazing music, movies, and other cultural phenomenon. But it was also a period of crisis and it can look awfully depressing in contemporary TV footage. So what was the 1970s – best or worst decade ever?
Let’s set out the case for and against the 1970s.
The case for the prosecution: the 1970s as worst decade ever
The early 70s saw the oil crisis. Anybody remember that? A speed limit of – gulp – 50mph introduced on all roads including motorways; street and shop lighting was ordered to be used less unless a risk of accident; and motorists were asked to share their cars with other commuters to help them get to work. And if they asked for some petrol money, that wouldn’t mean they were running a taxi operation and face a tax bill.
Inflation started to zoom upwards and while prices look cheap to people today – it really hit consumers’ pockets. By 1975, inflation was running at 20%. I do still roll my eyes when the Bank of England in 2024 gets overheated about hitting 2% or 3% inflation targets when you remember what they once were. And of course interest rates were high as well. In the 1970s, people obsessed about the price of ‘basics’ – bread, eggs, flour, sugar, etc. Those supermarket stapes that filled the kitchen cupboard.
Sexism, racism and homophobia abounded in the 1970s. Social media in our time is full of ‘nostalgic’ accounts sharing some of the nastier stuff from that decade and moaning that we’ve ‘lost our sense of humour’. Well, I’ll tell you something – the people saying that didn’t mind dishing out the abuse back then but, in my experience, weren’t so good at taking it. Their humour centred on being able to mock others but woe betide anybody who mocked them.
Anyway, ‘comedians’ got themselves very exercised about women’s lib in the 70s – as did some serious newspapers. Especially when the Miss World contest in 1971 was hit by feminist protests. Women’s rights had a very long way to go with rock bottom representation in the boardroom, professions, and politics.
The case for the defence: the 1970s as best decade ever
Now – having said all that – I have a strange love affair with the 70s. I just can’t get it out of my head. And it’s the sounds of the 70s that fill my Spotify. We started with glam, prog rock, heavy metal and the folk revival plus reggae and worked on through the decade to pub rock, punk, disco, 2-Tone, and even the new romantics started in 1979.
Can there ever have been a time when there was so much diversity and simply breathtaking albums? Vinyl still ruled before the unloveable CDs took over and ruined everything. Gigs were accessible and cheap and there were plenty of venues from pubs and clubs to stadiums.
1970s Hollywood….well, I don’t believe it’s been equalled. Benefitting from the experimental wave of the 1960s, the decade saw the emergence of Spielberg, Coppola, and George Lucas. Just to list some of the films is enough to make the case. Jaws has never been off our TV screens. Godfather and Godfather 2 are regarded by many as the greatest movies ever – deservedly. Science fiction – especially of the dystopian variety – thrived and we ended the 1970s with Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Great social commentary included Network and All the President’s Men. Woody Allen was on fire with Annie Hall.
It’s almost impossible to end this list of the 70s cinematic treasures – Rocky Horror Show, Saturday Night Fever, Cabaret, The Exorcist, Apocalypse Now, Eraserhead, Chinatown, etc, etc, etc. We were spoiled rotten at the flicks.
At the end of the 1970s, there was an outpouring of mixed feelings about the decade. Some hated it and relished the oncoming 80s. Others shed a tear for what had been a turbulent but also transformative decade.
There were a lot of relics from the 60s – middle aged types that hankered for the era of flower power – who grumbled about the 70s being a victory of style over substance, hedonistic, and vacuous. “During the last ten years we’ve all grown backwards”, moaned one 60s lover in December, 1979. “The saucy sixties rebel had a lobotomy” – was another comment. Sexual liberation had been reduced to sex manuals and narcissism had taken over in the form of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s body building and John Travolta’s jiving.
We rolled our eyes back in the 1970s at the hippies grieving for some long lost paradise in the 1960s. Flower power had not delivered. Anger and hate became fashionable. Our decade was where the struggle for women’s rights (“Women’s Lib), LGBT rights (“Gay Lib”), workers’ rights, black and Asian rights, got real. And where the opposition to those rights got bolder and developed their strategy. Donald Trump was created by the 1970s along with other populist and right-wing demagogues.
I tell Zoomers today, if you want to understand the world we’re living in – look at the 1970s. The answers are all there. Just examine that day-glo decade that also gave us the first green shoots of the digital revolution with pocket calculators, the first home computers, and a colour TV in every home.
Tell me what you think!
