Originally Posted by Jedikiah:
“As i previously suggested, 1972, was the year the US lost its idealism (as Richard Nixon won his second term), and especially with regards to the radicals/remains of the hippies etc., in them failing to remove Richard Nixon from office, despite their rallying etc. I believe many of them came to the conclusion that no matter what they had tried to achieve, the result had not made a shred of difference (and especially with regards to the US involvement in the vietnam war), so to a degree they decided to quit demonstrating, and get on with their own lives (although there were opportunities to demonstrate over other things like women's lib, and also minority issues). The link to the more radical 60s idealism was finally over..
Yes. I think the 1973 middle eastern oil crisis was divisive, too, through the west's involvement in the arab/israeli conflict The middle eastern countries put the price of oil up to such a degree, that the western economy was in crisis. This also affected the pressing of vinyl (plastic records), where there became a policy to place compilation albums as a priority over the risk of promoting new artists, without a proven track record. Those carefree days were over. The West began to tighten their belts. The pop industry began to play safe. Yes, there was undoubtedly the period of roughly ten years where the charts were pretty much at a sustainable peak, where i'd argue every year was a classic, of sorts. The charts in 1974 did break that a little, with the tendency for the music to become more middle-of-the-road, and pretty safe,, yet exactly how bad, is ultimately i believe, with which years you choose to compare 1974 with (some of the years from the later decades musically i'd argue aren't anywhere near as good as 1974) . It's true that level of musical consistency would never return over a more lengthy period (like a ten year run), although there were still some very good individual years, to come (like in the topic of conversation on the Top Of The Pops 1979 thread).”
The oil crisis did have an impact on the physical quality of records. In 72/73 most of the pressings were as thick and robust as ever but by the middle of 74 they were so much thinner. EMI records with the yellow and red labels noticibly so. They were no where near as durable and the sound quality weas poor.
I agree that after 1974 things did pick up and from 78 onwards we had some decent stuff coming through. Then through the 80s new trends made the scene more exiting than it had been for a while. The next low point was 88/89. I lost interest after that.