The Greatest Music
1,000 Essential Songs from the 1970s
Source: Steve Crawford
Year: 2015
1,000 songs
1 voters
Weight: 1%
How much this list influences our overall rankings. Higher weight means more reliable data.
Penalties Applied:
List: contains over 500 items(Quantity over Quality): 10%
Voters: Voter Count: 80%
List: number of years covered: 50.8%
Steve Crawford’s 1,000 Essential Songs from the 1970s (2015) is a single-author tour through the decade’s popular music, framing the ’70s as far more than a “classic rock” snapshot. Crawford’s picks span superstars and Top 40 staples alongside the forces that reshaped the era—funk and disco’s dominance, plus the disruptive rise of punk, electronic, and new wave—with recurring touchstones like Philly Soul, the singer-songwriter movement, and the U.K. punk scene. The book mixes song-by-song commentary with historical context, humor, and critical analysis.