1972 in Music

A double album made in a damp basement Sessions from a rented villa on the French Riviera finally emerge as a double album in May. The basic tracks were recorded the previous summer in a makeshift basement studio while the mobile truck overheated in the garden. The sound is deliberately murky, instruments bleeding into one another, performances caught mid-jam rather than polished. It mixes Delta blues, gospel, country, and boogie into something that resists being pulled apart. Critics are confused. Within a few years, the confusion becomes consensus: this is the band's best work.

An alien lands at Trident Studios A songwriter writes a concept album about an alien rock star who brings hope to Earth and is destroyed by it. The album needs a single, so two days before sessions close in February, a song about a spaceman is written and recorded in a single afternoon. On 6 July, the songwriter performs it on television wearing a multicolored jumpsuit, draping his arm around his guitarist's shoulders. The BBC broadcast changes everything. The album, released ten days later, reaches number five. The character takes over: the performer and the role become indistinguishable.

The best-selling album of the year has a steel guitar on every track A singer-songwriter records basic tracks in Nashville while in town to appear on a television variety show, then returns months later to finish. A steel guitar player adds parts to every song, giving the album a warm, country-tinged glow. Background vocals on the two biggest tracks are sung by friends sitting on a couch in the studio. Heart of Gold reaches number one in March, the only chart-topper of the songwriter's career. The album becomes the best-selling record of the year in America.

A clavinet riff that changes what a keyboard can do A twenty-two-year-old releases two albums in seven months. On the first, he plays nearly every instrument himself, working with a room-sized custom synthesizer built by two engineers. By the second album, the synths are fully integrated: a clavinet riff drives a funk single so hard it sounds like a guitar. The single reaches number one. Two more number ones follow from the same record. In the space of one calendar year, the keyboard becomes a lead instrument in popular music.

Eight days on the vocal, and nothing else will do A producer in Memphis spends eight days on a single vocal take. He keeps telling the singer to go softer, more intimate, closer to the microphone. The singer resists, wanting something harder. The producer wins. The resulting single is so restrained it barely seems to be trying, a falsetto floating over hi-hats and organ. It reaches number one on the Hot 100 in February. The singer releases two albums and four top-ten hits in 1972, more than any other artist on the chart.

A soundtrack that outsells its film A former soul singer scores a blaxploitation film set in Harlem and delivers a soundtrack that goes to number one on the pop album chart, outselling the movie itself. The lyrics undercut the film's glamorization of the drug trade, turning what could have been exploitation into social commentary. Two singles sell a million copies each. The same year, at least three other Black composers score major films, bringing orchestral soul and funk into cinemas nationwide.

112,000 people, one dollar each On August 20, 112,000 people fill the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for a seven-hour soul and gospel concert organized by a Memphis record label to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the Watts uprising. Admission is one dollar. The performers are the label's own roster. A minister opens with a call-and-response speech. The concert is filmed and becomes a documentary the following year.

A 44-minute parody that goes to number one A flautist, annoyed that critics keep calling his band's work a concept album, responds by writing the ultimate concept album: a single continuous composition spanning both sides of the LP, attributed to a fictional eight-year-old poet. The packaging is designed as a twelve-page local newspaper, complete with classified ads and crossword puzzles. It reaches number one on the Billboard 200. The parody is so convincing that many listeners take it completely seriously.

The fire that wrote a riff A band arrives in Montreux, Switzerland, in December 1971 to record in a casino. During another artist's concert, someone fires a flare gun into the ceiling. The entire building burns down. The band watches from across the lake as smoke drifts over the water. They relocate to a hotel hallway, then a theatre, and record an album over the next weeks. The opening riff of the song about the fire becomes one of the most recognized guitar figures in rock history.

Two nights in a church, no overdubs A soul singer returns to gospel for a live album recorded over two consecutive January nights in a Los Angeles church. She is accompanied by a choir and a minister at the piano. There are no overdubs. The performances build slowly, songs stretching past ten minutes as the congregation responds. The double album sells more than two million copies and becomes the highest-selling gospel record of all time.

Two sessions in June, then the tape is cut apart A trumpeter records two sessions of free-form funk in early June, fills the room with percussionists and electric instruments, then hands the tapes to his producer. The producer slices hours of jams into pieces and reassembles them like a collage. The musician deliberately omits individual credits from the liner notes, forcing listeners to hear sound rather than names. Jazz critics despise it. Decades later, it is recognized as a prototype for sample-based music.

Sold fewer than 10,000 copies, invented power pop Four musicians in Memphis record a debut album at a studio co-founded by a teenage engineer who built one of the first 16-track tape machines in the South. The songs are concise, melodic, drenched in harmony and jangling guitars. Distribution collapses: the album sells fewer than 10,000 copies. But the musicians who do hear it form bands. Within a decade, the record is cited as the blueprint for an entire genre of guitar pop.