Was 1972 Rock Music's Greatest Year? - If Guitars Could Speak... #32 [1971 SEQUEL] 

I dont think it matters what year you pick. The '70's was the definitive decade for rock music. I personally dont think there will ever be another ten year collective where we will see such diversity and instant classic albums being released. Great video!

Thick as a Brick and Close to the Edge are still two of my favourites, and we’re awesome live.

69'-75 were packed with amazing music.

67 to 75 the best years for music.

The 70s were the pinnacle of all popular genres.

The golden era of album art as well. Great channel, geat series!

I can't believe how many albums I had out of your albums shown, Great year!

The 70`s were the golden years, for kids that were not born you will never know.

Good Lord, we were swamped in awesome artists back then! I just discovered Chicago again!

Ohh Man! Here we go again! I’ve got tears running down my face!

Appreciate the shout out to Jim Croce. Even though I love hard rock and electric guitar, I’ve always loved Jim Croce for his songwriting and soulful vocals. Such a talented guy and such a tragic loss to folk/pop music.

ARGUS by Wishbone Ash should be mentioned as it was their best album and a much beloved guitar masterpiece.

Big thing for me in 72' was Graduating from High School and meeting my future wife. August 1972

This is excellent. Thanks for all the history here. Freshman in high school, I well remember these years. I completely wore out Neil Young’s Harvest and the Eagles first two albums. What a time it was! And then we had to grow up😅

Just mentioning Mick Ronson gets a like from me. Awesome talent & sadly missed.

What a year. I was 23. Can't remember much. Youth

1956, 1964, and 1971 were my main years for me.

My first ever album bought was Jim Croce. My mom had one of those huge players and she let me crank it up on Saturdays while I did my chores. Looking back, she was pretty cool. Rip mom.

First time watching. Good. Nice voice. Easy to listen to.

1972 was the greatest year for rock music no doubt Ziggy was a game changer a masterpiece

God I am 70 this year. Remember loads of these as if it were yesterday. Happy days. Reggae had kicked in a bit earlier in the UK.

Wanted to add that along with enjoying the video very much, I loved reading all the wonderful comments from people with their own memories of all the incredible music from that time. I do like a fair amount of new music, and always keep an open mind to new things. But you will NEVER convince me that the music from the early 1970s wasn't the greatest music in rock history.

Thanks TGH. 1972 was a great year for rock music. One key release you overlooked is Todd Rundgren's "Something / Anything?" An ambitious double album he made almost entirely by himself. The following copied and pasted via Wikipedia: - "A single taken from the album, "Hello It's Me", was a top-five hit in the US in late 1973, and it contained a further hit, "I Saw the Light". Something/Anything? later attracted critical acclaim as one of the most significant records of the 1970s. In 2003, the album was ranked number 173 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time,[1] maintaining the rating in a 2012 revised list"

Merci I remember almost every one of these.

I turned 18 in 1972, graduated from high school, fell in love. One of the greatest albums of the year (of the era) was American Gothic by David Ackles. Released in July. Now, sadly, mostly forgotten.

GUITARS DO SPEAK, WHEN IN THE RIGHT HANDS!... I was 13 in the fall of '72... Thanks for memories!

Just turned 12 in 1972 .Music was becoming so real to me at the time. .ALL these songs and artists were new, fantastic discoveries. Every top monthly pick, brings back memories of times gone by. Peace !

Tull was a brilliant band - hands down

In '72, the year I graduated high school, two of my favorite albums couldn't be more different. The Eagles and David Bowie. I couldn't get enough of Ziggy Stardust, and played that album incessently throughout that year; I still listen to it to this day. This vid was a nice retrospective. Thanks.

The early 70s was the pinnacle of rock music and filmmaking. And human nature itself seemed to peak by the mid 70s.

40 years ago I had a roommate who would grab any 1967 album he could find. They were all great. No fails.

Rock on 🤘 great show...

Really nice...thanks so much...I was 14 then..

I turned sixteen in 72. I remember almost all those music releases! Great choices!

God I must be old. I still have, on the original vinyl, 27 of these masterpieces.

I luckily stumbled onto this and I am so glad I did! I was 11 in 72, so music really started to a big part of my life! Tull, Yes, REO Speedwagon, ELP, Genesis, and many more still flood my memories. Thanks and keep it up!

I was ten years old in 1972, and came from a family of 11… I was one of the youngest. So I grew up with a bunch of hippies. The music of the 60s and 70s simply the best.

fantastic production thank you!

1972 was the latter half of my freshman year and the first half of my sophomore year in college. You brought it all back!

Thank you so much for remember clemente

Thank you sir!

Good job... You mentioned Rory. I think he was voted #1 by some magazine in Europe that year. Thanks A Million

Brought back a lot of memories. Great music, so diverse! Beats the hell out of the crap that's been coming out for so many years.

I was 16 with a 65 Ford Mustang and an 8 track . On top of the world !

1972 My Birth Year!🎉

Wow! Just seeing the Album covers I’m like I bought that when it came out! Cheers Thanks

Great ,thanks

I remember New Years day 1972. I was 6yrs 10wks old (b. 10/13/65). My sister decorated a cake that day with her friend from across the street. I remember my 16yr old brother being dropped off to see The Godfather that year. When my Dad and I picked them up my brother mentioned the horse head scene. Except he made me plug my ears. lol My brother slept in the top bunk. He'd stack a few mellower albums on his stereo at bed time... America, Neil Young, Carol King, He'd turn on a round red flicker bulb. I loved laying there listening to the music and drifting off to that bulb. He had it plugged in parallel to the auto-power-off plug on the record changer. Ahh memories. To this day I crash out to music. I made the RU-vid playlist Night time headphone zzz... with lots of old mellow 1930's music to 70's stuff long before the 'sleep playlists' started showing up. Check it out. :-)

Thanks for putting together the 72 over view. Some great classics in there. Like wine, not every year is a total stand out.

Incredible history. Those back stories are awsome. Thank you. Month by month. Excellent.

super, thank you

GREAT GREAT GREAT VIDEO IDEA !

I was born in 1972. Many of my favorite albums of all time came out that year. YES - Fragile, YES - Close to the Edge, Genesis - Foxtrot, Stevie Wonder - Talking Book, David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust, Todd Rundgren - Something/Anything?, Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick, and TONS of singles. To many to list. 🤘

My favourite albums that year was from Bowie, Purple and Alice Cooper. I turned 12 that year. Thanks for a great video!!

Just wait for 1976!

All The Young Dudes!!!

Nicely done!

YES .! 1972 , We all got close to the edge of perfection , revelled in it's diversity , and lamented it's passing ever since , thankfully the legacy of brilliance captured sonically and replayed on Vinyl , CD , CASSETTE 8 TRACK Streaming et al , however you take your infusion of aural magic it's one hell of a trip back to a special place .

My body is old but my mind is stuck in the 70`s and I mean for real .I can`t relate to people my same age.

72 I was 12 I wanted to play guitar Ziggy was my hero. Thanks

Steely Dan. And still listening daily.

Dude your mention of Clemente puts you in the Hall of Fame in my book!

what a year !

50 years have passed since 1972, yet in my mind, it's just yesterday. Memories of laying on the sand at the beach, listening to FM radio as Layla wafted through the salt air, along with the sounds of summer. I can still feel it. That's what I remember from 1972. Lots of other tunes also, like Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack's "Where is the Love," The Stylistics' "Betcha By Golly Wow", and my personal favorite, "Let's Stay Together" by Al Green. You'll have to do a pop/R&B list to fully cover 1972. Anyway, good job! As for me, I'm left marveling at time and our perception of it... Such a strange phenomenon. P.S. My most memorable album of 1972 was "Close to the Edge." The experience was like unwrapping and reading an epic book!

Neil Diamond's Hot August Night album was not only the best album of 1972, but the greatest Live album of all time.... I was there!

I was six years old when the Beatles broke up in 69. So when you talk about all the world of that that occurred before we even get to the music I take my hat off it's really well done

1972. A BEHEMOTH YEAR for music we that were alive had no idea of course that this year would be rather special in the history of contemporary music , how could we being so young and still on the road to find out , it's only looking back with hindsight that the legacy of its magnificence can be truly apprecated

I’m enjoying your channel. Well done 👍. Class of ‘72

LOVE the amount of facts you serve us ! regards from austria, stay fine and healthy. ☮

Really nice and hard for me that you bring up Jim Croce. Only three albums but what a singer-songwriter

Deep Purple and Steely Dan stood out to me in '72...instant love. Ziggy Stardust was mind blowing at the time for my 19 year old brain and so good.

Pro and con nice history lesson

Brilliantly presented piece of history, thanks for that, much appreciated

1972 my family moved back to San Francisco area. I was 10 and raised on show tunes and jazz, my dad being from NYC. My older brother was late teens and I got hold of his tape machine and his under the living room table and listened to first rock music I had heard... Exile on Main Street, and I was hooked. My favorite albums were Uriah Heep, Demons and Wizards, and After The Harvest. I listened to, in my mostly absent brothers, room, most of the records listed. 50 years later the parents and my brother are dead and I still listen to those albums.

All the great rock Bands toured in 1972!

1 of my favourite years ….but being a Slade fan ….the album Slade alive….just brilliant…👍

Very nice documentation ,.compliments!

Uriah Heep Demons and Wizards, A Masterpiece, as well as Deep Purple Machine Head, Roxy Musics debut is great, Gentle Giant Octopus is really good also

That's the year things started to go down, with some exceptions....

probably never heard of Wishbone Ash but they're album Argus best album then. Two lead guitars complimenting each other around fantastic songs in a concept album that started a trend influencing many later bands.

Everytime I watch your videos it always makes my day. Here's a forgotten fretmaster you may want to consider. Freddie Green. Count Basie's long time rhythm guitarist.

Each to their own I turned 18 at bath pop festival 1970. I shall now go outside have a smoke and cry for a little while ✌

Born i 72, thank you for this video, it's great work

Man. I bought most of these when they came out. Still have a bunch too.

By 1972 FM Rock stations were the new sensation. New stations were starting up in smaller big cities all across the US and they certainly had plenty of new music to play that year.

On March 29th, 1972 a fifteen year-old boy in London played hookie from school and went to the West End. After wandering around the musical instrument shops and bookshops in Shaftesbury Avenue, he crossed Charing Cross Road to a ticket agency curious to see what was on that night. Soon after, he took a double decker bus to Kensington and rocked up at the Royal Albert Hall. It was his first ever rock concert and headlining were Jethro Tull playing their new album Thick as a Brick in it's entirety followed by a selection of their greatest hits such as Aqualung, Locomotive Breath, and Living in the Past. The sight of a wild-eyed Ian Anderson standing on one leg and playing his flute like some kind of mad Pied Piper of Hamlin will never leave me. Cut to June 30th. Alice Cooper are riding high in the British singles charts with School's Out and I had a ticket to see them at the Empire Pool, Wembley (a former Olympic swimming pool left over from the 1948 Games today known as Wembley Arena.) Up first were the support act, an unknown bunch of art school students who'd played their first professional gig at a festival the previous weekend and had just released their debut album by the name of Roxy Music. Weird singer, weird keyboard player, but I liked the guitarist... and bought the album. Alice Cooper made Tull look pedestrian (which they weren't). Although their new album release was School's Out, most of the set was from their previous album Killer, to my mind the best album they ever released. Vincent Furnier with his boa constrictor, a ton of eye liner, songs about dead babies and a show that culminated in his execution. What's not to like? Parents were freaking out (at least American ones were, British parents are more sedate) but 15 year-olds like me absolutely loved it. With these Music's Greatest Year? videos you're telling the story of my life.

Hell Bound Train, Savoy Brown. 1972. Great album to this day.

How could you forget Chicago V? Those early Chicago albums are all fire!

What a great channel and video ! Thank you ! Waiting for more :)

71 is definitely the greatest just based on the iconic albums released that year but 72 is a close second.....Blue oyster cult was such a great group

Yes, '72 was the best year for rock.

Wow, hard to believe that many years have gone by. I was 12 years old then.

My Junior year in HS. The phenomenal music did not escape us. Quite the contrary, it defined us and our lives. It wasn’t just the background, it was everything.

A toast to Panama red by the masters apprentices. Thank me later

WISHBONE ASH released ARGUS in 1972. Twin solo guitars as good never heard thereafter !

DEEP PURPLE , 1972 Guinness book of world records , Loudest band in the world , legends.

71 HANDS DOWN THE BEST.

I was 16/17 in '72. These songs were the daily soundtrack to many of life's biggest changes...mine and everyone around me. At night, I wore out these records learning guitar parts on a beat up '61 telecaster and saving up to get my own apartment, where I could play as loud as I wanted...if I wan't drafted.

1975!!! xoxo The Clarences

Thanks for being here Guitar Historian! Great detail and information in your videos! Enjoyed being transported to an earlier time!