1. Old Hindi Songs 1960 To 1970 List Mp3
2. 1960 To 1970 Hindi Songs Mp3 Free Download

Bollywood songs, more formally known as Hindi film songs or filmi songs, are songs featured in Bollywood films. Derived from the song-and-dance routines common in Indian films, Bollywood songs, along with dance, are a characteristic motif of Hindi cinema which gives it enduring popular appeal, cultural value and context.^[1] Hindi film songs form a predominant component of Indian pop music, and derive their inspiration from both classical and modern sources.^[1] Hindi film songs are now firmly embedded in North India's popular culture and routinely encountered in North India in marketplaces, shops, during bus and train journeys and numerous other situations.^[2] Though Hindi films routinely contain many songs and some dance routines, they are not musicals in the Western theatrical sense; the music-song-dance aspect is an integral feature of the genre akin to plot, dialogue and other parameters.^[1]:2

Linguistically, Bollywood^[3] songs tend to use a colloquial dialect of Hindi-Urdu, or Hindustani, mutually intelligible to both Hindi and Urdu speakers, while modern Bollywood songs also increasingly incorporate elements of Hinglish.^[4]Urdu poetry has had a particularly strong impact on Bollywood songs, where the lyrics draw heavily from Urdu poetry and the ghazal tradition.^[5] In addition, Punjabi is also occasionally used for Bollywood songs.

The Indian music industry is largely dominated by Bollywood soundtracks, which account for nearly 80% of the country's music revenue. The industry was dominated by cassette tapes in the 1980s and 1990s, before transitioning to online streaming in the 2000s (bypassing CD and digital downloads). As of 2014, the largest Indian music record label is T-Series (which has the world's most-viewed YouTube channel) with up to 35% share of the Indian market, followed by Sony Music India (the largest foreign-owned label) with up to 25% share, and then Zee Music (which has a partnership with Sony).^[6] As of 2017, 216million Indians use music streaming services such as YouTube, Hungama, Gaana and Saavn.^[7]

This is a perfect hindi masala movie, it has everything, love, action, comedy, good songs and a great story. Amar, Akbar and Anthony are all brothers separated when they are very young. However fate has them crossing paths and eventually a big family reunion at the end.

• 4Genres
• 8Best-selling soundtrack albums

History[edit]

Hindi film songs are present in Hindi cinema right from the first sound film Alam Ara (1931) by Ardeshir Irani which featured seven songs. This was closely followed by Shirheen Farhad (1931) by Jamshedji Framji Madan, also by Madan, which had as many as 42 song sequences strung together in the manner of an opera, and later by Indra Sabha which had as many as 69 song sequences. However, the practice subsided and subsequent films usually featured between six and ten songs in each production.^[1]:20

Right from the advent of Indian cinema in 1931, musicals with song numbers have been a regular feature in Indian cinema.^[8] In 1934 Hindi film songs began to be recorded on gramophones and later, played on radio channels, giving rise to a new form of mass entertainment in India which was responsive to popular demand.^[8] Within the first few years itself, Hindi cinema had produced a variety of films which easily categorised into genres such as 'historicals', 'mythologicals', 'devotional, 'fantasy' etc. but each having songs embedded in them such that it is incorrect to classify them as 'musicals'.^[1]

The Hindi song was such an integral features of Hindi mainstream cinema, besides other characteristics, that post-independence alternative cinema, of which the films of Satyajit Ray are an example, discarded the song and dance motif in its effort to stand apart from mainstream cinema.^[1]

The Hindi film song now began to make its presence felt as a predominating characteristic in the culture of the nation and began to assume roles beyond the limited purview of cinema. In multi-cultural India, as per film historian Partha Chatterjee, 'the Hindi film song cut through all the language barriers in India, to engage in lively communication with the nation where more than twenty languages are spoken and ... scores of dialects exist'.^[9] Bollywood music has drawn its inspiration from numerous traditional sources such as Ramleela, nautanki, tamasha and Parsi theatre, as well as from the West, Pakistan, and other Indic musical subcultures.^[10]

For over five decades, these songs formed the staple of popular music in South Asia and along with Hindi films, was an important cultural export to most countries around Asia and wherever the Indian diaspora had spread. The spread was galvanised by the advent of cheap plastic tape cassettes which were produced in the millions till the industry crashed in 2000.^[8] Even today Hindi film songs are available on radio, on television, as live music by performers, and on media, both old and new such as cassette tapes, compact disks and DVDs and are easily available, both legally and illegally, on the internet.^[1]

Style and format[edit]

The various use of languages in Bollywood songs can be complex. Most use variations of Hindi and Urdu, with some songs also including other languages such as Persian, and it is not uncommon to hear the use of English words in songs from modern Hindi movies. Besides Hindi, several other Indian languages have also been used including Braj, Avadhi, Bhojpuri, Punjabi, Bengali and Rajasthani.

In a film, music, both in itself and accompanied with dance, has been used for many purposes including 'heightening a situation, accentuating a mood, commenting on theme and action, providing relief and serving as interior monologue.'^[10]

Production[edit]

Songs in Bollywood movies are deliberately crafted with lyrics often written by distinguished poets or literati (often different from those who write the film script), and these lyrics are often then set to music, carefully choreographed to match the dance routine or script of the film. They are then sung by professional playback singers and lip-synched by the actors. Bollywood cinema is unique in that the majority of songs are seen to be sung by the characters themselves rather than being played in the background.^{[citation needed]} In Western cinema, often a composer who specializes in film music is responsible for the bulk of music on the film's soundtrack, and while in some films songs may play an important part (and have direct relationship to the subject of the film), in Bollywood films, the songs often drive large-scale production numbers featuring elaborate choreography.

The key figure in Bollywood music production and composition is the music director. While in Western films, a 'music director' or 'music coordinator' is usually responsible for selecting existing recorded music to add to the soundtrack, typically during opening and closing credits, in Bollywood films, the 'music director' often has a much broader role encompassing both composing music/songs specifically for the film and (if needed) securing additional (licensed) music. In this sense, a Bollywood music director also plays the role of a composer and music producer.

The lyricist of Bollywood songs is less likely to be the same composer or music director, as Bollywood films often go to great lengths to include lyrics of special significance and applicability to the film's plot and dialogue, and/or the words of highly regarded poets/lyricists set to music written specifically for such words in the film, as noted above.

Bollywood film songs have been described as eclectic both in instrumentation and style.^[11] They often employ foreign instruments and rework existing songs, showing remarkable inventiveness in the reinvention of melodies and instrumental techniques.^[12]

Bollywood film songs often tend to be accompanied by expensive music videos. Some are among the most expensive music videos of all time.^[13] The most expensive Indian music video is 'Party All Night' (for the 2013 film Boss), which cost ₹60 million ($1.02 million) to produce.^[14] Adjusted for inflation, the most expensive Indian music video was 'Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya' (for the 1960 film Mughal-e-Azam), which at the time cost more than ₹1.5 million^[15] ($320,000),^[16] equivalent to $3 million (₹200 million) adjusted for inflation.

Genres[edit]

Dance[edit]

Hindi dance music encompasses a wide range of songs predominantly featured in the Bollywood film industry with a growing worldwide attraction. The music became popular among overseas Indians in countries such as South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States of America and eventually developed a global fan base.^[17]

Disco[edit]

In the Indian subcontinent of South Asia, disco peaked in popularity in the early 1980s, when a South Asian disco scene arose, popularized by filmi Bollywood music, at a time when disco's popularity had declined in North America. The South Asian disco scene was sparked by the success of Pakistani pop singer Nazia Hassan, working with Indian producer Biddu, with the hit Bollywood song 'Aap Jaisa Koi' in 1980.^[18][19][20] Biddu himself previously had success in the Western world, where he was considered a pioneer, as one of the first successful disco producers in the early 1970s, with hits such as the hugely popular 'Kung Fu Fighting' (1974),^[21][22][23] before the genre's Western decline at the end of the 1970s led to him shifting his focus to Asia. The success of 'Aap Jaisa Koi' in 1980 was followed by Nazia Hassan's Disco Deewane, a 1981 album produced by Biddu, becoming Asia's best-selling pop album at the time.^[24]

In parallel to the Euro disco scene at the time, the continued relevance of disco in South Asia and the increasing reliance on synthesizers led to experiments in electronic disco, often combined with elements of Indian music.^[18] Biddu had already used electronic equipment such as synthesizers in some of his earlier disco work, including 'Bionic Boogie' from Rain Forest (1976),^[25] 'Soul Coaxing' (1977),^[26]Eastern Man and Futuristic Journey^[27][28] (recorded from 1976 to 1977),^[29] and 'Phantasm' (1979),^[30] before using synthesizers for his later work with Nazia Hassan, including 'Aap Jaisa Koi' (1980), Disco Deewane (1981) and 'Boom Boom' (1982).^[24] Bollywood disco producers who used electronic equipment such as synthesizers include R.D. Burman, on songs such as 'Dhanno Ki Aankhon Mein' (Kitaab, 1977) and 'Pyaar Karne Waale' (Shaan, 1980);^[24]Laxmikant-Pyarelal, on songs such as 'Om Shanti Om' (Karz, 1980);^[31] and Bappi Lahari, on songs such as 'Ramba Ho' (Armaan, 1981).^[24] They also experimented with minimalist, high-tempo, electronic disco, including Burman's 'Dil Lena Khel Hai Dildar Ka' (Zamane Ko Dikhana Hai, 1981), which had a 'futuristic electro feel', and Lahiri's 'Yaad Aa Raha Hai' (Disco Dancer, 1982).^[18]

Such experiments eventually culminated in the work of Charanjit Singh, whose 1982 record Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat anticipated the sound of acidhouse music, years before the genre arose in the Chicago house scene of the late 1980s. Using the Roland TR-808drum machine, TB-303bass synthesizer, and Jupiter-8 synthesizer, Singh increased the disco tempo up to a 'techno wavelength' and made the sounds more minimalistic, while pairing them with 'mystical, repetitive, instrumental Indian ragas', to produce a new sound, which resembled acid house.^[32][18] According to Singh: 'There was lots of disco music in films back in 1982. So I thought why not do something different using disco music only. I got an idea to play all the Indian ragas and give the beat a disco beat – and turn off the tabla. And I did it. And it turned out good.'^[33] The first track 'Raga Bhairavi' also had a synthesised voice that says 'Om Namah Shivaya' through a vocoder.^[34]

Along with experiments in electronic disco, another experimental trend in Indian disco music of the early 1980s was the fusion of disco and psychedelic music. Due to 1960s psychedelic rock, popularized by the Beatles' raga rock, borrowing heavily from Indian music, it began exerting a reverse influence and had blended with Bollywood music by the early 1970s. You can download these songs^[35] for free from various sources as well. This led to Bollywood producers exploring a middle-ground between disco and psychedelia in the early 1980s. Producers who experimented with disco-psychedelic fusion included Laxmikant-Pyarelal, on songs such as 'Om Shanti Om' (Karz, 1980), and R. D. Burman, on songs such as 'Pyaar Karne Waale' (Shaan, 1980),^[31] along with the use of synthesizers.^[24]

Ghazal[edit]

Music directors like Madan Mohan composed notable filmi-ghazals extensively for Muslim socials in the 1960s and the 1970s.^[36]

The filmi-ghazal style experienced a revival in the early 1990s, sparked by the success of Nadeem-Shravan's Aashiqui (1990). It had a big impact on Bollywood music at the time, ushering in ghazal-type romantic music that dominated the early 1990s, with soundtracks such as Dil, Saajan, Phool Aur Kaante and Deewana.^[37] A popular ghazal song from Aashiqui was 'Dheere Dheere', a cover version of which was later recorded by Yo Yo Honey Singh and released by T-Series in 2015.

Qawwali[edit]

It represents a distinct subgenre of film music, although it is distinct from traditional qawwali, which is devotional Sufi music. One example of filmi qawwali is the song 'Pardah Hai Pardah' sung by Mohammed Rafi, and composed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal, for the Indian film Amar Akbar Anthony (1977).^[38]

Within the subgenre of filmi qawwali, there exists a form of qawwali that is infused with modern and Western instruments, usually with techno beats, called techno-qawwali. An example of techno-qawwali is 'Kajra Re', a filmi song composed by Shankar Ehsaan Loy. A newer variation of the techno-qawwali based on the more dance oriented tracks is known as the 'club qawwali'. More tracks of this nature are being recorded and released.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and A.R. Rahman have composed filmi qawwalis in the style of traditional qawwali. Examples include 'Tere Bin Nahin Jeena' (Kachche Dhaage), 'Arziyan' (Delhi 6), 'Khwaja Mere Khwaja' (Jodhaa Akbar)^[39] and 'Kun Faya Kun' (Rockstar).^[40]

Rock[edit]

Indian musicians began fusing rock with traditional Indian music from the mid-1960s onwards in filmi songs produced for popular Bollywood films. Some of the more well known early rock songs (including styles such as funk rock, pop rock, psychedelic rock, raga rock, and soft rock) from Bollywood films include Mohammed Rafi's 'Jaan Pehechan Ho' in Gumnaam (1965), Kishore Kumar's 'O Saathi Re' in Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978), and Asha Bhosle songs such as 'Dum Maro Dum' in Hare Rama Hare Krishna (1971), 'Ae Naujawan Hai Sab' in Apradh (1972), and 'Yeh Mera Dil Pyar Ka Diwana' in Don (1978).

Plagiarism[edit]

The Pakistani Qawwali musician Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan had a big impact on Bollywood music, inspiring numerous Indian musicians working in Bollywood, especially during the 1990s. However, there were many instances of Indian music directors plagiarising Khan's music to produce hit filmi songs.^[41][42][43] For example, Vedpal's 'Yeh Jo Halka Halka Suroor Hai' in Souten Ki Beti (1989) and Anu Malik's 'Mera Piya Ghar Aaya' in Yaarana (1995) are based on Khan's songs.^[42]Viju Shah's hit song 'Tu Cheez Badi Hai Mast Mast' in Mohra (1994) was plagiarised from Khan's popular Qawwali song 'Dam Mast Qalandar'.^[41] Several Nadeem-Shravan songs are based on Khan's songs, including 'Kisika Yaar Na Bichde' in Shreemaan Aashique (1993), 'Kitna Pyara Tujhe Rab Ne Banaya' in Raja Hindustani (1996), 'Mujhe Ek Pal Chain Na Awe' in Judaai (1997),^[42] and 'Bheed Me Tanhai Me' in Tumsa Nahin Dekha: A Love Story (2004).^[44] Other Bollywood songs based on Khan's music include K. K. Mahajan's 'Zamaana Deewana Ho Gaya' in Zamaana Deewana (1995) and Laxmikant-Pyarelal's 'Wada Karke Sajan Nahi Aaya' in Barsaat Ki Raat (1998), among others.^[44]

Numerous Bollywood songs were also copied from other Pakistani musicians. The earliest example was 'Moam Ki Gurrya' in Baaghon Main Bahaar Aayi (1972) being copied from Bakhshi Wazir's 'Jadon Holi Jayi' in Pakistani filmUtt Khuda Da Wair (1970). Numerous hit Bollywood songs were copied from Pakistani composer M. Ashraf, such as Police Public (1990) copying 'Main Jis Din Bhula Doon' in Khushboo (1979), Kal Ki Awaz (1992) copying 'Kisi Meherban Ne Aa Ke' in Shama (1974), and Laxmikant–Pyarelal's 'Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai' in Khalnayak (1993) copying 'Raat De Bara Baje' in Pakistani films Do Badan (1974) and Zabardast (1989).^[45]Anu Malik copied the song 'Yaariyan' in Beqabu (1996) from a 1993 song by Pakistani band Vital Signs with singer Junaid Jamshed. Pritam copied the song 'Aahun Aahun' in Love Aaj Kal (2009) from Shaukat Ali's 'Kadi Te Has' (1984), 'Janambhoomi Pe' in Agnipankh (2004) from Abrar-ul-Haq's 'Bheega Bheega Sa' (1998), and 'Akhiya Na' in Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena (2005) from Waris Baig's 'Challa' (2004). Nadeem–Shravan copied 'Tuu Meri Zindagi Hain' in Aashiqui (1990) from a 1976 song by Pakistani singer Tassawar Khanum, 'Tumhein Apna Banaane Ki' in Sadak (1991) from ghazal song 'Chale To' (1983) by Pakistani singer Musarrat Nazir, and 'O Rabba' in Zamaana Deewana (1995) from M. Ashraf's 'Chahe Duniya' in Naheed Akhtar's Pakistani filmNaukar (1975). Among numerous other examples.^[46][45]

A number of Bollywood soundtracks also plagiarized Guinean singer Mory Kanté, particularly his 1987 album Akwaba Beach. For example, his song 'Tama' inspired two Bollywood songs, Bappi Lahiri's 'Tamma Tamma' in Thanedaar (1990) and 'Jumma Chumma' in Laxmikant-Pyarelal's soundtrack for Hum (1991), the latter also featuring another song 'Ek Doosre Se' which copied his song 'Inch Allah'.^[47] His song 'Yé ké yé ké' was also used as background music in the 1990 Bollywood film Agneepath, inspired the Bollywood song 'Tamma Tamma' in Thanedaar, and was also copied by Mani Sharma's song 'Pellikala Vachesindhe' in the 1997 Telugu filmPreminchukundam Raa.^[47]

Cultural impact[edit]

Indian cinema, with its characteristic film music, has not only spread all over Indian society, but also been on the forefront of the spread of India's culture around the world.^[1]:14 In Britain, Hindi film songs are heard in restaurants and on radio channels dedicated to Asian music. The British dramatist Sudha Bhuchar converted a Hindi film hit Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! into a hit musical 'Fourteen Songs' which was well received by the British audience. Film-maker Baz Luhrmann acknowledged the influence of Hindi cinema on his production Moulin Rouge by the inclusion of a number 'Hindi Sad Diamonds' based on the filmi song 'Chamma Chamma' which was composed by Anu Malik.^[48] In Greece the genre of indoprepi sprang from Hindi film music while in Indonesia dangdut singers like Ellya Khadam, Rhoma Irama and Mansyur S., have reworked Hindi songs for Indonesian audiences.^[49] In France, the band Les Rita Mitsouko used Bollywood influences in their music video for 'Le petit train' and French singer Pascal of Bollywood popularised filmi music by covering songs such as 'Zindagi Ek Safar Hai Suhana'.^[50] In Nigeria bandiri music—a combination of Sufi lyrics and Bollywood-style music—has become popular among Hausa youth.^[51] Hindi film music has also been combined with local styles in the Caribbean to form 'chutney music'.^[52]

Best-selling music directors[edit]

Best-selling soundtrack albums[edit]

Top ten[edit]

By decade[edit]

By year[edit]

Album streams[edit]

See also[edit]

• Filmi

Notes[edit]

1. ^See Nadeem–Shravan § Soundtrack album sales.
2. ^See Anu Malik § Discography.
3. ^See Jatin–Lalit § Sales.
4. ^See Uttam Singh § Filmography.
5. ^See Raamlaxman § Sales.
6. ^See Rajesh Roshan § Filmography.
7. ^See Laxmikant–Pyarelal discography § Discography.
8. ^See Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan discography § Sales.
9. ^See Nikhil-Vinay § Selected discography.

References[edit]

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2. ^Gokulsing, K. Moti (4 February 2009). Popular culture in a globalised India. Taylor & Francis. p. 130. ISBN978-0-415-47666-9. Retrieved 22 January 2012.
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7. ^'Spotify's plan to beat Apple: sign the rest of the world'. Financial Times. 3 January 2019.
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9. ^As quoted in Gopal & Moorti (2008), pg 14.
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11. ^Morcom, Anna (2007) Hindi Film Songs and the Cinema. Aldershot: Ashgate.
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22. ^The Listener, Volumes 100–101. The Listener. BBC. 1978. p. 216. Retrieved 21 June 2011. Tony Palmer knocked off a film account of someone called Biddu (LWT), who appears to have been mad enough to invent disco music.
23. ^Shapiro, Peter (2006). Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco. Macmillan Publishers. p. 55. ISBN0-86547-952-6. Retrieved 7 June 2011.
24. ^ ^abcdeKenneth Lobo, EDM Nation: How India Stopped Worrying About the Riff and Fell in Love With the Beat, Rolling Stone
25. ^Biddu Orchestra – Bionic Boogie at Discogs
26. ^Biddu Orchestra – Soul Coaxing at Discogs
27. ^'Futuristic Journey And Eastern Man CD'. CD Universe. Retrieved 7 July 2011.
28. ^Biddu Orchestra – Futuristic Journey at Discogs (list of releases)
29. ^Futuristic Journey and Eastern Man at AllMusic
30. ^Captain Zorro – Phantasm Theme at Discogs
31. ^ ^abDisco Goes to Bollywood: A Rough Guide, Pitchfork
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33. ^Stuart Aitken (10 May 2011). 'Charanjit Singh on how he invented acid house ... by mistake'. The Guardian.
34. ^Geeta Dayal (5 April 2010). 'Thoughts on '10 Ragas to a Disco Beat''. The Original Soundtrack. Retrieved 3 June 2011.
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38. ^Filmi qawwali song on hindigeetmala.net website Retrieved 19 May 2018
39. ^Filmi qawwali from film Jodha Akbar (2008) on hindigeetmala.net website Retrieved 19 May 2018
40. ^Filmi qawwali in Rockstar (2011 film) on muvyz.com website Retrieved 19 May 2018
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75. ^Faruk Kaiser's Platinum Disc accolade for Bhagwan Dada
76. ^'Bahubali audio sold for Rs 3 cr, sets record'. The Times of India. 21 May 2015.
77. ^ ^ab'Top 25 films between the years 1985-1994'. Filmfare. 18 February 2018.
78. ^Unnithan, Sandeep (1 April 2002). 'As film music industry struggles, Bollywood goes for rightsizing of copyright price tags'. India Today. Retrieved 23 August 2012.
79. ^ ^ab'Music Hits 2000-2009 (Figures in Units)'. Box Office India. 5 February 2010. Archived from the original on 5 February 2010.
80. ^''Slumdog Millionaire' soundtrack sells 2 million units'. Neapolitan Music. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
81. ^'Tiger Zinda Hai'. YouTube. Yash Raj Films. Retrieved 18 April 2019.
82. ^'Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya'. YouTube. T-Series. Retrieved 18 April 2019.
83. ^'Satyameva Jayate'. YouTube. T-Series. Retrieved 18 April 2019.
84. ^'Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety'. YouTube. T-Series. Retrieved 18 April 2019.
85. ^'Simmba'. YouTube. T-Series. Retrieved 19 April 2019.

Sources[edit]

• The Indian Diaspora: Dynamics of Migration edited by Narayana Jayaram, p. 164 (Trinidad)
• Echoes from Dharamsala: Music in the Life of a Tibetan Refugee Community by Keila Diehl (Tibetan refugees)
• Music of Hindu Trinidad: Songs from the India Diaspora by Helen Myers
• Cassette Culture: Popular Music and Technology in North India by Peter Manuel
• World Music Volume 2 Latin and North America Caribbean India Asia and: Latin and North America,...by Simon Broughton, Mark Ellingham (History)
• Pandits in the Movies: Contesting the Identity of Hindustani Classical Music and Musicians in the Hindi Popular Cinema by Greg Booth
• Religion, gossip, narrative conventions and the construction of meaning in Hindi film songs by Greg Booth
• Behind the curtain: making music in Mumbai's film studios by Greg Booth
• Early Indian Talkies: Voice, Performance and Aura: by Madhuja Mukherjee
• The Cultural Economy of Sound: Reinventing Technology in Indian Popular Cinema by Carlo Nardi
• Hindi film songs and the cinema by Anna Morcom
• Film songs and the cultural synergies of Bollywood in and beyond South Asia by Anna Morcom

Dhunon ki Yatra-Hindi Filmon ke Sangeetkar 1931–2005 by Pankaj Rag

The 1970s was arguably the single decade of the 20th century when recorded music was most central to culture. There were, of course, fewer kinds of media competing for the average consumer’s time—television meant just a handful of channels, video games were the size of refrigerators and could be found in arcades. As the used vinyl bins of the world are still telling us, records were the thing. Labels were flush with cash, sales of LPs and singles were brisk, and record stores were everywhere. Home stereos were a standard part of middle-class culture. Analog recording technology was at its zenith, FM radio was ascendant, and the AM dial still focused on music. The children of the baby boom were coming into their late twenties and thirties—young enough to still be serious music consumers, but old enough to have their own generation of children who were starting to buy music.

And then there was the music itself. Disco, an entire cultural movement fueled by a genre of music—with massive impact on fashion, film, TV and advertising—was utterly ubiquitous. Rock music emerged from the ’60s as to go-to choice of white youth culture. Soul and funk were reaching new levels of artistry. Punk, the first serious backlash against the rock mainstream, came into its own. Records from Jamaica were making their way to the UK and, eventually, the U.S., changing sounds and urging a new kind of political consciousness. As culture moved in every direction at once, there were more great songs than anyone could count.

As voted by our full time staff and contributors, these are Pitchfork's 200 best songs of the 1970s.

Listen to the best songs of the 1970s on Apple Music and Spotify.

• Island (1979)

• Marianne Faithfull

“Broken English”

There’s no shame in being a muse—preening in silk robes on the couch, tousled hair parting to reveal full lips pouting around a cigarette, tossing off bon mots of aching elegance that nestle into the subconscious and reappear as pop hits. If that’s how Mick Jagger wanted to spend his days, more power to him. Marianne Faithfull was most famous in the ’60s as the blonde, boho moll of the Rolling Stones frontman, whose career was twined to his and widely assumed dependent on his gifts: her version of the Stones’ “As Tears Go By” was a hit in England; her near-fatal heroin overdose became “Wild Horses,” and her literary interests begat “Sympathy for the Devil;” she co-wrote “Sister Morphine.” But Jagger was also something of Faithfull’s muse, inspiring many entries in her prodigious Decca Records output of the late 1960s.

By the end of the 1970s, a decade in which she’d weathered drug abuse and homelessness (and long ended her high-profile love), Faithfull refused to be diminished for one more day. Broken English, her first rock record in 12 years, was the comeback triumph no one expected, not least in how gritty it was. The chilling title track is a prophetic merging of punk and dance, with lyrics that plumb the depths of her losses. “Could have come through anytime/Cold lonely, puritan,” she intones harshly, gliding into a bloodless snarl that would make Johnny Rotten flinch. “What are you fighting for?/It’s not my security.” It’s a terse, battle-scarred declaration of autonomy with hairpin melodic turns, early in its embrace of dance music’s dark possibilities. “Broken English” is the portrait of a true survivor, starting a new era on her terms, alone. –Stacey Anderson

Listen:Marianne Faithfull: “Broken English”
See also: Lene Lovich: “Lucky Number” / Amanda Lear: “Follow Me”

• Elektra (1979)

• Patrice Rushen

“Haven’t You Heard”

Even as her sensibilities shifted from jazz to fusion to R&B and disco, Patrice Rushen focused on her keyboards while everything else swirled around them. On “Haven’t You Heard,” the piano is an anchor for the song. This can make it feel like an early skeleton of house music, which is appropriate—it was a touchstone of Larry Levan’s sets at the Paradise Garage, and was eventually reborn as gospel house in Kirk Franklin’s 2005 single “Looking for You.”

“Haven’t You Heard” is a formally perfect expression of disco. The best disco songs imply infinity in both their length and groove, and always feel as if they’re attached to a black hole. “Haven’t You Heard” enhances time until it feels like the glitter of a cityscape unfurling through a cab window. It manages this even as the lyric itself is private—the literal text of a classified ad. “It only says ‘I’m looking for the perfect guy,’” Rushen sings, searching for connection not through direct communication but with ambient speech. This kind of intimacy, personified by the whispery translucence of Rushen’s voice, is just as easily exported to the dance floor. –Brad Nelson

Listen:Patrice Rushen: “Haven’t You Heard”
See also: Anita Ward: “Ring My Bell” / “Herb Alpert: Rise”

• RCA Victor (1975)

• Waylon Jennings

“Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way”

Like the best outlaw country, “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?” looks backwards and forwards simultaneously, finding inspiration in the past even as it wonders what’s around the next curve in the road. Jennings and his peers were traditionalists who bucked the very notion of tradition. All of them had been manhandled by the industry, but few bristled against the mainstream quite as strongly as Jennings, who found himself on a series of poorly planned tours that left him deep in debt to his label and addicted to amphetamines.

If this were just a song about all the “rhinestone suits and new shiny cars” that defined country music around the bicentennial, it would have been only a minor antagonism. But outlaw country rarely gets credit for its humor or its self-deprecation, and what lends the song its gravity, aside from the world-weariness of Waylon’s vocals, is his sly assessment of his own place in the industry. Despite the hits he’d been notching for a decade, he was still just another road warrior who idolized Hank Sr. but still saw him as an almost hilariously impossible standard against which to measure himself or anybody else. –Stephen Deusner

Listen:Waylon Jennings: “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?”
See also: Willie Nelson: “Whiskey River” / Jerry Reed: “Amos Moses”

• Nessa (1970)

• Art Ensemble of Chicago

“Théme de Yoyo”

A healthy portion of Chicago’s musical avant-garde decamped for France in 1969, but the group that made the biggest splash in Paris was the Art Ensemble of Chicago. The band’s exuberant stage show reinforced its members’ organizing slogan—“Great Black Music: Ancient to the Future”—with bassist Malachi Favors often dressed like an Egyptian shaman and saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell donning the garb of a contemporary urbanite. Over the course of a dozen-plus records cut in the 1970s, the band’s sound made good on the malleability suggested by this varied public image, as they created delicate improvisations and noise blowouts alike.

On “Théme de Yoyo,” the opening song on a soundtrack to a now-forgotten film, the Art Ensemble’s rhythm section offers up a funk groove. When the group’s notoriously wild horn players enter, they begin by playing things pretty straight—only reaching for avant-garde theatrics in brief pauses of the swinging, mod theme. Guest vocalist Fontella Bass—the wife of Art Ensemble trumpeter Lester Bowie—contributes soulful phrasings that sound downright commercial until you focus on the absurdist lyrics (“Your fanny’s like two sperm whales floating down the Seine”). No matter how out there each instrumentalist ventures, every feature spot contains references to the track’s pop-song foundation. As a piece of free-jazz funk that predates Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time band, “Théme de Yoyo” is an early reflection of the benefits the Art Ensemble reaped from their refusal to be tied to a single genre. –Seth Colter Walls

Listen:Art Ensemble of Chicago: “Théme de Yoyo”
See also: Brigitte Fontaine, Areski Belkacem & Art Ensemble of Chicago: “Comme à la Radio” / Pharoah Sanders: “Love Is Everywhere”

• Philips (1976)

• Jorge Ben

“Taj Mahal”

Jorge Ben’s “Taj Mahal” is ostensibly about the famous tomb in Agra, India. The building was created by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, as a tribute to his fourth wife, Mumtaz Mahal, after her death during the birth of the couple’s 14th child. “Foi a mais linda historia de amor,” sings the Brazilian singer Ben: “It was the most pretty story of love.” The couple’s romance must have been strong stuff: the tomb was commissioned the year after her death, in 1632, and wasn't finished until 1653, at a cost of approximately $827 million in today’s dollars.

Ben’s original version of the song, recorded for his 1972 album Ben, is a subdued gem. But the version recorded for his massive 1976 crossover album Africa Brasil exudes joy, sparks flying from every exuberant note. The record would end up getting Rod Stewart—whose “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” bore a strong resemblance—sued. It’s not difficult, though, to see what Stewart saw in its jubilant DNA (unconsciously, according to his autobiography). “Taj Mahal” captures an unselfconscious excitement, a purity of a deeply familiar feeling, yet projects it at a scale that can cross decades—perhaps centuries. –David Drake

Listen:Jorge Ben: “Taj Mahal”
See also: Jorge Ben: “Ponta De Lanca Africano (Umbabarauma)” / Tim Maia: “No Caminho Do Bem”

• Upsetter (177)

• Lee Perry & the Full Experiences

“Disco Devil”

This track is really three ’70s reggae classics in one: Max Romeo’s “Chase the Devil,” Prince Jazzbo’s “Croaking Lizard,” and Lee Perry’s mix of both with his own vocals. All this and more gets tossed in the pot in the nearly seven-minute-long “Disco Devil.”

“Disco” doesn’t reference the flashy dance genre of the same name but rather the concept of the “discomix,” a 12” vinyl format that contains a vocal song seamlessly followed by a dub remix or a deejay version (meaning a rapped performance over the rhythm track). Perry essentially released a dub version of the Romeo and Jazzbo tracks, then followed it with a dub of the dub. It’s a particularly effective example of Perry’s innovative, eccentric production style that transforms the studio into an instrument itself. The approach to “Disco Devil” demonstrates the many ways he was able to pull pieces of a song apart and put them back together, add snippets of lyrics and sounds, and shape deep bass and rippling guitar to glide as if underwater. –Erin Macleod

Listen:Lee Perry & the Full Experiences: “Disco Devil”
See also: Max Romeo: “Chase the Devil” / Augustus Pablo: “Kings Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown”

• Atlantic (1972)

• Manu Dibango

“Soul Makossa”

A decade before Michael Jackson lifted it for “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’,” and long before Rihanna sampled Jackson’s version in “Don’t Stop the Music” (and both got sued for uncleared usage), “Soul Makossa” was a disco scene staple. It started as the B-side to a hymn Manu Dibango wrote for his native Cameroon’s football team in honor of their country hosting the 1972 Africa Cup of Nations. By then, the jazz saxophonist was already well established, but the record was a huge flop. In his autobiography, Dibango recalls how kids and adults alike ridiculed his stuttering repetition of that now-familiar refrain: “Ma-ma-ko ma-ma-sa mako-makossa!” It was only when he rerecorded it in Paris, and that version fell into the hands of New York Loft DJ David Mancuso and radio DJ Frankie Crocker, that it spread like wildfire, even cracking the American Top 40.

Historically, makossa, the popular Cameroonian dance music, is a mix of soukous, highlife, and traditional Douala dance rhythms. Dibango douses it in soul, funk, and jazz to the point that “Soul Makossa” is more funky proto-disco than it is makossa. But that reimagining is also what made the song such a phenomenon; it played to people’s ideas of what a cosmopolitan African continent sounded like, presented in a format they were familiar with. In the decades to come, “Soul Makossa” would be sampled countless times over, including by the Fugees on The Score and Kanye on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. “Soul Makossa” remains brilliant in its musical malleability. –Minna Zhou

Listen: Manu Dibango: Soul Makossa
See also: Chakachas: “Jungle Fever” / Lafayette Afro Rock Band: “Darkest Light”

• ZE (1979)

• James Chance & the Contortions

“Contort Yourself”

The no wave scene in late ’70s New York was notorious for its room-clearing nihilism. Noisy, confrontational bands such asMars,DNA, and Teenage Jesus & the Jerks looked to bury the corpse of rock’n’roll by rejecting its rules. Yet one of the most iconic no wave tunes, James Chance & the Contortions’ “Contort Yourself,” is less an anti-song than a body-moving dance-craze ditty. “Now is time to lose all control/Distort your body, twist your soul,” Chance yelps over the tightly wound groove of his quintet, who sound like an unhinged version of James Brown’s band the J.B.’s.

But as “Contort Yourself” progresses, Chance’s destructive attitude creeps in. His screams get longer (“Forget about your future!”), his saxophone gets noisier, and slide guitars scrape across the song like rakes over concrete. By the end, Chance advocates total annihilation: “Once you forget your affection for the human race/Reduce yourself to zero, and then you’ll fall in place.”

Still, “Contort Yourself” is nihilism you can dance to, and it typified the Contortions’ unique mix of punk, funk, and jazz. That mix would influence many danceable early ’80s New York bands—Bush Tetras,ESG,Liquid Liquid—and point toward the disco scene that eventually took over Manhattan. But no one could replicate the sharp mania of “Contort Yourself,” a song that still twists and shouts. –Marc Masters

Listen:James Chance & the Contortions: “Contort Yourself”
See also: A Certain Ratio: “Do the Du (Casse)” / Teenage Jesus & The Jerks: “Orphans”

• Island (1973)

• Brian Eno

“Baby’s on Fire”

“Baby's on Fire” is barely a song, in the conventional sense—two chords mercilessly alternating for five minutes, a single snatch of melody repeated with almost no variation, a lyric that sidles around clear sense, and a guitar solo that takes up more than half of its running time. It divided the listeners of Eno’s first solo album, Here Come the Warm Jets, into those who got it and those who were left eating its ashes.

For all its minimalism, there's a lot going on in this song: a celebration of a catastrophe happening in plain view, knotty wordplay and snappy onomatopoeia, and the vicious camp of Eno’s vocal (there’s an arch, shivering grin behind the way he enunciates, “This kind of experience/Is necessary for her learning”). The track’s centerpiece is the conflagration of Robert Fripp and Paul Rudolph’s all-devouring instrumental break with Eno’s “treatments” spraying fuel all over it. Before “Baby’s on Fire” and Warm Jets, Eno had been the eccentric, glammy keyboardist in Roxy Music; after them, he became known as the ingenious weirdo who thought about sound in ways nobody else did. –Douglas Wolk

Listen:Brian Eno: “Baby's on Fire”
See also: Brian Eno: “Here Come the Warm Jets” / Brian Eno: “Third Uncle”

• Continental (1976)

• Tom Zé

“Doi”

The story goes that, sometime in the mid-’80s, David Byrne found Estudando o Samba (“Studying Samba”) in a record store in Rio De Janeiro. He assumed it would be like the rest of the samba records he was collecting, but its cover gave a hint of something subversive: the image of a barbed wire fence scrawled across a white surface. Of course, Byrne became so obsessed with the record, he tracked Zé down and asked if he could release the album in the States, as the first dispatch of his then-new Luaka Bop records. Soon after, Zé was enjoying overdue fame as samba’s best deconstructionist.

Zé grew up in the Hinterlands of Bahia, Brazil, in a village so remote that it didn’t get electricity until he was 17; soon after, he studied modernist composition and hooked up with the tropicalistas in urban Salvador. Zé’s music reflects both these worlds; it’s rooted in rural tradition and laced with a cynical cosmopolitanism. “Doi,” from 1976’s triumphant Estudando o Samba, strikes a perfect balance: its percussion forms from earthy, machinelike clanks, and a minimalist guitar is the only other actual instrument on the song. Its thrust comes from a chorus that feels universal, primordial even, and Zé allows himself to disappear into it. It’s a strange and satisfying effect, and a rigorously intelligent way to balance formal experimentation with heritage. “Doi” exists in some nether-zone between the past and the future, and nothing in music sounds like this, still. –Kevin Lozano

Listen:Tom Zé: “Doi”
See also: Tom Zé: “Um Oh! E Um Ah!” / Secos & Molhados: “Sangue Latino”

• Just Sunshine (1974)

• Betty Davis

“He Was a Big Freak”

Betty Davis’ voice is where pleasure meets pain, so of course she had to cut a song about S&M. People speculated whether “He Was a Big Freak” concerned her ex-husband, Miles Davis, or her rumored (and denied) lover, Jimi Hendrix. It wasn’t about either, Davis said, though she admitted that her dominatrix’s “turquoise chain” was a reference to Hendrix’s favorite color. Gossip aside, Davis’ act was scandalizing because it starred a powerful young black woman in control of her own desires.

On “Freak,” she takes on various roles in order to meet her partner’s needs—housewife, geisha, mother—but sounds so intoxicated by her power that his satisfaction becomes secondary. Her delivery evokes a woman possessed as she roars and vamps through her seduction. Davis keeps switching gears until a new darkness emerges from her throat, and a storm rises from the guitar. Her pointillist funk thrust loses its precision and starts stumbling in the perilous ascent towards climax. Eventually, “Freak” fades out, though Davis is still roaring as the mix dims. It feels like she’s just getting started. –Laura Snapes

Listen:Betty Davis: “He Was a Big Freak”
See also: Betty Davis: “Anti-Love Song” / Millie Jackson:“ If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don't Wanna Be Right)”

• Kudu (1977)

• Idris Muhammad

“Could Heaven Ever Be Like This”

Born Leo Morris, drummer Idris Muhammad played with dozens of jazz giants before and after taking his Muslim name, but found his artistic voice at Kudu, CTI’s soul crossover label, where he collaborated with David Matthews, a keyboardist who arranged and co-wrote several James Brown hits. You don’t have to have a degree in composition like Matthews did to wrap your head around the melodic composure of “Could Heaven Ever Be Like This,” their peak achievement together and Muhammad’s biggest hit. Singular, spiritual, and straight-up gorgeous, “Heaven” silences even the staunchest disco-hater.

Elements of the song have been repeatedly sampled and replayed, but its bittersweet harmonies are best experienced the way DJs played it back in the spring of 1977 and for many years to come: from its first effusive note to its very end. Over the course of eight-and-a-half minutes, “Heaven” takes dancers on an exquisite journey, the arrangement soaring from ethereal harp to Brecker Brothers horn blasts to raucous rock guitar. Too otherworldly to be championed by every DJ, “Heaven” was nevertheless so beloved by those who did that it reached No. 2 on Billboard’s dance chart. The only subsequent record to truly do it justice, Jamie xx’s “Loud Places” honors that it’s not simply a dance song, but also a prayer. –Barry Walters

Listen:Idris Muhammad: “Could Heaven Ever Be Like This”
See also: Candido: “Thousand Finger Man” / Kiki Gyan: “Disco Dancer”

• Upsetter (1976)

• Junior Murvin

“Police & Thieves”

Falsetto is frequently used in reggae, but not often is there a track as gently piercing as Junior Murvin’s 1976 classic. As resonant now as it was then, Murvin’s song about the militarization of police reflects reality far beyond Jamaica, leveling the playing field between the illegal and the legal. “All the peacemakers turn war officers,” sings a prescient Murvin. “Police and thieves in the streets, oh yeah/Scaring the nation with their guns and ammunition.” It was an important soundtrack of protest when it was released in London in the summer of 1976, during racial tensions that led to riots during the Notting Hill Festival and unrest in Brixton.

The track has been re-recorded a number of times, most famously by the Clash on their debut album. However, the original, recorded in the legendary Black Ark studio, is a textbook Lee Perry production. There’s that perfect amount of echo, carrying Murvin’s vocal improvisations and the humming chorus along, making them bounce off the walls and charge ever forward. –Erin Macleod

Listen:Junior Murvin: “Police & Thieves”
See also: Junior Murvin: “Cool Out Son” / Horace Andy: “Skylarking”

• Cotillion (1977)

• Cerrone

“Supernature”

On his previous Eurodisco hits, the French drummer Marc Cerrone mirrored Giorgio Moroder’s long, sensual suites with Donna Summer while accentuating both their symphonic splendor and kickdrum wallops. For the title track of his second 1977 album, he took a page from Summer’s “I Feel Love” and similarly traded soaring strings for undulating synths, but did so without the overt sex. Instead, he and cowriter Alain Winsniak introduced an unprecedented strain of dystopian disco dread. Neither Kraftwerk nor Berlin-era Bowie had an immediate international dancefloor impact as profound as “Supernature.”

Years before GMOs became a food source and organic crops a common alternative, “Supernature” sang of an imagined past when science introduced agricultural breakthroughs with unanticipated consequences. “The potions that we made touched the creatures down below/And they grew up in a way that we’d never seen before,” warns English session vocalist Kay Garner with a star-quality growl oozing menace and authority. As the track grows more sinister, mutant monsters take their revenge until humanity reverts to a primitive state where it must once again earn its place.

How did such a deep sci-fi theme find its way into an album that sold huge numbers and paved the way for space disco, techno, acid house, and other dark dance floor strains? The future new wave icon Lene Lovich wrote these uncredited ecological lyrics. She’d soon use her fame to raise consciousness for animal rights. –Barry Walters

Listen:Cerrone: “Supernature”
See also: Space: “Carry On, Turn Me On” / Gino Soccio: “Dancer”

• SOLAR (1979)

• The Whispers

“And the Beat Goes On”

The Whispers formed in Los Angeles in the mid-’60s and were hardly seen as cutting-edge by the time they released “And the Beat Goes On” in 1979. But they were in fact pushing boundaries, thanks in large part to the genius of SOLAR label producer Leon Sylvers, who, along with record producer Kashif, was one of the most important composers in late-’70s/early-’80s R&B. Together, on opposite sides of the country—Kashif in New York, Sylvers in Los Angeles—the two charted a path post-disco, incorporating new electronic elements and playing with grooves.

“And the Beat Goes On” was one of Sylvers’ most successful records as a producer, hitting No. 19 on the Hot 100. The groove was so modern, it was the product of a Will Smith one-track-jack in the late ’90s, when the rapper’s “Miami” lifted liberally from the post-disco classic; the record had aged well, its quick strings and electronic textures as fresh as they day they were recorded. –David Drake

Listen:The Whispers: “And the Beat Goes On”
See also: Detroit Emeralds: “Feel the Need in Me” / Leon Haywood: “I Want' A Do Something Freaky To You”

• Tamla (1976)

• Thelma Houston

“Don’t Leave Me This Way”

“Don’t Leave Me This Way” first took shape in 1975 in a more modest arrangement, as a Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes song sung by Teddy Pendergrass. Pendergrass’s tender vocals keep the songs as two distinct components—a verse and a chorus separated neatly by scale and intensity. When Thelma Houston recorded the song for Motown a year later, her arrangement reached for the sky; the version accelerates steadily, a gentle melancholy lifting off into the denser and more pressurized atmosphere of disco. Throughout, Rhodes piano shimmers like light filtering through clouds.

Houston’s performance is remarkable: her vocals are as composed as they are exposed, stable as they are sensitive. “I can’t survive,” Houston sings, her voice occasionally collapsing into a whisper. “I can’t stay alive/Without your love.” It’s this complexity that, years later, led the song to be embraced as a metaphor for the devastation of AIDS in the gay community. –Brad Nelson

Listen:Thelma Houston: “Don’t Leave Me This Way”
See also: Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes: “Don't Leave Me This Way” / Evelyn 'Champagne' King: “Shame”

• Atlantic (1972)

Old Hindi Songs 1960 To 1970 List Mp3

• The Spinners

“Could It Be I’m Falling in Love“

It’s ironic that one of the all-time greatest Philly soul acts weren’t even from Philadelphia. The Spinners hailed from Detroit—they were even billed as “the Detroit Spinners” in the UK—and like most of the city’s top talent at the time, they recorded on Motown, where they landed the Stevie Wonder-penned hit “It’s a Shame.” But it was only after signing to Atlantic Records that they truly found their voice. Under the guidance of super-producer Thom Bell, they embodied the sound of ’70s Philadelphia soul: lush, sensual, and ridiculously generous, all strings and bells and orchestral grandeur.

That’s a lot to juggle, and some of Bell’s lesser productions collapsed under the weight of their arrangements, especially once disco pressured them to become busier and busier, but the Spinners had the delicate touch to pull it all off. Just years earlier, they’d been shouting and wailing, but the best moments of “Could It Be I’m Falling in Love” are practically whispered; every time lead vocalist Bobbie Smith is offered the opportunity to go loud, he goes soft, letting Bell’s dulcet accompaniments do the singing for him. The restraint adds even more depth to his coos of, “I don't need all those things that used to bring me joy/You've made me such a happy boy.” The ’70s yielded countless songs about falling in love, but few are as blissful as this. –Evan Rytlewski

Listen:The Spinners: “Could It Be I’m Falling in Love”
See also: Spinners: “I'll Be Around” / Isley Brothers: “(At Your Best) You Are Love”

• Bearsville (1973)

• Todd Rundgren

“International Feel”

Not many can challenge Todd Rundgren as the foremost architect of ’70s rock. As a producer, he shaped defining albums for Grand Funk Railroad, Hall & Oates, and Meat Loaf...but also the New York Dolls, Patti Smith, and the Tubes. In his simultaneous solo career, he stayed one step ahead of the trends he solidified with other artists, veering between soft-rock rebellion, prog fantasias, and experiments in song suites and remakes.

Triangulating Rundgren’s busy decade is nearly impossible, but “International Feel”—the lead track from his frenetic A Wizard, A True Star—does a fine job. Recorded at the ad-hoc Secret Sound studio Rundgren built in a New York City loft, the song balances between his audiophile obsessions and pop instincts. It’s Philly soul in a spacesuit, fading in with revving engine sound effects, tickled from all sides by synthesizer sprites, propelled by heavily filtered drums that sound lifted from a Led ZeppelinIV session. The use of “International Feel” in Daft Punk’s 2006 film Electroma only confirmed its otherworldly futurism, and that Rundgren was ahead of his time even as he played a preeminent role in defining it. –Rob Mitchum

Listen:Todd Rundgren: “International Feel”
See also: The Move: “Feel Too Good” / Dennis Wilson: “Pacific Ocean Blues”

• Rough Trade (1979)

1960 To 1970 Hindi Songs Mp3 Free Download

• Delta 5:

“Mind Your Own Business”

When guitarist Julz Sale, bassist Ros Allen, and other bassist Bethan Peters came together to form Delta 5 in 1979, they decided to double up on the low end because, as Allen has said, “neither of us played guitar, and we thought it would make the music more exciting.” They were not wrong.

Part of a contingent of Leeds art instigators that included Mekons and Gang of Four, the socialist funk-punk pioneers released their iconic debut single on Rough Trade just as the ’70s were petering out. The song opens with a tense soda-counter come-on that bleeds feminist sarcasm: “Can I have a taste of your ice cream?” the three women deadpan in unison. “Can I lick the crumbs from your table? Can I interfere in your crisis?” They gnarl knots of guitar noise until the whole song sounds like a collective effort to suffocate those same questions, but only after telling the leader of the pack to fuck right off: “No, mind your own business!” This one genius idea on loop set Delta 5 on their way. –Jenn Pelly

Listen:Delta 5: “Mind Your Own Business”
See also: Mekons: “Where Were You” / Slits: “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”

• Warner Bros. (1970)

• Van Morrison

“Caravan”

“Caravan” fits into an established tradition of songs about listening, a metatextual lyric about gathering with friends and dancing to a song on the radio, made into a song one might gather with friends and dance to. When it appears on a classic rock radio playlist, the lyric becomes abruptly instructional. “Turn it up!” Van exhorts. “Little bit higher! Radio!” Syntax crumbles in the whirl and flutter of his emotions. “Caravan” has a kind of rhomboid structure, its energies constantly building toward an acute angle; the individual instruments in the song—including Van Morrison’s voice—combine and swell into a wordless chorus: “La la la la la la la.” This is, essentially, the vocabulary of rhythm and blues, which Morrison, on “Caravan”’s album Moondance, had finally, almost seamlessly absorbed into his own music, and of which “Caravan” is its most excited expression. –Brad Nelson

Listen:Van Morrison: “Caravan”
See also: Van Morrison: “Into the Mystic” / Randy Newman: “Sail Away”