Great Job on 1972 BWBM , probably better than I would’ve done if I’d had the time, so thanks.
1972 was very much a coming of age for me, being born Jewish I was Bar Mitzvahd that year, although I have no time for any religion and consider myself as agnostic, I was probably excommunicated for eating bacon and marrying a catholic anyway.More importantly it was the year I started to explore music by myself, previously having to listen to my elder brothers choices, and what a year it was.
My first choice has to be my favourite band of that period and I’m still a big Ian Hunter fan today,’All the Young Dudes’ was the breakthrough album for MTH due to the title track being given to them by Bowie, but this album also contains another cover version
of one of my favourite LR/VU songs ‘Sweet Jane’ which is my less obvious pick.
This album propelled them into the Glam Rock scene where they had many hits throughout the 70s .Ian Hunter always remained close to Mick Ronson, with MR joining MTH and then forming Hunter Ronson band, he was even with him on his deathbed.
Someone’s already mentioned one of my favourite all time artists who having left the VU two years earlier released two albums in 1972, Lou Reed self titled which was mainly reworked versions of VU songs backed by a stellar group of session musicians
and the aforementioned‘Transformer ‘ one of the very first albums I bought, aided by Bowie and to a greater extent Mick Ronson who did all the string arrangements and
played guitar, piano, recorder, sang backing vocals and producing whilst Lou and Bowie were high on drugs as rumour would have it.
Transformer went on to be LR best selling album mainly due to the singe’Walk on the Wild Side’ he tells a great story of how the song came to be written on his ‘stand up comedy album ‘Take No Prisoners’
The track I’m picking however was a b side ‘Vicious’ taken from a line quoted by Andy Warhol.
Another of my favourites released his debut album this year, the ever young Jackson Browne’ who’d be writing songs since he was 16 for Nico and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’ He co wrote ‘Take it Easy ‘ which was ‘The Eagles’ first major hit in 1972.
This album contains another song which became a hit for The Jackson Five’ reaching no 9 in the UK but never released in the US.JBs released some great albums over the years and I’ve seen him live on a number of occasions, one of the great singer song writers of his generation.The album although self titled was always known as ‘Saturate before Using’ due to album cover.
My last choice has to be ‘Thirteen’ by Big Star for obvious reasons.
#1 Record was Big Star’s debut album and although they only released a few more
they influenced a great number of bands including REM and the Replacements.
Big Star and The Raspberries who also released their debut album this year would be
the pioneers of Power Pop,Big Star had two main vocalists and songwriters,Alex Chilton who at 16 had a hit with ‘The Letter’ by The Box Tops and Chris Bell who sadly
got killed in a car crash at 27.
Bonuses, 1972 was also the year Pub Rock band Brinsley Schwartz released their third
album ‘Silver Pistol ‘the single being Nightingale written and sung by Nick Lowe.
BS were heavily influenced by The Band and members of BS went on to form Graham Parker’s band The Rumour.
It was also the year Mike Nesmith ex of The Monkees and who’s mother invented
liquid paper realised his version of ‘Different Drum’ covered by many artists the most
famous version being by Linda Ronstadt who also released an album this year.
I could go on there were so many great albums and songs released this year, if we’re stuck ,like OB1 I’ve got lots more.
