My Favorite Artists of the 1970s
Wednesday, July 02, 2025 
I've previously done this for the 2010s, the 1990s, and the 1980s -- taking all my lists of favorite albums for each years of those decades, creating a weighted points system, and tabulating which artists made the most records that I love the most. An extremely nerdy thing to do on top of an already pretty nerdy pursuit, but I find it a lot of fun. And I'd been really looking forward to doing this with the 1970s because it's kind of the peak era of artists I loved who often made one or two albums every year, meaning there's a lot more data to work with. So now that I've listed my 50 favorite albums and 100 favorite singles of each year of the '70s (links at the bottom of the post), I crunched the numbers, and in some instances surprised myself a little bit.
My 50 Favorite Album Artists of the 1970s:
1. David Bowie
2. Joni Mitchell
3. Steely Dan
4. Little Feat
5. Stevie Wonder
6. Neil Young
7. Elton John
8. Thin Lizzy
9. Led Zeppelin
10. Queen
11. Grateful Dead
12. Marvin Gaye
13. Jackson Browne
14. Funkadelic (tie)
14. Willie Nelson (tie)
16. Al Green (tie)
16. The Allman Brothers Band (tie)
18. The Rolling Stones
19. The Who
20. Elvis Costello
21. Tom Waits
22. Bruce Springsteen
23. Fleetwood Mac
24. Donna Summer
25. Electric Light Orchestra
26. The Ramones
27. Todd Rundgren
28. Big Star (tie)
28. Talking Heads (tie)
30. Black Sabbath
31. Van Morrison
32. The Clash
33. Paul Simon
34. Bill Withers
35. Billy Joel
36. Aerosmith
37. Yes
38. Bob Dylan
39. Bob Marley & The Wailers
40. Pink Floyd
41. Parliament (tie)
41. T. Rex (tie)
43. Rush
44. Patti Smith
45. Can
46. Curtis Mayfield
47. George Jones (tie)
47. The Isley Brothers (tie)
47. Roxy Music (tie)
50. Sparks (tie)
50. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (tie)
The top six artists were about what I expected but not in the order I would've predicted. The points totals for those artists was pretty close so it could've gone totally differently if I'd re-listened to certain albums and liked them a lot more or less when I was making the lists. I expected Stevie Wonder to be at or closer to the top, particularly since I rate some of the albums outside his 'big four' more than other people, but then again, he only made two albums (and only one good one) in the second half of the decade. Bowie, on the other hand, was really active through the whole decade, and I rated 10 of his 11 albums pretty highly (sorry, Pin Ups).
A few artists did managed to get on the list with only three '70s albums if they were all great, Elvis Costello being the most prominent of those. If I'd counted Parliament and Funkadelic as the same act, which they essentially were in all but name, they'd actually pull ahead of Stevie Wonder. There are a few other artists who'd move up a spot or two if I'd counted solo albums, and Lou Reed would be on the list if I'd counted Loaded with his solo stuff, but I tried to keep it simple instead of bending the rules for things like that. If I counted every album Brian Eno produced or played on (Roxy Music, Talking Heads, Devo, Bowie, Genesis, John Cale, etc.), he'd be #1! I felt ridiculous having Bob Dylan and Bob Marley next to each other and Bill Withers and Billy Joel next to each other, but that's genuinely just how the numbers shook out.
My 50 Favorite Singles Artists of the 1970s:
1. Steely Dan
2. Stevie Wonder
3. Queen
4. Elton John
5. David Bowie
6. Led Zeppelin
7. Al Green
8. The Who
9. Marvin Gaye
10. The Doobie Brothers
11. The Rolling Stones
12. Fleetwood Mac
13. The Eagles
14. Earth, Wind & Fire
15. Elvis Costello
16. Billy Joel
17. Neil Young
18. George Jones
19. The Isley Brothers
20. The Bee Gees
21. Electric Light Orchestra
22. James Brown
23. Aerosmith
24. The Allman Brothers Band
25. Paul Simon
26. Lynyrd Skynyrd
27. Parliament (tie)
27. Bob Seger (tie)
29. The Doors
30. The Police
31. Paul McCartney (tie)
31. Steve Miller Band (tie)
33. Bill Withers
34. Bruce Springsteen
35. Pink Floyd
36. Donna Summer
37. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
38. Van Halen
39. Bad Company
40. Bob Marley & The Wailers
41. Creedence Clearwater Revival
42. Barry White
43. Thin Lizzy
44. Chicago
45. Heart
46. Van Morrison
47. Boston
48. Jackson Browne
49. The Cars
50. Chic
Things were very close here between Steely Dan and Stevie, but they were well ahead of everyone else. The Doobie Brothers are the top singles act that didn't make it onto the albums list, and Joni Mitchell is the top albums act that didn't make the singles list. If Parliament-Funkadelic were counted as one act here, they'd place just ahead of the Eagles. And Funkadelic did better on albums and Parliament did better on singles. Tom Petty is the only artist who appeared on my '70s, '80s, and '90s artist lists, which feels about right to me.
