72 Albums from 1972 — A Listening Quest

After starting 2022 by listening in their entirety to 82 albums from 1982, I decided to push back the calendar a little bit further for a new warm-weather listening quest. Thus, 72 from 1972.

My ground rules: I’m listening to the albums listed below in a semi-random order I will make up as I go along. I’m listening to each straight through (sometimes multiple albums in a single session, sometimes not). For the majority where I don’t own a vinyl copy, I’m generally using spotify or youtube but trying to listen to the track selection and sequencing of the original vinyl configuration (U.S. version if it was different from overseas) without any added bonus tracks.

As with my earlier listening quests of this type, this is not a best-of or personal-favorites list, but an attempt to create a representative cross-section of the full range of what was out there to be listened to in 1972 in the world of rock and rock-adjacent music, good, bad, and ugly. Albums that went gold, and albums that never charted, including a few that never got released in the U.S. at the time. (Did cool record stores already have import bins in ‘72? I dunno.) Albums that were critically lauded, albums that were critically derided, and albums that were critically overlooked and ignored.

I doubt any single individual in their peak music-enthusiasm years in ’72 would have bought and/or enjoyed 100% of the albums on the list. Since I was not actively listening to cool radio stations, reading cool magazines, browsing cool record stores, or being judgmental about my fellow second-graders based on what records they did or didn’t listen to, this was not a list (unlike its predecessors) where contemporaneous personal experience was all that helpful.

But in any event, here’s the list. If you don’t want to listen to everything on this list, you are encouraged to come up with your own list and listen to everything on that instead.

Allman Brothers Band — Eat a Peach
Captain Beefheart — Clear Spot
Big Star — #1 Record
Big Youth — Screaming Target
Black Oak Arkansas — If an Angel Came to See You …
Blue Öyster Cult — [self-titled]
David Bowie — The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Budgie — Squawk
Randy California — Kapt. Kopter and the (Fabulous) Twirly Birds

Can — Ege Bamyasi
Captain Beyond — [self-titled]
The Jimmy Castor Bunch — It’s Just Begun
Cold Blood — First Taste of Sin
Ornette Coleman — Science Fiction
Miles Davis — On the Corner
Deep Purple — Machine Head
James Luther Dickinson — Dixie Fried
Dr. John — Dr. John’s Gumbo

The Doobie Brothers — Toulouse Street
Family — Bandstand
Fleetwood Mac — Bare Trees
Flash — [self-titled]
Kim Fowley — I’m Bad
Aretha Franklin — Young, Gifted and Black
J. Geils Band — “Live” Full House
Genesis — Foxtrot
The Grateful Dead — Europe ‘72

Al Green — I’m Still in Love with You
Grin — 1+1
Hawkwind — Doremi Fasol Latido
Jethro Tull — Thick as a Brick
Little Feat — Sailin’ Shoes
Matching Mole — Matching Mole’s Little Red Record
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band — Glorified Magnified
Curtis Mayfield — Superfly
Ellen McIlwaine — Honky Tonk Angel

The Meters — Cabbage Alley
Bette Midler — The Divine Miss M
Mom’s Apple Pie — [self-titled]
Van Morrison — Saint Dominic’s Preview
Mott the Hoople — All the Young Dudes
Johnny Nash — I Can See Clearly Now
Nektar — A Tab in the Ocean
Michael Nesmith / Second National Band — Tantamount to Treason Vol. 1
Randy Newman — Sail Away

The Nitty Gritty Dirty Band — Will the Circle be Unbroken
Osibisa — Heads
Patto — Roll ’em Smoke ’em Put Another Line Out
Raspberries — [self-titled]
Rolling Stones — Exile on Main St.
Roxy Music — [self-titled]
Todd Rundgren — Something/Anything?
Seals & Crofts — Summer Breeze
Paul Simon — [self-titled]

Slade — Slayed?
Steeleye Span — Below the Salt
Steely Dan — Can’t Buy a Thrill
Rod Stewart — Never a Dull Moment
Stories — [self-titled]
The Strawbs — Grave New World
T. Rex — The Slider
Univeria Zekt — The Unnameables
Various Artists — National Lampoon presents Radio Dinner

Various Artists — The Harder They Come (soundtrack)
War — The World Is a Ghetto
Weather Report — I Sing the Body Electric
The Edgar Winter Group — They Only Come Out at Night
Wishbone Ash — Argus
Stevie Wonder — Talking Book
Yes — Close to the Edge
Neil Young — Harvest
Frank Zappa — Waka/Jawaka

As further background, my 82 Albums from 1982 list can be found here:
https://jwbrewer.medium.com/82-albums-from-1982-a-listening-quest-33514309065c