1972
The biggest rock and metal albums of 1972: Acoustically, Obscured by Clouds and Vol 4.
Nineteen seventy-two began with Bloody Sunday in Derry and ended a long way from where it started. In between, Richard Nixon spent eight days in China meeting Mao Zedong, Bangladesh emerged as an independent state, and Pioneer 10 set off to become the first spacecraft to leave the Solar System. Somewhere in there, the HP-35 turned the pocket calculator into a thing a person might actually carry.
On the rock side, the sound was getting heavier and more ambitious at once. Black Sabbath released Vol 4 on 22 September, a record that sits comfortably between heavy metal, hard rock and doom. Pink Floyd put out Obscured by Clouds in June, a psychedelic and progressive stop along the way to bigger things; in January they had played Dark Side of the Moon live in Brighton, a full year before anyone could buy it. Led Zeppelin's Acoustically is the vault's most-visited record of the year, though their Singapore show was cancelled when officials refused to let them off the plane because of their hair. Meanwhile, the family tree was sprouting: Styx, Magnum, Petra and a young Brian Johnson fronting Geordie all formed, and a band called Genesis, later Mammoth, would eventually become Van Halen.
Not everyone made it through. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Cactus and the Jeff Beck Group all called it a day, as did MC5 and Steppenwolf, who both returned in 1974. Stone the Crows lost guitarist Les Harvey, electrocuted on stage in Swansea on 2 May. Grand Funk's former manager Terry Knight launched a $5 million lawsuit in March, setting off rounds of suits and counter-suits. Roy Wood left the Electric Light Orchestra just as the hits began.
