1970 was a tumultuous year in world history, with global politics dominated by the Vietnam War and the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Protests against the Vietnam War raged in major American cities and across college campuses, most notably leading to the deaths of four students at Kent State University when the Ohio National Guard opened fire. Palestinian terrorists committed a series of airline hijackings that commanded the world’s attention.
Some of the turmoil surfaced in popular music. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released “Ohio,” a response to the Kent State shootings, within a week of the massacre. The music world suffered its own losses with the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, and the breakup of The Beatles.
The albums released in 1970 represent a rich tapestry of rock, jazz, and soul, including some of history’s most important and game-changing records. Black Sabbath arrived, taking heavy metal to the (black) masses, the seeds of punk rock were planted by The Stooges, and Miles Davis was singlehandedly changing jazz.
Discogs has mined the abundant data available from the collections and wantlists of its users to compile this list of the most wanted/most owned albums from 1970. Anyone just getting into the world of collecting music could simply buy everything on this list and be good to go.
We’ll be doing this for the first year of every decade through 2020, and 1980 clearly has its work cut out for it.
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#25. The Grateful Dead – American Beauty
The Grateful Dead released two albums in 1970 and no one would be surprised if “Workingman’s Dead” came in at No. 26 on this list; they’re companion albums that fit together seamlessly. “American Beauty” finds the band at the top if its songwriting game and is loaded with standards: “Box of Rain,” “Ripple,” “Friend of the Devil,” “Sugar Magnolia.” If you’re looking for a place to start your Dead collection, you just found it.
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#24. Curtis Mayfield – Curtis
Curtis Mayfield’s debut solo album, coming after a decade of leading the Impressions, announced him as a vibrant voice for black America. The songs expertly fuse funk, soul, old-school R&B and racial politics, setting the stage for a spectacular run of Mayfield albums throughout the first half of the 1970s that explored difficult issues with compassion and positivity.
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#23. John Lennon / The Plastic Ono Band – John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band
The emotional rawness of this record is sometimes tough to take; there’s never been a more heart-piercing song than “Mother,” which abandons all pretense of poetry as Lennon unflinchingly shares his deepest pain, and that’s just one song on an album that’s essentially a therapy session set to music. This record is crucial to understanding Lennon as a man and artist.
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#22. The Stooges – Fun House
The Stooges are considered by many to be the godfathers of punk and it’s tough to argue otherwise. “Fun House,” the Michigan band’s second album, is a monstrous slab of brutal, heavy rock and roll that takes no prisoners and will leave you drained and bruised. In a good way.
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#21. The Who – Live At Leeds
The Who remains history’s only rock band that essentially had three lead instrumentalists — Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon — and the glorious cacophony they made is captured perfectly on this record. Some hits are here, including an epic 15-minute “My Generation,” but the covers are just as good, especially a blistering “Young Man Blues.” Look for a first pressing, which comes with a cool packet of bonus materials such as photo and copies of show contracts.
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#20. The Velvet Underground – Loaded
The final Velvets album was a bid to finally score a hit because even iconoclasts need to pay rent. That didn’t quite work out, but fans got enduring classics such as “Sweet Jane,” “Oh! Sweet Nuthin’,” “Head Held High” and “Rock & Roll,” a perfect distillation of why rock and roll changed the world. Lou Reed finally solved the hit problem with his first solo album and “Walk On the Wild Side.”
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#19. Derek & The Dominos – Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
This record may be the only argument in favor of heroin. Eric Clapton was so strung out and heartbroken over his love for Pattie Boyd (then married to George Harrison), that he exorcised every demon with this record. Duane Allman matches him step for step and the result is unfiltered pain, sadness, and resignation. Writer Dave Marsh once said that hearing “Layla” is like watching a murder or suicide. Accurate.
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#18. Cat Stevens – Tea For The Tillerman
A template for the singer-songwriter movement, “Tea for the Tillerman” has lost none of its emotional impact. An underrated singer, Stevens gets under the skin of songs such as “Wild World,” “Miles From Nowhere” and “Father and Son.” If anything, this record gets better with each passing decade. If sound quality is a priority, look for an early Island UK pressing with pink label.
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#17. Jimi Hendrix – Band Of Gypsys
Jimi Hendrix never sounded more loose and free than he does on this live album recorded at Fillmore East with bassist Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles. The music sounds like funk on a codeine drip, stretched out and dreamlike but still hard and capable of grabbing you by the throat. For guitar fans, there may be no more impressive solo in the Hendrix catalog than on “Machine Gun.”
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#16. George Harrison – All Things Must Pass
The quiet Beatle was pretty annoyed by the time his band split up, tired of banging his head against the Lennon-McCartney wall while trying to get his songs on Beatles records. Harrison had released a couple of experimental records while still in the Beatles but “All Things Must Pass” is his official solo debut and it’s absolutely loaded with classics such as “My Sweet Lord,” “Isn’t It A Pity,” “What Is Life” and “If Not For You.” Many still consider this the finest solo album by a Beatle.
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#15. Van Morrison – Moondance
Morrison’s most commercially appealing album is also a majestic work of art. That isn’t an easy thing to achieve. Side one plays like a greatest-hits collection with “And It Stoned Me,” “Moondance,” “Crazy Love, “Caravan” and “Into the Mystic” — that’s insane! Anyone who doesn’t like this record has serious issues.
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#14. Creedence Clearwater Revival – Cosmo’s Factory
John Fogerty famously had an insecurity complex because he felt the songs he wrote for CCR weren’t on par with what his peers were doing. He was wrong. This massively popular album is the epitome of pop/rock songwriting, topped by “Travelin’ Band,” “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” “Run Through the Jungle” and “Lookin’ Out My Back Door.”
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#13. David Bowie – The Man Who Sold The World
Bowie found his artistic footing on this, his third album, and the songs here point toward later records such as “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars” and “Aladdin Sane.” The guitar-driven music, thanks to huge contributions from Mick Ronson, is heavy, trippy, theatrical, and critical to any complete Bowie collection.
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#12. The Doors – Morrison Hotel
The Doors album that even Doors haters have to admit is pretty good. “Roadhouse Blues” is an undeniable jam with some of Jim Morrison’s most unaffected singing, and it sets the stage for an album that reins in the band’s more art-damaged aspects in favor of harder, blues-based rock and roll.
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#11. Santana – Abraxas
Building on the sound of its first album, Santana kept its improvisational spirit but worked hard to condense its ideas into four- and five-minute nuggets of percussive Latin rock anchored by Carlos Santana’s evocative guitar playing. “Black Magic Woman,” despite being played to death for 50 years, never sounds less than great.
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#10. Neil Young – After The Gold Rush
After leaving Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Neil Young responded with this, one of the universe’s most perfect records. Given its competition from the rest of Young’s considerable catalog, it’s tough to call this Young’s best album (but it’s probably Young’s best album). An effortless blend of rock, folk, and country, it’s telling that its most famous song, “Southern Man,” is one of the weaker tracks. That’s how good this record is. Recent reissues overseen by Young are affordable and sound fantastic.
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#9. Miles Davis – Bitches Brew
“Bitches Brew” is not for the faint of heart. It signaled a significant shift in not only Davis’ career but in jazz itself, creating a sound somewhere between evolutionary and revolutionary. Jazz, rock, experimental, funk, avant-garde — “Bitches Brew” is all of those things and absolutely its own thing.
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#8. Deep Purple – In Rock
After decades of being dismissed as a classic rock radio dinosaur, Deep Purple has been getting a lot of retroactive love in recent years. This album is a big reason why. It’s as aggressive as any early Zeppelin record thanks to Ritchie Blackmore’s endless supply of towering riffs, but also has elements of progressive and psychedelic rock.
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#7. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Déjà Vu
CSN&Y was a definitive band of its era and this album serves as a generational soundtrack. Its messages of love, faith, hope, and rebellion galvanized the counterculture, led by “Carry On” and “Woodstock,” even as “Our House” made grandmothers smile.
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#6. Simon & Garfunkel – Bridge Over Troubled Water
One of history’s best-selling records, “Bridge Over Troubled Water” was the swan song for Simon and Garfunkel as a duo. They sure knew how to end on a high note. The title track is iconic, “Cecilia” remains as fresh today as it was in 1970, “The Boxer” is pure art. If you like singer-songwriters — hell, even if you hate singer-songwriters — this is for you.
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#5. Pink Floyd – Atom Heart Mother
Well, this is a surprise. “Atom Heart Mother” is not exactly compelling Pink Floyd, and there’s a reason it’s among the band’s worst-selling records, but Floyd fans love a challenge. The title track is a side-long conceptual instrumental piece with orchestra and choir, far stranger than anything attempted by the like-minded Moody Blues, while side two is a collection of stray solo tracks.
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#4. The Beatles – Let It Be
The final album to be released by the Beatles, although “Abbey Road” was recorded last, this one remains a mixed bag artistically. Some hate Phil Spector’s production, but it’s still the Beatles, and even just a pretty good Beatles album is well worth owning. There are a lot of very fine tracks, including John Lennon’s “Across the Universe,” but most of the attention goes to a pair of Paul McCartney’s over-the-top statement songs, the title track and “The Long and Winding Road.”
The most collectible versions of “Let It Be” came in a box set with booklet and a complete package of that first pressing goes for hundreds. But if you’re 15 and starting a Beatles collection, you can find a common copy with little effort.
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#3. Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath
This will come to a shock to some, but “Black Sabbath” is more historically important than “Paranoid.” While the origins of heavy metal will be debated forever, for many this is the record where it all came together, and it’s almost a moral imperative for any lover of rock and roll to own this touchstone. Five decades after its release the opening riff of the band’s namesake song remains the very definition of music as pure, visceral terror.
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#2. Black Sabbath – Paranoid
There are few things in the world of record collecting that makes a person’s heart race faster than spotting a Sabbath record on the Vertigo swirl label. Ask 20 collectors about their grails, and at least 15 will have a Sabbath Vertigo on the list.
There’s a reason. Find a Vertigo copy of this album in nice shape and it’s a sonic masterpiece, but the early US pressings on the green Capitol label also sound great and are getting almost as scarce. There’s also the music, of course; any record that brackets side one with “War Pigs” and “Iron Man” is a rager and needs to be owned.
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#1. Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin III
Led Zeppelin “III,” perhaps the most unassuming album of the band’s most fertile period, is 1970’s most wanted. Is it the iconic pinwheel cover design of early pressings that makes it so desirable? Maybe so. It’s certainly less fun to own one without the pinwheel, but there’s also a lot of essential music.
Commonly referred to as the band’s acoustic album, it also includes the thunderous “Immigrant Song,” easily one of the band’s heaviest tracks, and the epic electric blues of “Since I’ve Been Loving You.” Even some of the acoustic songs are heavy; “Gallows Pole” is one of the few acoustic songs capable of melting faces.

Just the Top 15:
1.) Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band – Lick My Decals Off, Baby
2.) Panama Limited – Indian Summer
3) Allman Brothers Band – Idlewild South
4.) Canned Heat – Future Blues
5.)The Doors – Morrison Hotel
6.)Burnin’ Red Ivanhoe – same
7.) Fairport Convention – Full House
8.) Pentangle – Cruel Sister
9.) Incredible String Band
10.) Steeleye Span
11.)Traffic – John Barleycorn
12.) Mountain – Climbing
13.) Sire Lord Baltimore – Kingdom Come
14.) Peter Bellamy – Oak, Ash & Thorn
15.) Bob Dylan – New Morning
Sorry, but Led Zep & Black Sabbath did not make it even into my Top 50 of 1970…. :->
If you wanna dive in a bit deeper, here is a Wiki list of many notable releases of 1970.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_in_music
Mountain “Climbing”
Good list, here’s mine:
1-Van Morrison-Moondance
2-Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young-Déjà Vu
3-Led Zeppelin-Led Zeppelin III
4-George Harrison-All Things Must Pass
5-Pink Floyd-Atom Heart Mother
6-Neil Young-After The Gold Rush
7-Who-Live At Leeds
8-Derek & The Dominos-Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs
9-Simon & Garfunkel-Bridge Over Troubled Water
10-David Bowie-Than Man Who Sold The World
11-John Mayall-Empty Rooms
12-Van Morrison-Van Morrison, His Band & The Street Choir
13-Free-Fire And Water
14-Doors-Morrison Hotel
15-Black Sabbath-Paranoid
16-Grateful Dead-Workingman’s Dead
17-Pink Floyd/Various-Zabriskie Point (Soundtrack)
18-Rod Stewart-Gasoline Alley
19-Rod Stewart-An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down
20-Beatles-Let It Be
Great year I would add Fire and Water by free , parachute by pretty things, % by Steve miller band I have top 10 on Youtube Music the last 60 years
Would add:
Ram (1971) by Macca and Linda
Songs in the key of life – Stevie Wonder
Black Sabbath – Masters of Reality (!!!)
L. Cohen – Songs of Love and Hate
Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On
Cymande – Cymande
Kraftwerk – Autobahn
Patti Smith – Horses
Zafer Dilek – Oyun Havaları
The Rolling Stones – Their Satanic Majesties
Michael Jackson – Off The Wall
Lucio Battisti – “Anima Latina” or “Umanamente uomo, il sogno”
A very good list of records released in 1970. I have 18 (CD) of the 25.
Can’t wait to see the list from 1980. It was a remarkable year with a mind boggling number of good records. Many fine bands/artists made their debut that year.
King Crimson – In th
e Wake of Poseidon
As it says in the introduction, it’s a list based on data, not opinion. It’s not subjective. These are the top 25 records based on the number of times they appear in collections and on wantlists. Maybe the list would change if everyone added their collections, maybe it wouldn’t.
Yeah, the original 1970 pressing of Steely Dan’s Aja and Floyd’s DSOTM are really sought after…
As nearly rare as reading comprehension seems to get.
JAMES GANG RIDES AGAIN
John Barleycorn Must Die!
I correct myself,”Led Zeppelin iii”is the first in list,but they are missing the prog discs…
You have forgotten :Led Zeppelin”iii”,King Crimson”In the wake of Poseidon”,Genesis”Trespass”,High Tide”s.t”,Gentle giant”s.t”,Van der Graaf generator”H to he”,etc.
In this list there are some overvalued discs(“Let it be”is really a bad album).
Discogs blog post with Spotify links instead of links to the mater release?!
Any list that keeps the Fab 4 out of the #1 position can’t be all bad.
Will those who didn’t read the title of this list come back to apologize for their misinformed posts???? (ie. Aja was released in 1977 NOT 1970!)
Once people have realised that it is most wanted/owned, be interesting to see what comes up for 1980 and what the 25 will be for that.
Just for fun, here’s my list of what *might* be on the most wanted list. In alphabetical order rather than numerical.
ABBA – Super Trouper
AC/DC – Back In Black
David Bowie – Scary Monsters
Captain Beefheart – Doc At The Radar Station
Elvis Costello- Get Happy!
Cramps – Songs The Lord Taught Us
Cure – Seventeen Seconds
Dead Kennedys – Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables
Dire Straits – Making Movies
Echo and the Bunnymen – Crocodiles
Peter Gabriel – 3
Grace Jones – Warm Leatherette
Joy Division – Closer
Judas Priest – British Steel
John Lennon – Double Fantasy
Bob Marley – Uprisinging
Police – Zenyatta Mondatta
Pretenders – Pretenders
Prince – Dirty Mind
Diana Ross – Diana
Bruce Springsteen – The River
Stevie Wonder – Hotter Than July
Talking Heads – Remain In Light
U2 – Boy
Young Marble Giants – Colossal Youth
Steppenwolf live was a reference for all collectors always classified in the ten discs to have in the 70s in Europe. KISS
It should not be sponsored by Spotify Premium and I should be directed to the discogs entry for the album and not to Spotify. Come on guys and gals…
I enjoyed the article and the list, however, “Let It Be” shouldn’t have been on there. The Beatles had almost nothing to do with it and it was released after they broke up. I’ve secured the “Let It Be” single in my collection and called it a day for the great band from Liverpool.
Yawn…..very typical list, and ultra mainstream in scope. Snore…
The Flying Burrito Brothers – Burrito Deluxe…
Desertshore – Nico…
John Cale – Vintage Violence…
The Byrds- (Untitled)…
Badfinger, No Dice??
Badfinger, No Dice?
Great year. Order is whack but strong list.
Oh, I almost forgot . . . Happy Birthday, Elton! Thank You for the Music & The Piano
1) Elton John — his self-titled US debut album.
2) Gilbert O’Sullivan Himself — the US version has “Alone Again, Naturally.”
3) The Partridge Family — The Partridge Family Album. Scoff all you like, but when you have Mike Melvoin, father of Wendy Melvoin from Prince and the Revolution, on piano alongside other top LA session musicians, it’s all in good fun.
@discobaffo It says best albums of 1970, not 1970s
Great list, I own 19 of these on vinyl. I’m sorry that others cannot read.
Ladies of the canyon???
Joni Mitchell “Ladies of the Canyon”
Frank Zappa “Chunga’s Revenge”
James Taylor “Sweet Baby James”
Syd Barrett “The Madcap Laughs”
Stanley Turrentine “Sugar”
Freddie Hubbard “Red Clay”
For all the people criticizing the list… please go back and look to see how it was compiled. Really, it’ll make you all look less silly.
Yet again – It appears that this tired, obligatory “Rolling Stone Magazine” type list was made by someone who started buying “VINYL” a few years ago. Too many omissions, Junior.
Where’s Parachute from the Pretty Things?
How is possible don’t list one record of Steely Dan….Aja is a Masterpiece…pls c’mon…!!!
This is not a bad list at all (beside the Black Sabbath double: then why not also Van Morrisons His Band and the Street Choir or CCR’s Pendulum?). But if you think The Man Who Sold The World is memorable, let me add a few personal favorites myself: Allman Brothers- Idlewild South, Nick Drake -Bryter Layter, It’s A Beautiful Day – Marrying Maiden, Marvin Gaye – Thats the way Love is, John Martyn – Road to Ruin, Willie Dixon – I Am the Blues, Brinsley Schwarz – Brinsley Schwarz & Despite it All
This article caught my attention because 1970 was the year I graduated from high school. In short, I was with the list up until the top 10. Just because many didn’t get some of these issues then, they’re wanted now. Means nothing when compiling a “best’ list. As all lists are, it’s totally arbitrary. dharmachine, data lies alot, ask most any statistician. atstwo, it’s one year, 1970, not the entire decade. Oh, and good catch jeffthrow6892. Always good for everyone’s opinion. Please continue…
As for early US pressings of “Paranoid”, – quoting here — “on the green Capitol label” ….WHAT? I think that should have said, on the green Warner Bros. label, right? Anyway, real good list, although Floyd’s “Atom Heart Mother” surprised the hell out of me even making such a list…
Good music n good write up. Agree that the list would make for a great collection in its own right, will definitely revisit. Also has a good measure of controversy it seems. Cheers!
I realize this isn’t a genuine “best” list. Just an over-view of what the discog community has and/or wants. But I can’t help my-self so I will make some “improvements”. Hehe.
12 albums that should have made the list but didn’t:
“Cold Fact” by Rodriguez, “Free Your Mind….” and “Funkadelic” by Funkadelic, “Everything is Everything” by Donny Hathaway, “Psychedelic Shack” by The Temptations, “Twelve Dreams of Dr Sardonicus” by Spirit, “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” by Joe Cocker, “Bryter Later” by Nick Drake, “Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out” by the Rolling Stones, “Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround” by the Kinks, “Ladies of the Canyon” by Joni Mitchell” and the soundtrack album for a little concert some of you may have heard of, “Woodstock”.
I could easily cut 12 albums from that list to make way for them too. There are a lot of minor albums by major (popular) artists there. I’ve probably taken too much time already. It just bugs me a bit that you use the term “best”. It’s all subjective. The group-think of the Discogs community is NOT the same as best. Data really can lie sometimes.
Hmm..I thought everyone had Machine Head, Dark Side of the Moon, Frampton Comes Alive, Yellow Brick Road, and At Filmore East
Those who made this list does not knows anything about prog music from the 60/70-ies.
I make it 13-12 to the UK bands. Struggling till top 5 came along. Happy with 2 Sabbaths in top 5. Still trying to work out what’s missing.
It’s all data-driven. Most Collected and Most Wanted combined. Data speaks the truth.
Please clarify how you set the order for these. It’s a good list, but two Sabbath albums near the top?