10 Best Hard Rock Bands Of The 1970's

As rock music staggered into the 1970's, it was clear that the Summer of Love that had been the dream of thousands of rockers was nothing more than a passing fantasy. While the utopian ideal for rock didn't pan out, the 60's did leave fertile ground for all different stripes of rock music to spring to the surface.

All of a sudden, rock started to get nasty and take on a much harder bent than it had in the past. Even though bands like Steppenwolf and the Stooges were pioneering a more uninhibited form of rock music early on, the 70's absolutely erupted with bands who were taking the typical rock format and bringing distortion, menace, and groove into the picture.

These bands marked the beginning of rock growing from a teenybopper fad into a true cultural force that could decimate anything in its path. Quickly following suit, some of the great bands of the 60's even went through drastic changes in style to mark their separation from the 60's mindset. After these bands forged their own paths, rock was no longer just fun recreational music. Rock had now become a lifestyle that all rockers would give their souls for.

Deep in the heart of New York City in the early 70's, 4 misfits came together to put together one of the greatest rock shows ever conceived. When KISS got the ball rolling, the band were amateur musicians who were focused on using spectacle as a way to grab their audience by the throat. As they went on, they ended up churning out some of the best rock and roll of the era.

When you go back and listen to the band's early records, the songs are more or less just meat-and-potatoes rock and roll. However, their live album Alive! showed the world the band's capacity of taking their standard rock songs and blowing them up to gargantuan proportions. Once the door had been kicked down, the band took great strides in the studio with fantastic tales of rock and roll debauchery like on "Detroit Rock City" and "Love Gun." The band even had more gentle moments in their catalog that foreshadowed the power ballads of the 1980's like "Beth" and "Hard Luck Woman."

The message behind the band's music may not be the most profound, but KISS reinforced the idea of rock and roll as a 24-hour party with a sound that was larger than life.