What's Going OnMarvin Gaye
What's Going On
1971 · From What's Going On
Party chatter, a sax that sighs, and Gaye asking the question Motown begged him not to ask.
★ 9.9
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1971
Showing 104 works across all media from 1971
What's Going On
1971
Berry Gordy called it the worst thing he had ever heard and refused to release it until Gaye said he would never record for Motown again.
★ 9.8
Stairway to HeavenLed Zeppelin
Stairway to Heaven
1971 · From Led Zeppelin IV
Eight minutes that climb from recorders to Page's solo, never released as a single and never needing to be.
★ 9.3
Led Zeppelin IV
1971
There is no title and no band name anywhere on the sleeve, just four symbols the members chose. The label thought it was commercial suicide.
★ 9.3
Blue
1971
Mitchell was so exposed making it that she asked visitors to leave the studio. Kris Kristofferson told her to keep something back for herself.
★ 9.1
Baba O'Riley
1971 · From Who's Next
That opening arpeggio is a Lowrey organ's marimba repeat function; Dave Arbus's violin sends the ending careening.
★ 9.0
Who's Next
1971
What survived an abandoned science-fiction project became this record. The keyboard figure opening Baba O'Riley was generated by a machine rather than played.
★ 8.8
Layla
1971 · From Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs
Clapton wanted his friend's wife; Duane Allman's slide answers every line, then Jim Gordon's piano coda changes everything.
★ 8.7
A Clockwork Orange
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
1971
Kubrick pulled it from British cinemas himself after the reaction, and it stayed unavailable there for twenty-seven years: a state that enforces goodness, an invented slang, imagery nobody forgets.
★ 8.7
Let's Stay TogetherAl Green
Let's Stay Together
1971 · From Greatest Hits
Willie Mitchell and Al Jackson handed Green a track; he reportedly had the lyric in five minutes.
★ 8.6
Imagine
1971 · From Imagine
Grapefruit, Ono's book of poems, supplied the idea; Lennon supplied the piano; in 2017 she finally got the credit.
★ 8.5
There's a Riot Goin' On
1971
Sly overdubbed most of it alone onto a drum machine at home. The title track is listed as running zero seconds and has no music.
★ 8.4
Changes (David Bowie)
1971 · From Hunky Dory
Rick Wakeman's piano, Bowie's own saxophone, and a stutter on the title that flopped before it defined him.
★ 8.3
A Theory of Justice
1971 · 538 pages
Rawls asks which rules you would pick for a society without knowing your place in it. His answer, equal liberties and inequality only when it lifts the worst off, reset political philosophy.
★ 8.3
Hunky Dory
1971
Rick Wakeman plays the piano throughout, and Bowie wrote Kooks in an afternoon for his newborn son. Ziggy Stardust was still a year away.
★ 8.1
Won't Get Fooled Again
1971 · From Who's Next
Eight and a half minutes, a Lowrey organ run through a VCS3, and Daltrey's scream tearing into the final verse.
★ 8.0
Sticky Fingers
1971
Andy Warhol's sleeve had a real working zip, which scratched the records stacked behind it in the crates. The tongue logo starts here.
★ 8.0
Tapestry
1971
King had already written dozens of hits for other people before anyone heard her sing. This one sold twenty-five million copies.
★ 7.9