(...a)nother problem is that almost nobody remembers anything about the
1970s very fondly, partly because the
1960s were a tough act to follow. Yet the 1970s were a time of great artistic
ferment, especially in the popular arts. The collapse of the
Hollywood studio system enabled
Martin Scorsese and
Francis Ford Coppola to bring their movies to the screen with minimal
commercial interference (though test screenings and the millions made by
Star Wars and its
sequels put an end to that). The original cast of
Saturday Night Live broadened the horizons of
television sketch comedy. In
classical music the composers
Steve Reich and
Philip Glass made tonality and rhythm and a large
vision of the world acceptable again, after several decades of composers who made minute adjustments to the
twelve-tone scale. (That Reich and Glass were supposed to be "
minimalists" was one of the decade's delicious ironies.) In pop,
disco sparked what may prove to have been the last national
dance craze, and
punk and
New Wave set the tone for most of today's
alternative rock. Yet all that anyone seems to remember about the 1970s is the
sexual promiscuity and the
polyester (it was the decade that fashion forgot).
-- Francis Davis, from "Jazz -- Religious and Circus", in the February 2000 issue of Atlantic Monthly