In the Mix – How Awesome Was 1971?

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Blame friend-of-the-station Jim Bricker. He got in touch the other day, asked “how awesome was 1971?”, and wouldn’t let it go — and the more we dug, the more the question answered itself. So we’ve built a special around it: two hours (all right, a little more) making the case that 1971 might just be the greatest year popular music ever had. Jim chose the tracks – and I added a few bonus tracks at the end. The idea isn’t ours alone. Music writer David Hepworth wrote a whole book on it, 1971 — Never a Dull Moment, arguing this was the year the album grew up and everyone seemed to make the record of their lives all at once. Then there was the excellent Apple TV series. We’ll put his argument to you — and, because we’re fair-minded, we’ll also hand you the case against, from the folks who reckon he’s simply picked the year he happened to turn twenty-one.

Mostly, though, we’ll just play you the evidence, because it’s overwhelming. One year gave us Tapestry and Blue and What’s Going On; the Beatles scattering into brilliant, bickering solo careers; Marvin Gaye and Sly Stone holding a mirror up to the times; prog stretching its legs, glam pulling on its feathers, and Led Zeppelin recording drums in a stairwell. There’s Bowie reinventing himself, Joni Mitchell breaking your heart in a folk song, and a closing run that lands, inevitably, on Imagine. Pour something, settle in, and decide for yourself. Was it really the best of them all? Tune in — and tell us we’re wrong.