60 Best Obscure Singer-Songwriter Albums from the 70's
by BorderFreeAndrew

Back in the early 70's James Taylor was considered the leader of the Singer-Songwriter movement. Post-hippie era introspection was all the rage and Taylor was the gold standard, the voice of his generation, yada yada. Critics salivated over each new album and he sold truckloads. Everybody loved sweet baby James.

There was just one problem with all that: Taylor was never particularly good. In fact, most of his shit was boring as hell. His most-acclaimed album, Sweet Baby James, did include three legitimately great songs ("Fire & Rain", "Country Road", and the title track). But the rest of it was dull and forgettable. I'll be generous and give it 3.5 stars on the strength of those three classics. But the bulk of his discography is an exercise in sterile, narcoleptic drudgery, peppered with a few embarrassingly whitebread covers of old soul tunes.

So it's a damn crying shame to think about all the unfortunate listeners who might be dipping their feet into the 70's Singer-Songwriter waters for the first time and get scared/bored away from the genre when Taylor is the first artist they encounter. If this overrated snooze is the best there is, then why dig any deeper?

Well, my friends, here are 60 reasons to dig deeper. Every album on this list is worth at least 4 stars IMO, which automatically makes them better than any James Taylor album. Sadly, 70's music magazines like Rolling Stone were too busy fellating Taylor every issue to even notice that these artists existed. So they floundered in relative obscurity while JT was taking coke-fueled yacht trips between mansions.

Obviously, there were plenty of famous singer-songwriters back then who were also better than Taylor (Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Cat Stevens, etc). But for this list, I'm shining a light on the lesser-known ones.

Some of the artists on this list may be well-known to seasoned BEA users, who might then quibble with describing them as "obscure". So here's how I'm defining "Obscure" for the purposes of this list:
Any artist who never made the US Top 40 charts (singles or albums) and is virtually unknown to the vast majority of Americans.

Some of the artists from other countries may be stars in their homeland, but they're cult figures at best in the US. Also, some of the artists on the list began their recording careers in the 60's. That's ok and shouldn't exclude them. As long as they never achieved mainstream success in any decade, their 70's albums are eligible. One album per artist.

• Chart updated: 12/08/2024 21:45
• (Created: 02/10/2021 23:29).
• Chart size: 60 albums.

• Summary
• Composition
• Ratings
• Favourites
• Comments
• Your feedback

View the complete list of 57,000 charts on BestEverAlbums.com from The Charts page.

This chart is currently filtered to only show albums from 1976. (Remove this filter)

Sort by

• Overall Rank
• Num. Charts
• Avg. Rating
• Num. Ratings
• Release Date
• Title
• Artist

38. (=)

Kate & Anna McGarrigle 

 Kate & Anna McGarrigle

Buy album

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• #Sponsored

[First added to this chart: 12/08/2024]

Year of Release:

1976

Appears in:

80 charts

Rank Score:

351

Rank in 1976:

67

Rank in 1970s:

693

Overall Rank:

4,071

Average Rating:

 74 (70 votes)

Comments:

1

Total albums: 1. Page 1 of 1

60 Best Obscure Singer-Songwriter Albums from the 70's composition

Country	Albums	%
	21	35%
	19	32%
	5	8%
	3	5%
	3	5%
	2	3%
	1	2%
Show all

60 Best Obscure Singer-Songwriter Albums from the 70's chart changes

60 Best Obscure Singer-Songwriter Albums from the 70's similar charts

Title	Source	Type	Published	Country
Top 50 1970 Singer/Songwriter Albums	Mercury	Custom chart	2017
Top 46 Music Albums of 1971	CellarDoor	1971 year chart	2017
Genre Sampler: Singer/Songwriter (Folk & Rock)	Tha1ChiefRocka	Custom chart	2020
Top 35 Music Albums of 1971	weston	1971 year chart	2020
Top 12 Music Albums of 1971	Joao74	1971 year chart	2014
Top 20 Music Albums of 1971	MOgnjenovic	1971 year chart	2022
Best Albums Found Through BEA	flamingyesdept	Custom chart	2022
Top 16 Music Albums of 1974	Ensemble13	1974 year chart	2019
Top 12 Music Albums of 1974	ObsoleteEntity	1974 year chart	2017
Top 12 Greatest Music Albums	Divisionday	Overall chart	2010

60 Best Obscure Singer-Songwriter Albums from the 70's similarity to your chart(s)

Other custom charts by BorderFreeAndrew

Title	Source	Type	Published	Country
60 Best Obscure Singer-Songwriter Albums from the 70's	BorderFreeAndrew	Custom chart	2024
Looking For the Magic - The 50 Best Power Pop Albums	BorderFreeAndrew	Custom chart	2023

60 Best Obscure Singer-Songwriter Albums from the 70's ratings

Showing all 2 ratings for this chart.

Sort by

• Rating
• Date updated
• Member

Rating	Date updated	Member	Chart ratings	Avg. chart rating
90/100  !	10/07/2022 13:03	DommeDamian	1,003	89/100
100/100  !	07/27/2022 20:39	Soencer	47	100/100

• Related links:
• Top charts

60 Best Obscure Singer-Songwriter Albums from the 70's comments

Showing all 1 comments |
Most Helpful First | Newest First | Maximum Rated First | Longest Comments First
(Only showing comments with -2 votes or higher. You can alter this threshold from your profile page. Manage Profile)

Rating:  

90/100

From DommeDamian 01/05/2023 18:38 | #292524

don't appreciate the not-so-nice words about my man James but das okay, Imma listen to as many of these as I can (edit: Judee Sill is amazing). That Gene Clark one was so mediocre to me though, and I prefer John Martyn's Inside Out way more than Bless The Weather.
Also, Kim Larsen is (or was) the Bob Dylan of Denmark, basically a singer-songwriter hero among the people (though I only fw some of his songs)

Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)

Your feedback for 60 Best Obscure Singer-Songwriter Albums from the 70's

Let us know what you think of this chart by adding a comment or assigning a rating below!