Introduction: The Long 1970s

The 1970s as a decade, until recently, had a very poor reputation. Sandwiched between the supposedly creative, liberating 1960s and the conservative, neoliberal reformation of the 1980s, the 1970s have frequently been seen as a regressive era of cheesy and kitsch music, ridiculous fashions, and cultural and political stagnation. And yet, whether one looks at the cultural spheres of music, film, and radio or the explosions of the social and political movements for which 1968 was more of a beginning point than an end, this view of the 1970s is unjustified. This misperception of the 1970s is taken up in Howard Sounes's populist but not unperceptive account of the decade, in which he claims that it has been buried under a consensus at odds with what actually happened during these years:

If the media Sounes focuses on to counter this impression from the music of Lou Reed and the Sex Pistols; or the films of Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Woody Allen; to the design of the Sydney Opera House (originally designed in the 1950s but completed in the 1970s) are, in general, more mainstream than the media practices considered in this book, Sounes’ point that ‘the 1970s offered a vibrant, innovative and fascinating popular culture, much of which remains important’ (Sounes 2006, p.3), is equally applicable to the more radical and minor media that will be engaged with in this book. Similar points are made by Dave Haslam in his account of the 1970s, Young Hearts Run Free. In light of the frequent misrepresentations of the decade in terms of easily digestible kitsch nostalgia rather than the vibrant and conflictual subcultural phenomena that actually took place, he suggests that ‘the most pressing need is to rewrite the rewriting of history’ (Haslam 2007, p. 9).