I guess Ozzy ain't really Iron Man after all. He's lucky he's still among the living!
I remember as a kid hearing Sabbath on AM radio. And Led Zeppelin, and Free, and all kinds of stuff that Top 40 would never touch today. Yes, there were far fewer choices for music in the 1970s. No Spotify, YouTube, SiriusXM or bandcamp. But what radio and TV options we had tended to carry artists from all across the a musical spectrum.
Sure, you had to sit through some lousy songs about afternoon delight and convoys, but it was pretty cool being exposed to that stylistic range. example, I discovered reggae because of Desmond Dekker's The Israelites. I could hear the marvelous voice of Tom Jones and Dusty Springfield. I heard the early days of power pop from Badfinger. I got to hear the gritty sound of real country, not that phony cowboy pop you hear now. All that great soul on the Motown and Stax labels, the folk artists, the one-hit wonders ... I ate it all up. And I still listen to it all and a lot more, old and new, every day.
I know I sound like grandpa rambling, but if you weren't around in those days, you really missed the peak of music radio. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of great music being made by new artists today, and I love being able to track down stuff online and create my own playlists. But something about top 40, and the way it forced you to hear more of a mix, made it special, more of a unifying social and cultural force.
