The 1970s weren't just about disco balls and bell-bottoms. Honestly, if you look at the charts from that decade, you’re seeing the blueprint for every modern pop star from Taylor Swift to SZA. It was a chaotic, brilliant, and often frustrating time for women in music. They weren't just singing; they were dismantling a system that basically expected them to be quiet, pretty, and replaceable.
Female artists of the 70s didn't just break the glass ceiling—they shattered it and used the shards to write some of the best lyrics in history.
Think about the sheer audacity it took for Joni Mitchell to release Blue in 1971. It was raw. It was vulnerable in a way that felt almost uncomfortable for the time. She wasn't playing a character. She was just Joni. And that’s the thing—the 70s marked the first time women were consistently recognized as the primary architects of their own sound, rather than just the "voice" for a male producer's vision.
The Singer-Songwriter Explosion and the Death of the "Girl Group" Mold
Before the 70s, women in the industry were often handled. Think of the Motown era or the 60s pop starlets. They were brilliant, obviously, but they were often part of a machine. Then came the 1970s.
Carole King changed the game with Tapestry.
It’s hard to overstate how massive that album was. It stayed on the charts for six years. Six. Years. King had spent the 60s writing hits for other people in the Brill Building, but when she stepped behind the mic herself, she gave a voice to a generation of women who were navigating the messy transition between traditional domesticity and the "second wave" of feminism. It wasn't flashy. It was just a woman, a piano, and some incredibly honest observations about friendship and heartbreak.
Then you had Carly Simon. "You’re So Vain" is basically the original "diss track." It created a mystery that lasted decades. Who was it about? Warren Beatty? Mick Jagger? It didn't matter. What mattered was that a woman was calling out male ego on a global stage, and people were buying it by the millions.
But it wasn't all folk-rock and piano ballads.
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The Rock Revolution and the Hard Road
While Carole King was ruling the soft-rock airwaves, other women were busy plugging in their guitars and turning the volume up to eleven. You can't talk about female artists of the 70s without mentioning the Runaways or Heart.
Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart were a revelation. Ann had a voice that could crack granite, and Nancy was a genuine guitar hero. They had to deal with some truly gross marketing tactics from their labels—like an ad that suggested the two sisters were in a romantic relationship just to sell records—but they pushed through. "Barracuda" wasn't just a catchy riff; it was a middle finger to the industry that tried to objectify them.
And then there’s Stevie Nicks.
Stevie joined Fleetwood Mac in the mid-70s and basically turned a struggling British blues band into the biggest pop-rock machine on the planet. Her songwriting on Rumours is legendary. She brought this mystical, ethereal energy that made it okay for women to be weird, witchy, and intensely emotional all at once. She proved that you could be the most powerful person in the room while wearing chiffon and platform boots.
The Disco Divas and the Politics of the Dancefloor
It's easy to dismiss disco as fluff, but that’s a mistake. For many women, especially Black and Queer women, the disco era was about liberation.
Donna Summer wasn't just the "Queen of Disco." She was a pioneer of electronic music. "I Feel Love," produced with Giorgio Moroder in 1977, is the reason we have EDM today. It sounds like the future. Even now, nearly 50 years later, it doesn't sound dated.
Gloria Gaynor’s "I Will Survive" became an anthem for... well, everyone. But specifically, it gave women a song about moving on from toxic relationships that wasn't a sad ballad. It was a song you danced to. It was defiant.
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- Donna Summer: Pushed the boundaries of what "pop" could sound like using synthesizers.
- Diana Ross: Successfully transitioned from a group (The Supremes) to a solo powerhouse, proving women could maintain longevity.
- Grace Jones: Started her rise in the late 70s, blending art, fashion, and music in a way that challenged every gender norm in the book.
Punk, New Wave, and the End of the Decade
By the late 70s, things were getting gritty. The polished production of the early 70s gave way to the raw energy of punk.
Patti Smith’s Horses (1975) is one of those albums that changes your life the first time you hear it. She wasn't interested in being a "female artist." She was a poet. She was a punk. She looked like Keith Richards and sang like a shaman. She showed that women didn't have to be pretty or accessible to be respected.
Then you had Debbie Harry and Blondie.
Debbie Harry was the ultimate cool girl. She took the "sex symbol" trope and turned it into a performance. She was in control of her image in a way that was very meta. Blondie’s blend of punk, disco, and eventually rap (in "Rapture," though that was 1980, the groundwork was laid in '79) showed that women could be the most versatile players in the game.
The Overlooked Legends
We talk about Stevie and Joni a lot. But what about Betty Davis? Not Miles Davis's wife (well, she was, but that's the least interesting thing about her), but the funk icon. She was too "raw" for the radio in the 70s. Her lyrics were sexually explicit and her stage presence was wild. She was decades ahead of her time, paving the way for artists like Prince and Janelle Monáe.
Or Linda Ronstadt.
People forget how much Linda Ronstadt absolutely dominated the decade. She could sing anything—country, rock, opera, standards. She was the first "stadium rock" female superstar. She didn't write most of her songs, which some critics used against her, but her ability to curate and interpret music was a genius-level skill in itself. She made every song she touched the "definitive" version.
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What People Get Wrong About 70s Music History
A lot of people think the 70s was just a "transition" period between the 60s revolution and the 80s MTV era. That’s wrong. The 70s was where the heavy lifting happened.
It was the decade where women took over the business side, too. They started owning their publishing. They started producing. They started saying "no" to the outfits they didn't want to wear.
The industry was still incredibly sexist—don't get it twisted. Female artists were often paid less, harassed more, and taken less seriously than their male peers. But the female artists of the 70s fought those battles so that the women who came after them didn't have to (as much).
- Joni Mitchell's Blue basically invented the "confessional" singer-songwriter genre.
- The 1970s saw the first time a woman (Carole King) won the Grammy for Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Album of the Year all at once.
- Punk rock in the late 70s (The Slits, Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex) challenged the very idea of what a "female" voice should sound like—often favoring screams and discordance over melody.
How to Deep Dive Into 1970s Women in Music
If you're tired of the same three songs on "70s Gold" radio, you've got to dig a little deeper.
Start with the albums that weren't just hits, but shifts in the cultural tectonic plates. Listen to Blue by Joni Mitchell, then jump to Horses by Patti Smith. The contrast is wild. One is internal and melodic; the other is external and explosive.
Check out the documentary 20 Feet from Stardom to see the Black women who were the powerhouse vocalists behind the biggest rock hits of the decade but didn't always get the credit on the album cover. It’s an eye-opener.
Also, look into the "Women's Music" movement of the 70s—labels like Olivia Records that were entirely woman-run. They were creating a whole parallel industry because the mainstream one was too slow to change.
Actionable Next Steps for Music Lovers:
- Create a "Non-Hits" Playlist: Look for the "B-sides" of artists like Fleetwood Mac or Heart. You’ll find weirder, more experimental tracks that show their true range.
- Read the Memoirs: If you want the real story, read Just Kids by Patti Smith or The Woman in Me (though more modern, it references the legacy of these eras). Stevie Nicks’ interviews from the 70s are also a masterclass in navigating fame.
- Vinyl Hunting: 70s records were mastered for analog. If you can find an original pressing of Tapestry or Rumours, buy it. The warmth of the sound is how that music was meant to be heard.
- Study the Lyrics: Take a song like "Coyote" by Joni Mitchell. Read it like a poem. The 70s was the peak of narrative songwriting, and there's a lot to learn there for anyone interested in writing or storytelling.
The legacy of these women isn't just a "throwback" Thursday post. It's the foundation of the music industry as we know it. They proved that a woman's perspective wasn't a "niche" market—it was the market. By being unapologetically themselves, they changed the world.