10 Nearly Perfect Classic Rock Albums of the '70s, Ranked

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Band on the Run - album cover - Paul McCartney and Wings - 1973

Published Feb 17, 2026, 3:42 PM EST

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The 1970s doesn’t need defining. It’s a decade. There was music released during it. What might need defining is the term “classic rock.” It was pretty big during the 1970s, and might well have even been that decade’s more prominent genre. If something had electric guitars, was fairly approachable (maybe even radio-friendly), and approached broad material lyrically, and came out in the 1970s, there’s a good chance it’s classic rock.

What follows below is not a rundown of the best of the best classic rock albums of the 1970s, but instead a bunch that are like, A-minus level in quality, rather than A’s or A+’s. That’s to say they're all excellent still, but not usually representative of the very best those behind such albums were capable of. Close to it, though. Close to masterful, in any event, and that’s more than enough.

10 'Exile on Main St.' (1972)

The Rolling Stones

Classic rock did start, as a genre or sub-genre or whatever you want to call it, in the back half of the 1960s. That’s also when The Rolling Stones were really blowing up and becoming genre-defining, though their earliest work arguably pre-dated “classic rock,” if only by a little. But within the sub-genre, The Rolling Stones became definitive, and certainly by the 1970s, they were about as classic as rock acts got.

The Rolling Stones chose to go bigger and looser here, with fewer single-worthy tracks and a sprawling approach that led to Exile on Main St. being a double album.

Exile on Main St. was the band’s follow-up to Sticky Fingers, which is an arguably perfect rock album, and Exile on Main St. was only a little off from it quality-wise. The Rolling Stones chose to go bigger and looser here, with fewer single-worthy tracks and a sprawling approach that led to Exile on Main St. being a double album. It’s a mostly consistent listen, even with that length, and the lesser songs here still fit in with what the album’s going for stylistically, albeit while technically dragging things down just a little in terms of quality.

9 'Band on the Run' (1973)

Paul McCartney and Wings

The Beatles also did for classic rock what The Rolling Stones kind of did, albeit the former broke up by the start of the 1970s, while The Rolling Stones arguably peaked during the early 1970s. But thankfully, the members of The Beatles kept going on their own, with Paul McCartney having an especially prolific solo career, with more than 20 post-Beatles albums, including Band on the Run.

Technically, Band on the Run is a Paul McCartney and Wings album, but that’s a bit like when Tom Petty would do an album as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers; it’s McCartney people were there for. Flaws-wise, maybe Band on the Run peaks a little early, thanks to the one-two-punch of the opening title track followed by “Jet,” but most of what comes after is still very good, and the album concludes well, thanks to the final track, “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five.”

8 'Here Come the Warm Jets' (1974)

Brian Eno

It’s hard to know how to describe the music of Brian Eno. It’s not often classic rock, because Eno’s ambient music is especially well known, but it’s also not always experimental. There is an approachability to something like Here Come the Warm Jets, even though it’s a bit out of step with some of the other albums mentioned here, and probably would've seemed out of step/ahead of its time had it been released much later in time, like even into the 21st century.

It’s cool, though. Here Come the Warm Jets is a great album, and it is mostly recognizable as a rock one, albeit it’s kind of art rock, and maybe even a little glam rock, too. If you want to get a sense of what Eno was capable of as a solo artist, back in the 1970s, this is a solid starting point (though 1975’s Another Green World, which isn't really “rock” in any sense, is probably his masterpiece).

7 'Talking Heads: 77' (1977)

Talking Heads

Oh hey, here’s Talking Heads, a band that had Brian Eno as a producer for three of their best albums, released between 1978 and 1980 (including arguably their greatest, Remain in Light). But the Talking Heads + Eno team-up was still a little while away, in 1977, with the band’s appropriately named debut album that year, Talking Heads: 77, being a little off those albums in terms of quality… but not by much.

Talking Heads: 77, though acknowledged as imperfect by its being here, is still kind of underrated. Everyone knows about it because it’s the album that houses “Psycho Killer,” but other songs here are also very good, especially those found in the album’s back half. If anything, it’s only a couple of songs in the album’s first half that weigh the whole thing down ever so slightly (the likes of “Tentative Decisions” and “Who Is It?” are a touch forgettable).

6 'A Day at the Races' (1976)

Queen

Like A Night at the Opera, Queen’s A Day at the Races was named after a Marx Brothers movie, and it’s fitting in both cases, since the two albums are remarkably theatrical and maybe even cinematic. A Night at the Opera is the superior one, and not exclusively because it has “Bohemian Rhapsody…” well, okay, you can’t pretend that doesn’t help at least a little.

Truth be told, other than not having as magnificent a standout track, A Day at the Races is pretty much on the same level as A Night at the Opera, and then the standout track here, “Somebody to Love,” is still quite excellent. It’s a well-paced and well-balanced album that showcases Queen at their near-best, and it’s hard to imagine someone enjoying A Night at the Opera and then not being able to get something out of A Day at the Races, too.

5 'Tusk' (1979)

Fleetwood Mac

Though they're on the softer side as far as rock’s concerned, if you're talking about great/iconic classic rock and don’t mention Fleetwood Mac, it’s probably going to raise a few eyebrows. Rumours is often considered the band’s best, and with good reason, but Tusk is almost just as good, and it goes in the direction of the aforementioned Exile on Main St. by being a little more out there, expansive, and experimental.

It is to Rumours what Exile on Main St. was to Sticky Fingers, basically. Also, Tusk is worth mentioning here because it does have some of Fleetwood Mac’s more energetic and borderline raw-sounding rock songs, which is a direction they largely moved away from going into a comparatively mellower 1980s (see 1982’s Mirage and 1987’s Tango in the Night).

4 'The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle' (1973)

Bruce Springsteen

You can’t go wrong with any of the first eight studio albums Bruce Springsteen put out; basically, anything with his name on it that came out during the 1970s or 1980s. Hell, you can go beyond the studio albums and find some remarkable stuff, because the mammoth live album that is Live 1975–85 is perhaps one of the best ever released (it does make you feel like you're sitting through an actual marathon Springsteen concert).

As for almost perfect ones from the 1970s, Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town are out, because both of them are “too” remarkable. But Springsteen’s second album, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, fits in well here. It’s seven songs all up, and six of them are some degree of amazing, beautiful, or heartbreaking… except for “Wild Billy's Circus Story.” That one’s a bit of a dud. Everything else here is gold, though.

3 'The Wall' (1979)

Pink Floyd

Probably the hottest take found in this ranking is the suggestion that The Wall, by Pink Floyd (well, more Roger Waters over anyone else in this particular instance), is imperfect. It should be stressed that it’s still amazing, and it’s also easy to appreciate The Wall in terms of what it did for concept albums and this whole idea of really telling a story throughout a high number of songs, doing so arguably better than just about any other double-length concept album that came before it.

That story is interesting, albeit a little hard to always understand, unless you watch 1982’s Pink Floyd: The Wall. That helps. But just as far as the music goes, The Wall does drag in a few spots close to the end. It’s hard to top “Comfortably Numb,” once that song hits, but the run of tracks after that is still mostly good… except for maybe “The Trial.” That goes on for quite a while and is a bit annoying. If that sounds like a nitpick, that’s because it is. Again, this album is still mostly excellent.

2 'Aladdin Sane' (1973)

David Bowie

By 1973, David Bowie had pretty much made it, at least critically, though he wouldn’t peak commercially for about another decade (Let’s Dance being Bowie at his poppiest and most popular). But sticking to 1973, Bowie had the difficult task of making a follow-up to an album as perfect as 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, and he did so admirably with Aladdin Sane.

This one keeps the glam rock thing going, but probably emphasizes the “rock” side of things to an even greater extent than the debatably more eclectic The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. It is a consistently very good album, but in the opinion of this writer, it’s a little shy of truly great. Maybe a 9/10 sort of thing, so still excellent, but the previous album was definitely a 10/10, and so too was Station to Station a little later in the 1970s, so Bowie was indeed capable of even greater stuff than Aladdin Sane.

1 'Physical Graffiti' (1975)

Led Zeppelin

The last few Led Zeppelin albums aren’t irredeemable, but the band’s first six are largely untouchable. The run from the four self-titled albums to Houses of the Holy and then the double album, Physical Graffiti, is a remarkable one. As for Physical Graffiti, it is a mostly remarkable album. It is long, and for a decent chunk of its duration, it’s satisfying in all the ways you'd hope classic rock would be.

The problem is it’s just a bit too long, and unlike The Wall, there isn't really a concept or narrative here to keep you invested during the lesser tracks. The first half of Physical Graffiti is basically perfect, especially since it contains the phenomenal “Kashmir,” and then the second half is a little less consistent… but, again, still good. It largely earns its status as a double album, albeit not to quite the same extent as, say, The Clash’s London Calling or The Who’s Quadrophenia.