The Most Shocking Rock + Metal Moments of the 1970s

The 1970s were a pivotal time for music. Between the birth of heavy metal in 1970 and the development of many new sub genres under both the rock and metal umbrellas, it’s a period of music history that we seem to take for granted now.

And a lot of really crazy stuff happened.

The Beatles broke up, and they each went off in their own directions. The deaths of three prominent singers at the age of 27 just a few months apart from each other spawned the concept of the “27 Club,” which later saw the additions of other massive musicians such as Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse. Elvis Presley died, though the conditions were left a mystery for a long time. One of the biggest southern rock bands’ reign was cut short when their plane went down in rural Mississippi. A punk rocker was accused of killing his girlfriend. Fans were trampled to death at a concert in Ohio.

READ MORE: The Biggest Rock + Metal Moments of 1973

We compiled a list of the most shocking moments that happened within the rock and metal world throughout the 1970s, and presented it below in chronological order. Scroll through the slides to see what music fans were hearing on the news around five decades ago — it was a wild time. And in the decades that followed, it only got wilder.

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