In the seventies, youth culture waved the white flag. Alternative culture still existed, but it retreated from the mainstream until it was almost powerless. At first, music benefited from the confusion and excess of ideas that had lingered from the mislaid optimism of the previous decade. By mid-decade, societal change was abandoned in the name of unenlightened self-interest; this meant the proliferation of ‘happy-face’ buttons, “Have a Nice Day” sloganeering, and eventually, disco. While Nixon’s resignation of the presidency could have been interpreted as a victory for the counterculture, the realization that no political vision coalesced from the ruins resulted in mass abandonment of a political agenda. Drugs and long hair were no longer a form of protest. Instead, they became a fashion accessory and a means of escaping reality. As the Vietnam war ended with a whimper, the American zeitgeist retreated to take stock of all that had happened. With a grueling recession forcing individuals to protect their own self-interest, a mindset coalesced that would come to be known as “The ‘Me’ Decade”.
One change that made a huge impact on 70s culture was the growth of women’s rights. As the 60s became the 70s, women were making their way out of the kitchen and into the workplace. Of course, there have always been women that work for a living, but in the 70s it began to be “okay” for wives and moms to distribute responsibility for their home and family to others while they went out and made some extra bucks, money that helped pay for the houses and cars that were growing in size and cost. But even though mothers were heading out to work each morning, the family unit was still an essential element of 70s culture, though what the family looked like certainly began to change. The divorce rate began to skyrocket towards the end of the decade.
Music suffered in a manner that was unthinkable in the sixties. With no visionary leaders to unify the masses, pop culture began to splinter into sub-divisions. Instead of a wealth of ideas, the resultant diversity often resulted in ignorance and a polarity of tastes, while pop music redefined itself as a means of lighthearted, and often simple-minded, escapism. By decades’ end, a new generation of rebels tried to break down the cultural atrophy with an angry, revitalized form of rock and roll known as ‘punk music’, but mass acceptance wasn’t forthcoming until it was de-fanged and diluted into something that came to be known as “The New Wave”. Despite all attempts, nothing was able to reclaim music from the hedonistic grasp of disco.