Lord Lordy, Look Who's Forty: The Best Albums Of 1972

This week we look at the best albums of 1972, now four decades in the hole, but no less fulfilling and influential. What can you say about a year that arguably - careful with that axe - the best albums from the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Lou Reed, Can, Deep Purple, and Neil Young? Not to mention more boutique releases from Hawkwind, Captain Beefheart, Nick Drake, Roxy Music, Captain Beyond, and the Raspberries.

We were a year from the first Bruce Springsteen, Queen, and New York Dolls records, a year from the Stooges' Raw Power, and the formation of AC/DC down under was at least a year away. Glam ruled the roost in the UK, with Bowie, Roxy, Rex, Mott, and Slade putting out albums, but you also had proggy expanses from the Moody Blues and Yes. It was a wildly varied year.

Singer-songwriters of all stripes abounded. Townes Van Zandt released High, Low and in Between, featuring "To Live Is To Fly" and "Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold", and then there was Paul Simon's debut solo offering post-Garfunkel.

This was the same year that Pink Floyd would first play the next year's Dark Side Of The Moon for an audience, an album that would end up outlasting the band, and which still manages to move copious units in record stores all over the world.

Two years past the Beatles breakup, and the music scene was still reeling. The band members were making waves on their own. Paul McCartney's Wings project began touring, John Lennon and Yoko Ono made their landmark appearances on The Mike Douglas Show, just as Lennon's U.S. immigration visa was about to expire. George Harrison's The Concert for Bangladesh was released to theaters, and he was readying 1973's Living in the Material World. Ringo Starr was making his third solo LP, Ringo.

The list goes on and on. Whaddya got?