#372 1976: Year in Metal (50 Years Later) — AC/DC, Rush, KISS, Judas Priest & More

1. 1976. The year of the American Bicentennial. The year that brought us “The Tale of Two Steves” (Jobs & Wozniak) who created the Apple Computer Company, Evel Knievel who successfully jumped 7 Greyhound Buses at the Kingdome in Seattle, and Bruce Jenner who took home the gold in the men’s decathlon at the Summer Olympics in Montreal.

1976 was all about being “on the train to Bangkok” and getting “super Asian” (so to speak) in your buddy’s Trans Am before catching The Song Remains The Same at the Midnight Movies. It was the year that brought us Kansas’ progressive “pre-metal” breakthrough masterpiece, Leftoverture, the year of not one but two (count ‘em, TWO!) KISS releases in the same year, and also the year that brought us perhaps the strangest and most misunderstood Black Sabbath album of the 1970’s.

Fast forward fifty years to 2026. America is now a quarter of a millennium old, and since 1976, we’ve gone from albums to 8-tracks…to cassettes…to compact discs…to streaming…and now BACK to albums, cassettes, and CD’s again, with music consumers and die-hard music fans enjoying a bit of a renaissance as they rediscover the joy of purchasing physical media and reading the lyric sheet & taking in the vibe of the album art all while listening to the music and being simultaneously transported to a completely different time and dimension…specifically, 1976.

Get ready for the weirdest question EVER from the world’s biggest KISS fan, understand why front AND back album art is so important, find out who James Hetfield’s long lost uncle probably might be, discover the endless joy of finding a “project band” (regardless if you’re from “Lebanon…Libya…or Lisbon”), and prepare for the most gloriously orchestrated “palette cleanser” you’ve ever experienced when you JOIN US as we go back to the 70’s and revisit the hard rock and pre-metal glory days of the CLASS OF 1976.

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Show Notes & Time Stamps

(00:01): “And we’re back…the biggest bailout in all of Metal Nerdery history…”/

“So, we just found out a neat little bit of history here…”

The mystery regarding the back album cover of AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

(Basically, the people are redacted on the back album cover but the eyeball redaction black bars from the front album cover are still in the same place as the people were on the front.)

NOTE: Technical Ecstasy is the 7th Black Sabbath album, NOT their 6th album…their sixth album is Sabotage.

***WARNING: #listenerdiscretionisadvised ***

“Everything is different than everything…”

***WELCOME BACK TO THE METAL NERDERY PODCAST LOCATED IN THE BUNKERPOON CENTER FOR METAL EXCELLENCE!!!***

***PATREON US at patreon.com/metalnerderypodcast

“Who’s Lee?”

(08:02): METAL NERDERY PODCAST PRESENTS: 1976 – YEAR IN METAL

“It’s ½ a century of metal…and rock (pre-metal) …metal wasn’t really a thing in 1976…not like it was in the 80’s…” /

“During the year of America’s bicentennial…now we’re a quarter of a millennium years old…”

“It’s kind of a rewind episode…” / “I’m googling I’m not looking at porn on my phone…”

“If you put your ’76 hat on, what’s the top Billboard (song)…the Billboard Top 100?” #Billboard

“Wait…did you say Eric Cartman?”/ #allbymyself / “You’ve gotta admit, Slow Ride is a bad ass song!”/ “That’s kinda pretty close to what I said…”

(14:25): “What about Wheeler’s song?”

#ACDC SQUEALER (Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap – 1976)

“This sounds like stripper music to me...”

“Sorry, I had to swallow…I love this part…”

“She said she’d never been…never been balled before…and I don’t think…she’ll ever ball no more…fixed her good…”

“You can’t listen to that and be sad…”

(18:42): “That’s probably one of THE heaviest Aerosmith songs I think…”

“Testament would have KILLED Back In The Saddle…”

#Aerosmith BACK IN THE SADDLE (Rocks – 1976)

“That just sounds kind of ominous…this might be one of my favorite Aerosmith songs…”

“Listen to that bass, dude…that’s gnarly!” / “Suki…”

“It’s the chorus and that bass for me, that’s what gets it…”

“This is Guns ‘N’ Roses before Guns ‘N’ Roses…”

“Southern metal is the next iteration of your Molly Hatchets and your Lynyrd Skynyrd…it’s just heavier…”

(23:05): “Hot take: off of Presence, what’s your fave tune?” / “Achilles Last Stand is the most metal thing on there…”

#LedZeppelin ACHILLES LAST STAND (Presence – 1976)

“What a way to open…ALL the cokelines, too…”/

“That is such a wild little fill…that riff is kinda crazy…”

“That climb is really cool, too…it’s very prog rock.”/

“The Runaways (debut album) came out in ’76…” #LitaFord / “She was not from Lebanon…or Libya…or Lisbon, Portugal…”

(27:15): “How about a little Rainbow?”

#Rainbow A LIGHT IN THE BLACK (Rising – 1976)

“Oh, that’s metal as hell…”

“That man’s voice…is gold…” / #RJD

“That’s metal before metal was metal…70’s style…that’s definitely more metal than rock, for sure…”

(29:30): “How about a little punk? How about some Ramones first album?”

“14 songs…29 minutes long…”

#Ramones BEAT ON THE BRAT (Ramones – 1976)

“It’s almost like Devo…kinda…it’s like punk Devo…”

(31:30): “How about Billy engages with a little MC Tentacle…?”

“Not a black horse, a dark horse…” / #ohyeah

“If you look at Ted Nugent back then, tell me he does not look like (James) Hetfield…circa 1991ish…”

#TedNugent WRITING ON THE WALL (feat. Meatloaf) – (Free For All – 1976)

“Cat Scratch Free For All?/ “Stranglehold…all day long…”

(34:06): “How about some RUSH?”/ “We’re all about relaxers down here…”

#RUSH A PASSAGE TO BANGKOK (2112 – 1976)

“It’s ALL about drugs, man…” / “That makes me wanna smoke opium…I’ve never smoked opium…”

“They’re one of my project bands…all I listened to was RUSH…” / #projectband

“For a long time it was #DOWN … I could not listen to anything but DOWN…”

“I just call that ‘Project Band’…normally if I get into a mood to listen to one band and one band only, it’ll be Led Zeppelin…” / #TheSongRemainsTheSame

“I have memories of being super Asian at Billiam’s house watching that movie…”

(39:11): “Speaking of California…”

“Is there something better (else) on that album than THAT song?”

“This will be the song that gets us kicked off the podcast…”

(40:09): “How about a little Priest? Some Sad Wings (of Destiny)?”

#JudasPriest THE RIPPER (Sad Wings of Destiny – 1976) / #usethoseheadphones

“Stranglehold again…/ “They got the vocals right up front…”

“So it IS about Jack the Ripper…”

(42:33): “You know what…I’ve gotta tell yall…what did you think about the first Boston record?”

#Boston ROCK AND ROLL BAND (Boston – 1976)

“Add a little more distortion and that’s a Pantera riff…”

“They all had afros…”

(45:10): #BlueOysterCult E.T.I. (EXTRA TERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE) / (DON’T FEAR) THE REAPER (Agents of Fortune – 1976)

“Guys, I need a little bit of cowbell…” / “It’s 70’s all day…”

#cowbell #WillFerrell #BruceDickinson #ChristopherWalken #SNL

(46:55): “Alright, what else…?”

“We can do a Chronicles Death Match for (bands releasing two albums in) the same year?”

“How about Emerald? Mastodon actually covered (Thin Lizzy) a while back…”

#ThinLizzy EMERALD (Jailbreak – 1976)

“I can see why Mastodon did this…”

“It’s got a Maiden vibe to it…”

“I can definitely hear that Maiden was influenced by them…”

(51:03): “Here’s a KISS song, off of Rock and Roll Over…it’s a Gene song obviously because it’s all about sex…”/ “That’s a badass album cover…for 1976…”/ “Are there ANY songs we’ve ever heard of? (which is a really weird question coming from the world’s biggest KISS fan)”

#KISS LOVE ‘EM AND LEAVE ‘EM (Rock And Roll Over – 1976)

“As a kid I loved this song, but this may not translate well to 54-year-old me…”

(53:33): “We don’t have to end on that…I fully understand your need to palette cleanse after that…we can’t play 2 KISS songs in a row…alright, palette cleanser…”

#Pantera PALETTE CLEANSER (Reinventing the Vulgar Display of Power Metal Projects, Far Beyond the Southern Steel Trendkill Jungle from Hell)

“The winner…the winner of 1976…”

“Cannot EVER be loud enough…” / #CantBeLoudEnough

“If you want more 1976, go back and listen to the episode BEFORE this one…we did a whole ass 1976 album dive…which we didn’t even mention on this one…”

THANK YOU FOR JOINING US!!! #untilthenext #outroreel