The Most Expensive Albums Ever Recorded in the 1970s: Were They Worth It?

Musical albums are not cheap to produce. But back in the 1970s, it wasn’t nearly as difficult to produce a good record on a limited budget. That being said, quite a few big names in rock music spent a pretty penny on at least one of their records. We’ll let you decide if those records were worth it. Let’s take a look at three of the most expensive albums of the 1970s!

1. ‘Tusk’ by Fleetwood Mac

Ah, Tusk. One of the most expensive musical ventures of all time. Following the enormous success of Rumours in 1977, Fleetwood Mac had a lot of pressure on them to toss out a stellar follow-up. It took them almost two years to put out Tusk, and it racked up a bill of $1.4 million in 1979 to produce. Obviously, it could have been done for a lot less. Christine McVie more or less confirmed that.

“Recording ‘Tusk’ was quite absurd,” said McView in an interview with Uncut. “The studio contract rider for refreshments was like a telephone directory. Exotic food delivered to the studio, crates of champagne. And it had to be the best, with no thought of what it cost. Stupid. Really stupid.”

2. ‘The Long Run’ by Eagles

The Long Run was affectionately called “The Long One” by members of the Eagles for a reason. It took forever to get the dang thing finished; about three years, to be exact. And to the surprise of fans, Don Henley revealed that it cost a whopping $800,000 (though some reported it to be closer to $1 million) to produce the album back in 1979. And according to Henley, it was not even close to worth the cost.

“‘The Long Run’ was not as good as ‘Hotel California’, and it was an excruciatingly painful album to make,” said Henley. “We were having fights all the time about the songs, enormous fights about one word, for days on end. That record took three years and cost $800,000, and we burned out.”

3. ‘A Night At The Opera’ by Queen

While not as expensive as other albums on this list, A Night At The Opera by Queen still cost a pretty penny by 1970s standards. The 1975 record cost about £40,000, which would equal about £357,000 in the 2020s, or $450,000.

This album might have been worth the cost. According to Brian May, Queen was in the midst of a “crisis” and needed another commercially successful album to avoid being in debt. A Night At The Opera was a pretty substantial success when it was first released.

“There was that feeling that if it didn’t succeed we’d always be in the red, so we were fortunate that we did make the album of our lives…” said May.

Photo by Andre Csillag/Shutterstock

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