According to Billboard magazine (the music industry Bible), and books from Record Research, these are, in no particular order, some of the top selling artists of the decade. 

In case you're wondering, I have all of these artists plus many more in The CEO music library.

NEW IN THE 70s
Sony Walkman, hot pants, Smurfs, waterbeds, the floppy disk, streaking, pet rocks, test tube babies, VCR's, platform shoes, glam rock, acid rain, disposable lighters, punk rock, junk food, veggie burgers, mountain bikes, VW Golf introduces the hatchback, Apple computers, disco and the death of Elvis.

MOVIES & TELEVISION
Love Story, Play Misty for Me, Dirty Harry, A Clockwork Orange, The Sting, The Exorcist, American Graffiti, Jaws, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Taxi Driver, Rocky, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Annie Hall, Superman, Apocalypse Now, Alien, Saturday Night Fever, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Marcus Welby MD, All In the Family, Hawaii Five-O, M*A*S*H, Laverne & Shirley, Happy Days, Three's Company.

IN THE NEWS
Explosion aboard Apollo 13, shootings at Kent State University, DB Cooper, Bloody Sunday in Ireland, Watergate, Munich Olympic shootings, Hank Aaron breaks home run record, Skylab launched, Viking 1 lands on Mars, two 747's collide in Tenerife, Jonestown, the end of the Vietnam war, and the nuclear reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island.