6 April - The 19th Eurovision Song Contest is staged at The Dome in Brighton. The winning Swedish group ABBA, go on to be the top-selling act of the decade.
19 June – Alan Bush's 1950 opera Wat Tyler receives its UK première at Sadler's Wells Theatre, the only time one of Bush's operas has been staged in the UK.[1]
20 July – The first Knebworth Concert is held, headlined by The Allman Brothers Band.
2 November – George Harrison launches his "George Harrison & Friends North American Tour" in Vancouver. It's Harrison's first tour since the Beatles North American Tour of 1966.
28 November – John Lennon joins Elton John on stage at Madison Square Garden for three songs. It would be Lennon's last stage performance.
12 December - Mick Taylor leaves The Rolling Stones after 6 years.
The list of the top fifty best-selling albums of 1974 were published in Music Week and in Record Mirror at the end of the year, and later reproduced in the first edition of the BPI Year Book in 1976. However, in 2007 the Official Charts Company published album chart histories for each year from 1956 to 1977, researched by historian Sharon Mawer, and included an updated list of the top ten best-selling albums for each year based on the new research. The updated top ten for 1974 is shown in the table below.[5]
^40 Greatest Hits was not eligible for the album chart in 1974, as television-advertised compilations were excluded from the chart until July 1975. The album did not officially reach number one until September 1977, following Presley's death.