Super Hits of The 70s: Have A Nice Day, Vol. 7

Donna Wiest won a round of drinks for her table knowing the title and artist of this song at "Cheers" S.Hackensack N.J 05/28/1988

Less clodhopper than the previous one but a weird mix of okay and kind-of-a-drag, another surfeit of dudes thinking they were all that. Moroder kinda runs away with it thanks to that all-timer at the end. Redbone's kinda fun. That Melanie song suuuuuucks. Most of the overly familiar ones otherwise provoke little reaction in me at this point, though I'm still amused at the weird turn of events that led Coven from proto-Satan-metal to _Billy Jack_ flash in the pan fame. And the English Congregation has one of the all time weird tonal shifts when bro starts yelling -- a combination not to be beat until over a decade later when "Dear Mr. Jesus" pulled the same trick.

OK, I know three of these and have literally never heard of the rest. I hate that Melanie track. Redbone I can't remember. Am much more familiar with Chicory Tip's version than Moroder's but, as I remember, they're not exactly radically different.

Moroder, no contest.

I looked ahead at the next few volumes the other day, and they looked like a definite improvement over the last couple (in terms of the songs I like, anyway). I love Lee Michaels and Melanie here. From past experience, I suspect "Brand New Key" is one of the more love-it-or-hate-it hits of the era. Retain some nostalgic appreciation of "Precious and Few," and I don't even mind the much reviled "Sunshine" (think Christgau gave the album a D). "Joy" is useless but was used memorably in Boogie Nights (ditto Melanie, obviously). Have never heard (I don't think) Sweathog, Bullet, or Giorgio.

I always thought sweathogs were an invention of Welcome Back Kotter.

putting in a request to poll this series next: https://www.discogs.com/label/776765-Soul-Hits-Of-The-70s-Didnt-It-Blow-Your-Mind!

And then we can have a Paper Lace vs. Al Green winner-take-all showdown.

Great thing about these polls is revisiting songs I haven't heard since they were new. "Son of my Father" has been totally forgotten by oldies radio, and hearing it today it's amazing how the structure predicts disco.

I had some affection for "White Lies, Blue Eyes" when it was new, and even picked up a thrift store copy years later, but I just relistened and it's... okay.

I owned a copy of "Precious and Few" back in the day too, but these days remember it more for the completely different rocker on the flip side:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abUNB-B-kz8

I knew they (Climax) had a pedigree but couldn't remember who it was...the Outsiders!

^^^ yes!

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/user/cryptosicko/playlist/3k54uulTZqSwXyaInJwURw?si=0H5YWoOJRP6O_wI04APXoQ

3 missing this time: "One Tin Soldier," "White Lies, Blue Eyes," and "Son of My Father" (as usual, I'll trust someone more knowledgeable than I to round up the proper YouTube versions)

Of the ones on the Spotify list, "Sunshine" and "Precious and Few" are the two I've definitely heard. "Joy" as well, though I never knew that's what it was. "One Tin Soldier" I kind of remember from elementary school music classes (!?).

I like "Brand New Key" a lot.

Also, hell yeah on polling the Didn't It Blow Your Mind series next!

Coven: "One Tin Soldier"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YafJSUpr7t8

Bullet: "White Lies, Blue Eyes"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4XrmtypBik

Giorgio: "Son Of My Father"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pFiM0-gpYU

Huh, somebody on wiki just deleted the obscure detail about "Do You Know What I Mean?" that I posted upthread.

More obscure things about "Do You Know what I Mean?":

--Lee Michaels' longtime drummer was Barry "Frosty" Smith. However, Smith does not play on "DYKWIM?", possibly because at that time he was drumming in Sweathog. Many years later smith would relocate to Austin, where he manned the skins for '90s Alt-Rock also-rans Soulhat.

Played a hunch, and would you believe "Hallelujah(!)" was originally recorded by Gary Zekley's charges The Clique (of "Superman" fame)?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aQ38_DsU4M

^^WARNING: David CLayton Thomas Syndrome in full effect

Speaking of DCTS, has “Vehicle” by The Ides Of March come up yet?

It's won't be until way later, when they were backtracking something serious in later waves.

How many of you remember the Greil Marcus bit playing on the name of Jonathan Edwards

"Precious and Few" i like sappy stuff like this.

Huh, I've never heard the Coven and Moroder versions of those songs, much more familiar with the Original Caste (better) and Chicory Tip (worse) renderings. A record store I once worked at (Sam The Record Man on Yonge St. , clemenza) must have had 200 copies of that Beverley Bremers album with the mildly titillating sleeve moldering in the basement where the hopelessly unsellable stock was kept. Voted for Lee Michaels, which hit #1 locally in '71.

I caught the last few years of Sam's third-floor annex, Ρεμπετολογια--bought some great $0.99 albums (Kingsmen, Tommy Roe, John Fred), still get nauseous when I think about what I might have left behind. (Tim Powis found Godz LPs up there.) When did you work there? I might have been across the road at Sunrise.

The b-side of Giorgio Moroder's "Son of My Father" is called "Underdog," and was covered by The Nightingales on a 7" they just did with Vic Godard. It's really ace.

xp 1985. I ran the 45 department. The albums that didn't move in the third floor annex ended up in the dank basement.

PS Tim Powis should be on ILM

Finally getting down with the Spotify, and have discovered the Beverly Bremers is a rerecord. Here's the original...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHjxQdUcfLk

I missed you by a year, Ρεμπετολογια...I always get Beverly Bremers mixed up with Chi Coltrane, for some reason--they don't sound anything alike, and I realize, listening to that clip, I don't even remember "Don't Say You Don't Rememeber" (which is a great paradox, or something).

Rhino used "Don't Say You Don't Remember" as an advertising tagline for the series when it first came out.

Wow, never heard that Giorgio version of SoMF before. It has its charm as a demo, I guess. Not sure I like the shouted hook, however, or the "correct" words. C'mon, the song is nothing without C Tip's mangling of the lyric. Moolin' I was foolin' I was pre-prong drive! Surrounded and confounded by statistic flies!

Bullet sound interesting - song is right in the Elton/10cc/even Yes (sorta) wheelhouse that I love. They're no Alan Tew though.

Voted "The Childish Queen of New Gambino".

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"park preserve" rocks. i've got that 45. is a park preserve a ... canadian thing? what is it? like a rest stop? a conservation area with a parking lot? regular old park?

i don't even know if climax (6) are canadian. just guessing. discogs doesn't say.

feel like "son of my father" was an influence on kompakt's '04 schaffel fieber. there's a particular track i can't quite place that mimics the opening clav bit almost straight up.

i'd like to thank 74sodapop for this description on yt of lee michaels "do you know what i mean?":

Great 70's Classic.Did Anyone Ever Stop In The Middle Of The Song And Howl Like That? I Don't Think No One Ever Did That Before.Great Singing,Great Song. How Can He Top Or Even Match A Classic Like This.One Hit Wonders Are One Hit Grand Slam Masterpieces.The Records Are So Great.No One Can Ever Top Them.This Is One Of Them.What A Record.Thanks Lee.

Pretty sure "Do You Know What I Mean" was used really well in some film, but I'm drawing a blank? Jog my memory, please.

(Question mark unnecessary--I am drawing a blank.)

on the laurel canyon sdtk according to discogs.

Also in Go Ask Alice according to IMDB

Outside Providence as well.

Also: Lee Michaels looks like every goofy stoner dude you went to High School with...

https://target.scene7.com/is/image/Target/50675752?wid=488&hei=488&fmt=pjpeg

..and now Lee Michaels is every old stoner dude who wants to talk synth patches at Guitar Center

https://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0003/974/MI0003974870.jpg?partner=allrovi.com

Thanks--I've seen both those, but it's Go Ask Alice I'm thinking of (which means it would have been a studio-musicians cover, not Lee Michaels).

i don't even know if climax (6) are canadian.

American. Formed in LA from the ashes of The Outsiders, who were from Cleveland.

Closest thing to a Canadian on this volume is Jonathan Edwards, who lived in Nova Scotia for most of the '70s and even got a CanCon designation for most of his releases back then.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Whoever voted for Melanie is clearly deranged.

Don't Blame Me, I Voted For The Goofy Stoner Guy!

If I'd seen this I would have voted for Melanie, though I like both the Edwards and Michaels tracks fine. It was a favorite of my mother's and I've always liked it vicariously through her. I keep missing these polls because the titles are so similar, and my brain assumes it's an old one when I see them in SNA. :(

and that lee michaels pic HAS to be from the 90s, right? he'll be 73 this year.

I guess. I got it from the AMG site. I had to triple check it was really him, for obvious reasons.

"Brand New Key"? You people are sick.

The winner is 'anything that isn't Melanie'

GODDAMMIT I MISSED THIS POLL!!!!

Follow-up single to "Precious and Few" was "Life and Breath" which is credited to George Clinton; I was hoping it was a Funkadelic cover but alas it's a different George Clinton

"Brand New Key"? You people are sick.

Looking forward to "Telephone Man" by Meri Wilson winning best song of 1977.

Our own Mr. Soto's demolition of that was choice:

https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/worst-songs-ever-meri-wilsons-telephone-man/

Proud "Brand New Key" voter.

I've only ever heard Redbone (which I do like) and Giorgio's SOMF (which I don't much). Think it was similar on the other polls, hardly know any of the songs on them at all. Cultural differences? or maybe just before my time I dunno

Much like Trump voters, I gotta ask: what are you getting out of this? xp

I find it bizarrely catchy and love the song's metaphorical gimmick. I put it in the neighborhood of "Dead Skunk" and "You're So Vain" and "Taxi" (not that any of them sound anything alike) as representing the weirder and funnier singer-songwriter hits of the era--it wasn't all "Fire and Rain" and "Heart of Gold." And I've definitely come to hear the song as inseparable from its use in Boogie Nights.

There is an eclectic Minneapolis country-folk-blues group, The Front Porch Swingin' Liquor Pigs, who cover everything from Mississippi John Hurt to The Replacements "If Only You Were Lonely," that used to sometimes have a friend come up and do a guest vocal on a version of "Brand New Key." It generally turned into a drunken singalong. Yes, is is bizarrely catchy.

I've only ever heard Redbone (which I do like) and Giorgio's SOMF (which I don't much). Think it was similar on the other polls, hardly know any of the songs on them at all. Cultural differences? or maybe just before my time I dunno

Both but mostly the former, US and UK charts seem to have been a lot more divergent back in the 70s.

“Holy shit” moment: I just found out from Wikipedia that earlier in her career Beverly Bremers recorded as Beverly Ann. That’s right, the exact same Beverly Ann that recorded two of my absolute favorite Northern Soul pop ditties “He’s Coming Home” and “You’ve Got Your Mind On Other Things”. But if I hadn’t‘ve missed this poll (dammit) I would’ve gone for that Melanie song. It’s HILARIOUS it’s so fucking awful!

I gotta say I’m a bit baffled by the intensity of the hatred towards “Brand New Key.” Like, I can see disliking it, but I’m wondering what it is about it that inspires such vitriol. Too twee, perhaps? Maybe it’s something I would have had to live through in order to understand—in which case, what would be the song’s contemporary equivalent? We’re surely not talking Meghan Trainor level here?

To twee, perhaps??!?!

Or even, too twee.

“Perhaps” as in, is it’s twee was the reason for all the hatred?

*tweeness

Well it didn't help.

Twee your mind...

the weirder and funnier singer-songwriter hits of the era

I somehow forgot to mention "Coconut" here. Proceed apace.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FTFsIGIVUAAwlis?format=jpg&name=small