She looks like the venn diagram overlap of Liza Minnelli & Cher <3
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 31 May 2018 02:30 (five years ago) link
venus is a def love/hate song for me
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 31 May 2018 02:31 (five years ago) link
"send me a postcard" and "long and lonesome road" are both jams
Cosign.
― Making Plans For Sturgill (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 31 May 2018 02:36 (five years ago) link
first of all thanks for doing this
secondly all these songs are bangers and I think picking volume to volume will be harder than Just Can't Get Enough. The extra 10+ years removed really culls the herd.
also:
"'Mississippi Queen' and the Smith tune are solid jams but feel a little out of sync of what I think of as the AM gold sound. Might have to go Starecase.
― I really like the acting, dialogue and especially the scenes (Old Lunch)"
^ this is a great point and will probably use this mindset when picking. Mississippi Queen is an all time riff AFAIC and Na Na Hey Hey is the best not Stevie Wonder song but "Arizona" is probably closest to AM Gold/Have a Nice Day. There's a certain camp value to these that I really enjoy.
― YouTube_-_funy_cats.flv (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Thursday, 31 May 2018 02:43 (five years ago) link
http://https%3A//img.discogs.com/HO2_ja6nsMOmY6Oc7ngU8pHIfUY%3D/fit-in/600x600/filters%3Astrip_icc%28%29%3Aformat%28jpeg%29%3Amode_rgb%28%29%3Aquality%2890%29/discogs-images/R-3310495-1367840738-8835.jpeg.jpg
What is wrong with this man
― YouTube_-_funy_cats.flv (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Thursday, 31 May 2018 02:46 (five years ago) link
http://https%3A//cdn-s3.allmusic.com/release-covers/500/0002/090/0002090345.jpg
― YouTube_-_funy_cats.flv (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Thursday, 31 May 2018 02:47 (five years ago) link
whatever the man is here:
https://cdn-s3.allmusic.com/release-covers/500/0002/090/0002090345.jpg
I love all of these but between Venus and Baby It’s You. Probably Venus today.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Thursday, 31 May 2018 02:51 (five years ago) link
I love how Lindsay decided to step away from the Paul Revere image and go full sleaze. Appropriate for a song that pure WTF lyrically:
She must belong to San FranciscoShe must have lost her wayPostin' a poster of Poncho and CiscoOne California dayShe said she believes in Robin Hood and brotherhoodAnd colours of green and greyAnd all you can do is laugh at herDoesn't anybody know how to pray?Arizona, take off your rainbow shadesArizona, have another look at the worldMy myyyArizona, cut off your Indian braidsArizona, hey won'tcha go my wayMmmm strip off your pride you're acting like a teeny-bopper run away childAnd scrape off the paint from the face of a little town saintArizona, take off your hobo shoesArizona, hey won'tcha go my wayFollow me up to San FranciscoI will be guide your wayI'll be the Count of Monte CristoYou'll be the Countess MayAnd you can believe in Robin Hood and brotherhood and rolling the ball in the hayAnd I will be reading you an Aesop's fableAnything to make you stay-ay-ay
Arizona, take off your rainbow shadesArizona, have another look at the worldMy myyyArizona, cut off your Indian braidsArizona, hey won'tcha go my way
Mmmm strip off your pride you're acting like a teeny-bopper run away childAnd scrape off the paint from the face of a little town saintArizona, take off your hobo shoesArizona, hey won'tcha go my way
Follow me up to San FranciscoI will be guide your wayI'll be the Count of Monte CristoYou'll be the Countess MayAnd you can believe in Robin Hood and brotherhood and rolling the ball in the hayAnd I will be reading you an Aesop's fableAnything to make you stay-ay-ay
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 31 May 2018 03:08 (five years ago) link
More Today Than Yesterday
Runners-up: Cherry Hill Park, Early in the Morning, Arizona
The Rapper - Fun but stupidNa Na Hey Hey - At least a minute too longMississippi Queen - Feels out of placeTracy - Generic example of smooth bubblegum, outclassed by at least 2 songs on Super Hits Vol. 2 (My Baby Loves Lovin', Hitchin' a Ride)Come Saturday Morning - It would win if this were a compilation of the "Beautiful Music" easy listening radio format of the '60s/'70s
― Hideous Lump, Thursday, 31 May 2018 03:08 (five years ago) link
xpost "Oh hippie child, please stop looking like trash so I can take you to the Bay Area anyway and fuck you."
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 31 May 2018 03:09 (five years ago) link
i mean it doesn't make a lick of sense on ANY level!
― YouTube_-_funy_cats.flv (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Thursday, 31 May 2018 03:14 (five years ago) link
“doesnt anybody know how to pray” is *the* good uber 70’s line though, feels very post-war idk
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 31 May 2018 03:22 (five years ago) link
Yeah especially the way he sings it. Somewhere between actually outraged and randomly nettled.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 31 May 2018 03:25 (five years ago) link
it's strange to contemplate how different these songs must sound to people who heard them in 1970 vs. people who heard them later
the best track here is "Mississippi Queen," but it's a ringer, not really in the spirit of the compilation ... I voted for "The Rapper" as least played out to my old ears
― Brad C., Thursday, 31 May 2018 03:35 (five years ago) link
Seeing those "Arizona" lyrics written out makes it come off a little like a Father John Misty song.
― Making Plans For Sturgill (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 31 May 2018 03:42 (five years ago) link
That...makes sense.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 31 May 2018 03:46 (five years ago) link
https://i.pinimg.com/474x/9c/f5/9c/9cf59c10da4abcd2c1ef4986d59dfba6--paul-revere-raiders.jpg
"I Love You, Honey bear Arizona"
― Making Plans For Sturgill (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 31 May 2018 03:48 (five years ago) link
AIRIZOWNAH
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 31 May 2018 04:09 (five years ago) link
Where's the brass section in the pop hits of today, is what I wanna know, dagnabbit.
― I really like the acting, dialogue and especially the scenes (Old Lunch), Thursday, 31 May 2018 04:21 (five years ago) link
I'm damn glad that I already have a dedicated AM gold playlist parked on my iPod.
― I really like the acting, dialogue and especially the scenes (Old Lunch), Thursday, 31 May 2018 04:31 (five years ago) link
also kinda partial to Early in the MorningI love Vanity Fare’s “Hitchin a Ride”, one of the few songs featuring a recorder that doesnt make me want to kill
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 31 May 2018 04:38 (five years ago) link
Gotta go with Venus. No idea when I first heard it & didn’t recognize it until I played it. Came back to me immediately though. Weirdly those first strummed chords sounds a bit like Pinball Wizard
― that's not my post, Thursday, 31 May 2018 05:04 (five years ago) link
I love how Lindsay decided to step away from the Paul Revere image and go full sleaze.
He was even sleazing it up with the Raiders by then! Check "Just Seventeen", their Zep/Grand Funk move that hit #82 around the time "Arizona" was sliding off the charts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnk2R5FLMVM
The lyric finds our hero succumbing to the charms of an underage girl ("Just 17...but she looked fine!) in Missoula, MT, and getting busted by the cops a few hours later.
― Making Plans For Sturgill (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 31 May 2018 07:16 (five years ago) link
Think I could vote for almost any of these except of course The Jaggerz, “The Rapper.” Really going to have a tough time with later volumes.
― omgneto and ittanium mayne (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 31 May 2018 11:36 (five years ago) link
"'Mississippi Queen' and the Smith tune are solid jams but feel a little out of sync of what I think of as the AM gold sound.
I was a radio-obsessed kid in this era, and the "whiplash programming" (as noted above) of going from, like, Helen Reddy to Grand Funk WAS the sound of the times.
I love all these songs to greater and lesser extents, but I'm going for the only one I bought the 45 of when it was new: "Mississippi Queen."
― even in your onion (Dan Peterson), Thursday, 31 May 2018 19:35 (five years ago) link
Oh for sure, re: the vast diversity of '70s pop hits. I love that so many varied things coexisted alongside one another on the radio at the time. It just feels to me like the HAND comps are largely concerned with the soft focus warm n' fuzzy MOR tunes without much edge, so songs that actually rock feel a little misplaced in this particular context.
― My Favorte People Call Me Dad Soft Toddler (Old Lunch), Thursday, 31 May 2018 19:57 (five years ago) link
The now-defunct oldies station here used to play More Today Than Yesterday at least once a day. While not a favorite, the fact that it never made me scramble for the dial a la other good-but-overplayed oldies (looking at you, Looking Glass), is some kind of testament. Never bothered to check if Spiral Starecase was actually a real group or just session musicians a la Steam.
Smile a Little Smile for Me - I always liked this song, but I remember reading Rosemary's Baby as a kid, and being freaked out at the end when there's a Japanese (of course) tourist taking pictures of the hellspawn, and Rosemary's all like "Smile for the camera! One little smile!" I think those are in fact the final lines. Coincidence? The book came out 2 years before.
I'm not ashamed to admit that "Doesn't anyone know how to pray" always chokes me up a bit.
I guess my vote is most likely to go to Cherry Hill Park. Love the sleaze of the lyrics, and the music always sounded menacing. I also love this YouTube comment "Was Mary Hill the only woman in town? Cherry Hill Park kinda closed down when she left".
― gjoon1, Friday, 1 June 2018 00:11 (five years ago) link
"whiplash programming"
this child of the 70's agrees-super otm.
― campreverb, Friday, 1 June 2018 00:34 (five years ago) link
I knew this was going to happen ... yesterday I woke up with a couple of lines of "Smile a Little Smile" in my head, where they lingered for hours; today it was "Early in the Morning"
maybe I'm just prone to earworms, but I think these particular hooks were set deep in my tender brain by the ultra-repetitive style of Top 40 programming and the limited range of music then available to kiddie consumers ... these days I can appreciate how well most of these tunes were written, arranged, performed, and recorded, but the certainty that some of them will trigger savagely persistent mental loops makes the prospect of listening to 24 more compilations an Imp of the Perverse situation
― Brad C., Friday, 1 June 2018 15:47 (five years ago) link
Voted « Arizona » before reading the thread, happy to see « appreciation » of its charms. It was a mystery song for me before the internet ; I heard it once in college but didn’t catch the artist, and then it stuck with me, taking on its own lyrics in my mind (something about dancing shoes). As ever I like my version more than the actual one I eventually found online, but it’s still catchy camp.
― droit au butt (Euler), Friday, 1 June 2018 16:02 (five years ago) link
I always lump it together in my head with a handful of other Super Hits which address a lady by name ('Amie', 'My Maria') and which collectively would make for a solid, loosely-themed comp.
― On the Wingers of Love: The Kip & Debra Story (Old Lunch), Friday, 1 June 2018 16:14 (five years ago) link
Super Seventies Chicks: Have A Nice Dame
― Making Plans For Sturgill (C. Grisso/McCain), Friday, 1 June 2018 16:50 (five years ago) link
(Dammit, I was just about to go to bed...)
AmieArialBig City Miss Ruth AnnBlack BettyBrandy (You're a Fine Girl)ClairEmmaHey DeanieI'm Not LisaJackie BlueJimmy Loves Mary-AnneJudy MaeJulie, Do Ya Love Me?Living Next Door to AliceLove Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)Ma Belle AmieMy MariaMy SharonaShannonSweet MarySylvia's MotherTracy
(First person who says "But Shannon is about a dog!" gets a reminder of what Clair is really about.)
― Hideous Lump, Saturday, 2 June 2018 04:38 (five years ago) link
omg I fucking hate Shannon. I hate it almost as much as I hate Honey.
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 2 June 2018 05:08 (five years ago) link
Shannon by Henry Gross? but that's a wonderful song?
― niels, Saturday, 2 June 2018 08:25 (five years ago) link
Fuckin' 'Honey'! So glad that creepfest isn't on any of these comps.
Well done, Lump. You saved me from some inevitable obsessive listmaking of my own.
― On the Wingers of Love: The Kip & Debra Story (Old Lunch), Saturday, 2 June 2018 12:58 (five years ago) link
Henry Gross's "Shannon" is about a dog!
― clemenza, Saturday, 2 June 2018 13:16 (five years ago) link
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/73/Shannon_-_Henry_Gross.jpg:O
― niels, Saturday, 2 June 2018 13:20 (five years ago) link
You know the whole thing about “Shannon” and Casey Kasem, right? And about the fact that it was about Carl Wilson’s dog, I think.Used to hate it but eventually grew on me. “Honey” is pretty bad, as noted above.And yes, thanks to Hideous Lump for preemptively creating that list so the rest of us don’t feel we have to.
― omgneto and ittanium mayne (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 2 June 2018 16:16 (five years ago) link
my old boss knew how much I hated Shannon - every once in a while he’d wander by my desk singing the chorus in a high-pitched voice. the worst! RAGH
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 2 June 2018 16:54 (five years ago) link
My friend and I were recently discussing this and started riffing on Steve Coogan and the other guy in The Trip imitating Michael Caine talking about this song “And when he sings high, he sings very high.”
― omgneto and ittanium mayne (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 2 June 2018 17:04 (five years ago) link
You know the whole thing about “Shannon” and Casey Kasem, right?
Do tell...
― Police, Academy (cryptosicko), Saturday, 2 June 2018 18:41 (five years ago) link
Well, you see, Casey was alone with Shannon one day when he starts eying this jar of peanut butter...
― On the Wingers of Love: The Kip & Debra Story (Old Lunch), Saturday, 2 June 2018 18:45 (five years ago) link
Actually has nothing to do with “Shannon,” sorry.
― omgneto and ittanium mayne (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 2 June 2018 19:07 (five years ago) link
Thanks to C.G/McC for starting this thread/series and to cryptosicko for the Spotify playlist.
This stuff is def. *my* music, although this particular Volume is variable in quality and full of things that made no impression whatsoever in the UK. Steam and Shocking Blue are the most familiar and deservedly so. "Tracy" too, from numerous bubblegum pop comps, but it doesn't quite fit in that company - or here either for that matter. The Flying Machine and Vanity Fare were actually Brits, so I know these too, but... meh (the latter have better songs as mentioned upthread).
Didn't know this Sandpipers tune but it's reliable easy listening. Of the unfamiliar acts, Spiral Staircase and The Jaggerz were the nicest surprises. Think I'll vote for the latter.
― Jeff W, Sunday, 3 June 2018 16:30 (five years ago) link
these comps do occasionally yield great non-US hits that I remember as a kid growing up in Australia, like Smokie, Brotherhood of Man, and my favorite: Sister Janet Mead’s version of The Lord’s Prayer :DEurovision content scattered throughout which is always good
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 3 June 2018 17:22 (five years ago) link
How could it be anything else but "The Rapper"?
― bodacious ignoramus, Sunday, 3 June 2018 19:02 (five years ago) link
Eurovision content scattered throughout which is always good
Ignorant American here--which songs were from Eurovision?
― Hideous Lump, Monday, 4 June 2018 00:34 (five years ago) link
No, thanks!
― omgneto and ittanium mayne (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 6 June 2018 01:10 (five years ago) link
Fear not "Tracy" fans, I'm considering running a "Spinsters" (tracks with no votes) poll in addition to the trad Bridesmaids and #1 polls run at the conclusion of the volume polls.
A lot of that will hinge on how many no-vote getters we'll have (remember this is a 25 volume series of 300 songs, so there could be >50 eligible at the end).
― Making Plans For Sturgill (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 6 June 2018 03:41 (five years ago) link
:D
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 6 June 2018 04:35 (five years ago) link
Super Hits of The 70s: Have A Nice Day, Vol. 2
― Making Plans For Sturgill (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 6 June 2018 17:06 (five years ago) link
The Rapper has such a great chorus with the fuzz riff, cowbell and that little guitar lick.
― earlnash, Wednesday, 6 June 2018 20:48 (five years ago) link
Okay, jusr relistened and have to say I underestimated “The Rapper.”
― omgneto and ittanium mayne (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 6 June 2018 23:25 (five years ago) link
Moves Like Jaggerz
― Making Plans For Sturgill (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 6 June 2018 23:29 (five years ago) link
so bummed i missed this, especially the extensive discussion of "Arizona." wasn't so long ago it felt like we "Arizona" lovers were a nearly extinct breed on this board.
― noel gallaghah's high flying burbbhrbhbbhbburbbb (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 6 June 2018 23:32 (five years ago) link
Indeed. Probably haven’t thought about that song since it first came out and was a hit and don’t think I ever knew who the artist was.
― omgneto and ittanium mayne (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 6 June 2018 23:43 (five years ago) link
Really digging the drums on “Tracy,” wondering which studio pro played them.
― And Nobody POLLS Like Me (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 7 June 2018 01:52 (five years ago) link
"Arizona" feels like the theme song for a reactionary grindhouse film where Charles Bronson travels from his small town to San Francisco to get revenge on the hippies that got his daughter addicted.
The narrator of "Cherry Hill Park" def a minor baddie who gets killed fifteen minutes into this film.
― Daniel_Rf, Sunday, 5 June 2022 10:23 (one year ago) link
lol, yes to both.Now do 'The Rapper'.
― When the Pain That You Feel is the Bite of an Eel, That's a Moray (Old Lunch), Sunday, 5 June 2022 10:55 (one year ago) link
!
― The Way Dub Used to Be (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 5 June 2022 11:50 (one year ago) link