For the encore disc of 1972 music, twenty tracks were rounded up, including nineteen Top 20 tracks and a pair of Number Ones: "Brandy (You're A Fine Girl)" and "Papa Was A Rollin' Stone". Sounds Of the Seventies 1972: Take Two begins with a tight trio of soul tunes, then a decent glam rock block of two songs, and has another soulful three tunes in the middle of the track list. None of this is skippable, people, and a handful of these tunes are among our favorite songs of all time. All that and I still can't give it more than 💿💿💿💿.
All twenty of the songs on Sounds Of The Seventies 1973: Take Two made the Top 20. If we're being more specific, they all made the Top 15. Two of the tracks are Number Ones: "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" and "Will It Go Round In Circles". And the former song knocked the latter song from the top spot. The only tracks here I skip are James Taylor's "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight" and Jethro Tull's belated US release "Living In The Past". There are a pair of stellar Steely Dan tracks in "Do It Again" and "Reeling In The Years" that are always welcome.💿💿💿💿
Though 1974 is often unfairly judged as the worst year in music, we find it to be full of great songs. Sounds Of The Seventies 1974: Take Two has twenty-one songs with twenty of them making the Top 15 and six of those reaching Number One. The chart outlier is "Rock And Roll, Hoochie Koo". Rick Derringer peaked at number 23 with the single, a radio-ready Seventies rock anthem with its power riffs and catchy chorus. Back in 1974, they called it hard rock to differentiate it from the soft rock popular on Top 40 stations. Other hard rock songs on this disc include "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet", "Takin' Care Of Business" and "Radar Love". Songs falling under the soft rock banner on Sounds Of The Seventies 1974: Take Two include "Sundown", "Tin Man" and "Haven't Got Time For The Pain". Fortunately for this listener, there's a heaping helping of R&B tracks as well including the Number One songs "Can't Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe", "Rock Your Baby" and "Nothing From Nothing". Depending on the many variables that affect day-to-day listening, our favorite song on this disc is either "The Joker", "Dancing Machine" or "I've Got To Use My Imagination". 💿💿💿💿💿
Sounds Of The Seventies 1975: Take Two is the sixteenth disc in the series and there are twenty-one tracks on this disc, all of them Top 20 singles. Two of the songs hit Number One: "Shining Star" and "Get Down Tonight". A closer look reveals that the tracklist is composed of five sections, with the first lasting from the first song ("When Will I Be Loved") through the fifth song ("Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me)"). The second section runs from track 6 ("They Just Can't Stop It (Games People Play)") through track 9 ("Get Down Tonight") while tracks 10 and 11 ("I'm On Fire" and "SOS") provide a brief break before the R&B continues from track 12 ("Shame, Shame, Shame") to track 16 ("Fight The Power - Part 1"). The disc closes with a five song run from track 17 ("Bungle In The Jungle") through track 21 ("I'm Not In Love"). Another great disc from start to finish though we'd quibble with the choice of some single edits over album cuts.💿💿💿💿💿
Sounds of the Seventies 1977: Take Two is an amazing compilation. I owned nearly all of the twenty tracks as 45s, so it was like a very cool mixtape I might have made. Seventeen of the songs had made the Top 20, with five of them going up to Number One. This might be our favorite disc in the series, but there is one weak link in the tracklist: The Kinks' "Sleepwalker". The track just doesn't fit in with the rest of the songs, and we almost always skip it when listening.
Sometime after the disc was released, someone else had the same thought. It was probably a clearance or rights issue, but the disc was re-released with Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop" in place of "Sleepwalkers" at track 14.💿💿💿💿💿💿
Sounds Of The Seventies 1976: Take Two features the four members of Kiss on the cover and their song "Beth" as track 17. The other twenty tracks on the disc feature nineteen Top 20 songs, including "Beth". There are also three Number One songs: Diana Ross's "Love Hangover", Johnnie Taylor's "Disco Lady", and "(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty" from KC and the Sunshine Band. More than any other disc thus far, this one feels like a K-Tel album when we listen to it. And that's a good thing.
Sounds Of The Seventies 1976: Take Two is the second disc in a row where Fleetwood Mac steps in to replace a track. This time around, it was track 2, Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back In Town" that was replaced by "Over My Head" on later repressings.💿💿💿💿💿
There are twenty tracks total, with seventeen songs making the Top 20 on Sounds Of The Seventies 1979: Take Two. And the disc has the honor of being the first of the nineteen we've listened to in the series that doesn't have a single Number One tune. Zilch. We love this disc, though we always skip Frampton's "I Can Stand It No More" and "Found A Cure" by Ashford and Simpson. Removing those two songs from the playlist elevates our listening experience, with "Good Girls Don't" blending wonderfully into "Head Games," and "Every 1's A Winner " sounding better when segueing to "Livin' It Up (Friday Night)". Listening to Sounds Of The Seventies 1979: Take Two over the past thirty-plus years, it sounds like someone snuck a peek at our album collection in 1979 and then compiled this disc just for us.
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The twentieth disc in our series, representing the end of the year-by-year second pass through the Seventies, is Sounds Of The Seventies 1978: Take Two. With twenty tracks, including sixteen Top 20 songs and a pair of Number Ones in Frankie Valli's "Grease" and "Baby Come Back" by Player. We love twelve songs on this disc, but we only skip one of the twenty tracks, "A Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy" by The Kinks. We love The Kinks, but they have a few tracks that we need never hear again, and this is another one of them.
Apparently, Time-Life Music and Warner Special Products hadn't worked out the kinks in their licensing department yet. For the second time in the last five discs of Sounds Of The Seventies, a song by The Kinks was replaced by another song in later pressings. This time around, Robert Palmer's wonderful "Every Kinda People" slides in at track 7, making the disc just a little more enjoyable for this listener.💿💿💿💿💿
Sounds Of The Seventies Rock 'N' Soul Seventies, the final disc mailed out in 1991, features twenty-one songs, including sixteen Top 20 songs and three Number One hits: "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", "Frankenstein", and "Me And Mrs. Jones". A collection of songs from throughout the Seventies, this disc leans heavily towards the early part of the decade, with two-thirds of the tracks coming from 1970-1973. The only year not represented by at least one song is 1977. There are some very good songs on Sounds Of The Seventies Rock 'N' Soul Seventies... just not enough of them. It will be interesting to see where the series goes in 1992. Will there be a third year-by-year run through the decade? Or will it be nothing but these multi-year collections?
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We'll return shortly with a look at the Sounds Of The Seventies discs from 1992.
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