Have A Nice Decade: The '70s Pop Culture Box 1998

Here's another in my mission to discuss my collection of box sets. This is another Rhino product, and it is excellent, so long as you want to hear this stuff again. The set consists of seven jam-packed CDs, with 160 songs arranged chronologically from January 1970 with Edison Lighthouse's Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) to April 1979 and McFadden and Whitehead's Ain't No Stopping Us Now.

The set features songs immediately recognizable from '70s commercial radio. That means there are songs in multiple genres, including Rock, Soul, Funk, Disco, Singer-Songwriter, and Pop, including quite a few cringe-worthy tunes. The only thing missing is Country music, with the exception of a few crossover hits. These are not deep cuts- everything here was a radio hit, at least top twenty on one of several possible charts. Many selections represent one-hit-wonders like Starland Vocal Band, The 5 Stairsteps, Gallery, Paper Lace, Five Man Electrical Band, and Jigsaw. The chronological presentation makes for a nice exploration of how music evolved (not much really) during the '70s. 

The set comes with a very good 89-page book that includes a couple of good essays, one of which, The Tackiest Decade in the History of Civilization, makes a strong case for it's premise. The book also includes a short blurb about each song, and plenty of pictures of artists and pop trivia. It is a fine package as these things go.

Rock: American Woman (The Guess Who), Rock And Roll Part 2 (Gary Glitter), Radar Love (Golden Earring). Soul: Have You Seen Her (Chi-Lites), Sir Duke (Stevie Wonder), Let's Stay Together (Al Green). Funk: The Payback Part 1 (James Brown), Theme From Shaft (Isaac Hayes), Tear The Roof Off The Sucker (Parliment). Disco: We Are Family (Sister Sledge), I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little More Baby (Barry White), Disco Inferno (The Trammps). Singer-Songwriter: Fire and Rain (James Taylor), Sometimes When We Touch (Dan Hill), Wild World (Cat Stevens). Pop: You're So Vain (Carly Simon), Chick-A-Boom (Daddy Dewdrop), The Morning After (Maureen McGovern). 

If you're interested in just how eclectic the tracks are, it is probably easier to just take a look at the track listing at Discogs. The crazy thing was that you could easily hear any of these songs back-to-back on the same radio station in the '70s, before stations started specializing in only one genre. It's probably not one you'll sit and listen to repeatedly, but it's a great source for several '70s playlists, and a fine example of reissue programming.