Rhino's *Super Hits of the '70s* -- classic/dud, etc.

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Chuck just reminded me of this utterly brilliant series of discs that Rhino started releasing back in 1990 or so -- I still don't have them all but I've got the first fifteen and at least one more out of a total of 23 or something. It was something of an overground celebration of what had bubbled up in various ways, shapes and forms earlier about Loving Them Old Seventies Pop Hits, your "Timothy"s and your "Chevy Van"s < / Shatner > and all -- I'm thinking of Negativland and the Helter Stupid album plus earlier broadcasts, along with other odd undercurrents. I think it was the first time that Rhino had explicitly stepped away from its previous focus as the record fanatic/audiophile/psych/punk reissue label for something else, even got a lead review in Rolling Stone at the time (and Chuck, did you do that review or was it Parke Petersbaugh?).

And, of course, it's great, ridiculously great. It's not meant to be and isn't a true portrait of everything on the radio in America in the early seventies -- you'd want something like Rhino's slightly concurrent Didn't It Blow Your Mind soul/funk compilations to get a better idea of things in combination, and even then not all the smashes were available for inclusion. But oh, the one hit wonders, the weird fluke hits, the bubblegum gone wrong/right, the random metal smashes of the time, etc.

Who else here feels the love?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 19:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Sounds like the contents were quite similar to my cocaine blowout, then.

― Sarah Pedal (call mr. lee), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 19:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Okay, I'll post this here, too. (It was a LEAD review!!!)

http://www.superseventies.com/spsuperhits.html

― chuck, Tuesday, 30 September 2003 19:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh wait, Ned aready mentioned that it was a lead review; sorry to be so damn redundant. Guess I should've read his post first. Anyway, yeah -- the writer was me. (Only other Rolling Stone lead review I ever did was for something by the Offspring, if I remember right.)

― chuck, Tuesday, 30 September 2003 19:51 (twenty-two years ago)

k-classic, I've been mining the have a nice day sets for inspiration pretty heavily while attempting to patrinize 1974, though to be honest I'm finding the hard part isn't finding good am gold or soul or funk or proto-disco (the tough part there is knowing when you've got enough) as it is finding rock. I didn't hear their eighties box but my impression from the glance I got at the tracklist was that it was a bit stodgier, less willing to revel in the potentially embarassing. I'd imagine it sold really well since there were so many volumes and I always see at least two or three in record stores.

― cinniblount (James Blount), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 19:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Didn't a lot of those comps only sport 10 or 12 tracks per disc?

― christoff (christoff), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 20:13 (twenty-two years ago)

That was their downside -- they were fairly short even at 12 songs given what a CD could hold, and at full price at the time that made collecting them a bit daunting. Great design for each of them, though!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 20:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Chuck...wasn't "Timothy" by The Buoys about a duck? Not cannibalism?

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 20:34 (twenty-two years ago)

it should be remembered that the series started when vinyl was still a semi-viable format

― cinniblount (James Blount), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 20:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Ah, you are correct, sir. Still though, bonus tracks! And actually the CDs DID have bonus tracks specifically included and still fell terribly short of even what vinyl could do.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 20:42 (twenty-two years ago)

10 to 12 songs is the perfect length for most CDs anyway, isn't it?

>>wasn't "Timothy" by The Buoys about a duck? Not cannibalism? <<

Um, I've never heard that one. I mean, are you saying that the band CLAIMED the song was about a duck? Either way, it was still about cannibalism as far as I'm concerned. What do bands know, anyway?

― chuck, Tuesday, 30 September 2003 20:43 (twenty-two years ago)

The whole "Timothy"/duck thing has been a longstanding rumor since the 1970s, I gather (partially from Rob Morgan, whose Squirrels have done an insane cover version of same). MST3K specifically referenced this rumor at the end of a sketch back in 1991 or so.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 20:53 (twenty-two years ago)

My favorite compilation series ever. It's all essential till about Volume 15. I think this stuff means more to me than punk or glam or any of the junk I became obsessed with in my teens. I was such an AM Radio/K-Tel fiend back then. Some of the songs are so creepy, too, like "The Rapper" or "Chick a Boom" or "Jackie Blue" or "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia."

― Arthur (Arthur), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 22:28 (twenty-two years ago)

stone cold classic. it should be pointed out at the same time that the oldies radio station wherever you live is probably equally classic in the exact same way. i can at least vouch for the amazing oldies radio station in my native new york, cbs 101 fm, where pretty much every song that's been mentioned here, or will be mentioned later on in this thread, is a core track.

― fact checking cuz, Tuesday, 30 September 2003 22:56 (twenty-two years ago)

>>< / Shatner > and all -- I'm thinking of Negativland and the Helter Stupid album plus earlier broadcasts, along with other odd undercurrents.<<

Ned, what's this mean? What do Shatner and Negativeland have to do with these '70s Rhino set?....Not sure what you're getting at (though maybe if I'd heard more Negativeland or William Shatner, I would. Neither of them ever struck me as much worth paying attention to.)

― chuck, Tuesday, 30 September 2003 23:31 (twenty-two years ago)

The Shatner mention was because I was (perhaps lamely) parrotting Shatner's typical declamatory style from Star Trek ("We have much in common with you, your government, your respect for life, your alien wars of Kratzgon IX.") The HTML code is just a shorthand for style or the 'voice' in which it needs to be heard, you'll see it on the board and many other spots. As for Negativland, in the mid eighties they started coming up with a variety of parodies of various seventies-style radio stations for their broadcasts on Over the Edge, with the mellifluous Richard Lyons transformed into the even more mellifluous Dick Vaughn and his Moribund Music of the '70s on 'the California Superstation.' A fair amount of songs that ended up on the reissue series took a bow. The character and act was finally more or less immortalized on the second half of the Helter Stupid album in the late eighties while tapes of the broadcast were made and circulated even earlier. One of those little subcultural things that might not really have influenced anything but I could see a few folks at Rhino (at least the Rhino then) picking up with the idea a bit.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 1 October 2003 00:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I remember negativland album artwork (maybe helter stupid also? a long long time since I listened to negativland on purpose) with some 'remember all the great songs of the seventies' type thing with many of the same songs

― cinniblount (James Blount), Wednesday, 1 October 2003 01:12 (twenty-two years ago)

That would be it.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 1 October 2003 01:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Hey, don't dis the stuff that came after Vol. 15...look at the lineup of hits on Vol. 22:

"Every 1's a Winner" (Hot Chocolate -- not their best, but still damn good), "Hot Child in the City" (Nick Gilder -- man or woman?), "Lotta Love" (Nicolette Larson doing Neil Young right), "My Sharona," "Gold" (John Stewart -- with gorgeous help from Buckingham & Nicks), "You Take My Breath Away" (Rex "Schlockmeister Supreme" Smith), "Driver's Seat" (Sniff 'N' The Tears -- timeless and epic), "Sad Eyes" (Robert John -- best song from a guy with two first names ever), and a couple others.

And let's not forget Vol. 18, which had the best xylophone solo of all time in Starbuck's "Moonlight Feels Right." 25 volumes of bliss.

― Erick H (Erick H), Wednesday, 1 October 2003 21:57 (twenty-two years ago)

ten years pass...

Goddamn this is like Time Life's AM Gold x 1000. LOVE THIS.

Also whose idea was it to make the Lord's Prayer a song? Because it's a GREAT IDEA. Thank you Sister Janet Mead

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 6 January 2014 17:35 (twelve years ago)

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