Soft Rock Hits of the 70s - search

This one's from 1981, but I think this kind of genre really had no boundaries when it came to what decade it belonged to. (Rupert's "Escape" was the last U.S. No. 1 song of the 70s, after all.)

I would've posted the longer version because it has that scary fade-out, but man, an Australian band – complete with instrumentless lead singer singing back-up – playing on a German music show with a Confederate flag hanging on the wall was too much to pass up.

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

little river band had great vocal harmonies.

more

pilot -- magic
ace -- how long
melissa manchester -- midnight blue
leon russell -- lady blue
mac davis -- baby don't get hooked on me
david soul -- don't give up on us baby
leo sayer -- more than i can say
andy kim -- rock me gently
lobo -- i'd love you to want you
first class -- beach baby
blue swede -- never my love (borderline inclusion)

enough for tonight. reminiscing about music isn't such a bad mid-life crises, as such things go.

boz scaggs - what can i say? (the "other" single from silk degrees)

"Moonlight Feels Right" - Starbuck

This is really nice. Great synth lead through the verse. And the marimba (?) solo is fun. Vocals are a little sleazy, I can picture singing "me and moon are itchin' to play" while winking at the audience with an unsettling grin.

^I can picture **the vocalist**

rod stewart - tonight's the night

spread your wings and come inside this one, which will hook you from the paul mccartney & wings guitar chord that opens it and hold you through the cooing french spoken word that ends it, with a stop in the middle for some soft strings and silky saxophone.

also, the video is a pre-mtv lost treasure.

smooth as fuck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU2mfK-maSQ

I love Little River Band, Ambrosia, and Leo Sayer! Also this guy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fCzfO18Rh4

Just to throw out a few more:

Dave Mason - We Just Disagree
Dave Loggins - Please Come To Boston
Looking Glass - Brandy
Michael Murphy - Wildfire

It's almost an endless genre...

surely bread qualify for this love ?

picked up their catalogue last year and alongside, elo, moody blues, and 10cc, find their smooth aor country rock pop is joyous ear candy.

Al Stewart rules this genre, Time Passages as mentioned upthread is a good'un but Year of the Cat just edges it

This isn't soft-rock, but if we're mentioning Boz Scaggs in the same breath, we've got to include George Benson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iey3CZFg-KE

This was playing in your dad's Cutlass as he was driving back from the apartment of that chick he met at the racquet club.

oh yeah. that song soundtracked a summer of mine as a young teenager, while i was desperately in love with a girl who wouldn't give me the time of day (no girl in her right-mind would've, but that's another story).

Oh man, I had completely forgotten about Alan O'Day! Love the way this one starts: Yeahhhh....Awright Baby.....Uhhhh....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7Xvf-L1wzo

I started throwing stuff together, looked up and saw that it's almost 9:30. I've got work to do.

So do you – somebody add what I forgot here: http://open.spotify.com/user/pplains/playlist/0nwTuzF4shGGH4D9FjUtXT

Be careful because Good Lord, this genre is ate up with acts either re-recording new versions of their old hits or the dreaded "karaoke" version of everything.

Also, feel free to arrange these. I haven't gone through and said "no, we can't follow 'my maria' with 'take a letter, maria'" yet.

Just found out Alan O'Day died this year, and that he wrote "Angie Baby" for Helen Reddy. I've never paid any attention to the lyrics, but according to wiki:

In order to make the character ("Angie") more interesting, he based her on a neighbor girl he had known who seemed "socially retarded".[citation needed] O'Day also thought of his own childhood; an only child who was often ill, many of his days were spent in bed with a radio to keep him company.[citation needed] O'Day showed the unfinished song to his therapist, who pointed out that the character's reactions were not those of a retarded person; O'Day then switched Angie from mentally "slow" to "crazy."[citation needed] This expanded to her living in a dream world of lovers, inspired by the songs on her radio. When an evil-minded neighbor tries to enter her room to take advantage of the girl, he is instead drawn into her reality, literally shrinking him down into her radio, "never to be found".

Alan O'Day's debut was a self financed sort of promo record that is really good! Originals can be expensive but Big Pink reissued it a few years ago on CD.

I started throwing stuff together, looked up and saw that it's almost 9:30. I've got work to do.

So do you – somebody add what I forgot here: http://open.spotify.com/user/pplains/playlist/0nwTuzF4shGGH4D9FjUtXT

Be careful because Good Lord, this genre is ate up with acts either re-recording new versions of their old hits or the dreaded "karaoke" version of everything.

Also, feel free to arrange these. I haven't gone through and said "no, we can't follow 'my maria' with 'take a letter, maria'" yet.

― pplains, Tuesday, January 14, 2014

this is great.

Yeah I know it's 1982 but it sure sounds 1970s. Strangely enough stripey t-shirt dude looks just like a Shoreditch hipster, unlike the bassist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5Adx0RXpvg

yeah. i think that counts, but it's right on the edge. america had that "middle-aged, alcohol-soaked guy making an unsettling pass at a woman half-his-age" vibe, which is the essence of 70s soft rock.

Craig Ruhnke is one of Canada's soft rock greatest secrets. The Japanese pay a lot for his records, and with good reason. His first from 73 is pure easy and free.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9okhZ972m3s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr7wn_Zyc6A

oh wow, those are great.

Hey Daniel if you'd like my soft mix I posted in the mixtape thread

Hey Daniel if you'd like my soft mix I posted in the mixtape thread

― JacobSanders, Wednesday, January 15, 2014

missed this somehow. i'll check it out tonight. thx!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s-KwsoZk0Q

buddies of mine in philly made this: https://soundcloud.com/#the-dream-chimney/mix-of-the-week-darklord-soft-rock-for-hard-times . it's great.

jacob - can you share a direct link to your mix? not sure which mixtape thread you're talking about

future world orchestra - miracles

https://soundcloud.com/lexx72/lexx-symptoms-of-love

this mix is really good

really like this record:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz8dtIruywA

hell yea, stoked to listen to this lexx mix

btw soft rock for hard times vol 2 came out a while back on test pressing, link for anyone who might be interested: http://testpressing.org/2014/09/370-universal-cave-soft-rock-for-hard-times-vol-2/

hi I've been nerding out so hard on this stuff lately

(also early 80's easy listening hit machines like george benson, Peabo Bryson et al)

but also this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0sTpZja6JQ

(and I always end up thinking about MST3K's riff on whether it's Hamilton, Joe, Frank, & Reynolds / Hamilton Joe, Frank & Reynolds / Hamilton Joe Frank, & Reynolds etc etc )

so although it was techically 1981, it was mentioned up thread - Paul Davis's "Cool Night".

one I loved as a kid, as an adult I hear it and think "ugh, relatable".

which is to say "classic"

listening to the rhino 70s box and there seems to be a significant subgenre of 'dude runs into old flame, everyone's doing fine, but dude never in fact got over old flame (and sometimes sees her face when he's fucking his wife)'. kinda creepy!

are there more recent examples of this trope in pop lyrics?

I just spent 15 minutes contemplating the amazingness of the Pablo Cruise logo, as evocative of intent as any metal band's logo.

I have the "Have A Nice Day" series of 70s comps which cover all sorts of low-charting hits, very evocative of my childhood listening to the radio. Much of my early ideas of love and relationships came from those songs.

are there more recent examples of this trope in pop lyrics?

― mookieproof, Tuesday, April 7, 2020 9:41 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

steve winwood - "valerie" kinda?

yikes steve

"What a Fool Believes" ??

I always figured this trope was because a lot of people were getting divorced in the 70s and because they had been off the market for a while, the people who spring to mind when romance became a possibility again were old flames
Also it seems like a distinctly cis male POV but I have nothing to prove that aside from a gut feeling

i'm definitely fascinated by this strain of thought, which like you i think of as being particularly cis male. something like bill labounty's "livin' it up" or, i mean, earlier something like "flowers on the wall". the bitter regret of someone who took what he had for granted and treated "his woman" like shit but lacking in anything resembling real insight or personal accountability. that's the extra layer of tragedy of songs like that, you just know the protagonist of the song is going to pull that shit again and again until they finally die, alone and miserable.

Whereas ladies are always singing things like "I'm happy for you. I wish nothing but the best for you both."