Music Of My Youth-Pop Fluff

The 70's was such a wonderful time that you can hear just about everything on AM, whereas the album rock and underground stuff was happening on FM and basically I never ventured up much on the FM scale.  Most of the stations were Muzak or Religious Hoo Ha.  But at that time, I lived in a 45's AM radio world.

If you were a girl back around 1970 thereabouts, you loved Donny Osmond and The Osmond but if you were a boy that liked that, you would be called a pussy and a few other choice words.  The girl that I was walking home from school had every Osmond album that came out and I'm sure Bobby Sherman and The Partridge Family too.  The Osmonds actually did have some listenable stuff, Yo Yo and Crazy Horses was a guilty pleasure but when Down By The Lazy River or One Bad Apple started playing up, I would change the station.  Sometimes my friends would make requests to the local station for crappy music. me wanting to hear 3 Dog Night while Craig Rothmeyer called up and requested The Candy Man.

I took my rock and roll seriously back then, with new singles by Elton John, or Led Zeppelin or 3 Dog Night to be big events of that week and poo pooing The Carpenters or Bobby Sherman or David Cassidy and The Partridge Family.  But there was plenty of god awful crap from one hit bands.  Stay Awhile by The Bells, Mammy Blue by The Pop Tops, fucking bloody awful. Chirpy Chirpy Cee Cee by Mac and Katie Kasoon.  The K Tel collections of 22 Explosive Hits pretty much sums up the AM radio playlist. Or Rhino's late Have A Nice Day Series.  So anyway,  here's a few artists from that by gone era, that made an impact on radio but to me didn't amount to much.

Olivia Newton-John    If Not For You, was a fine song and remains my favorite Olivia single, it sounded great from the AM side of things.  Let Me Be There and If You Love Me (Let Me Know) were good back to back country sounding songs with a flirty bass singer on the chorus.  Then gave the world the odious Have You Never Been Mellow or worse I Honestly Love You which may have been the inspiration for Debbie Boone's You Light Up My Life.   She got versatile, scoring big with You're The One That I Want with John Travolta for the Grease movie and then hooking up with Jeff Lynne and ELO for Xanadu.  Her last listenable single was 1976's Come On Over.  Then went dance music with Physical and worse Soul Kiss.  She tried a comeback in country with Back With A Heart in 98 which would have been fine but had to reprise I Honesty Love You again.

Paul Anka   Donny Osmond covered a few of his old 50's song (Puppy Love, Lonely Boy) so I guess we can consider Anka to be part of the 70s' pop fluff.   Anka started out at ABC Paramount and the redid some of his hits for 21 Golden Hits  for RCA to which I do like Lonely Boy (Anka's version).  I also think Anka was more in tune with Vegas Pop then actual rock and roll although he scored a freak hit with Jubilation  for Buddah in 1973  to which I enjoyed so much I bought the album as a 99 cent cut out.  Nothing else on that album is equal to the title track which works as a 4 minute single but as the full 7 minute version the arrangement get to be pompous as hell.  And then he may have made the most single puke inducing record of the 70s, You're Having My Baby for United Artist in 1974 which may be more icky than You Light Up My Life.  He did better in 2007 making a album called Rock Swings and using some of modern rock better known songs (Nirvana, Soundgarden, Oasis) into a standard swing music that works a bit.  And repeated to a more lesser success on Classic Songs: My Way.    One really doesn't need a Paul Anka overview but for the good and bad, 30th Anniversary Collection  has most of it.  21 Golden Hits isn't the actual original recordings but I grew up listening to it.  The 30th Anniversary Collection remains all the Paul Anka you can stomach, I did wish that the 45 edit of Jubilation could have been used and you'll have to fast forward through You're Having My Baby, one of those songs that are so un PC in this day and age.  

Osmonds/Donny Osmond    They could do a credible white boy version of the Jackson 5 (One Bad Apple, Double Lovin), hell they even impressed Lars Urich of Metallica to steal Crazy Horses from the internet for his own enjoyment.  That and Joe South's Yo Yo ensures them to be more metal than Limp Bizkit.  For more fun and games find their 21 Hits Special Collection on Curb.

Carpenters:  Lush Harmonies, singles that did sound good on the radio but they never did much for me. I do give them props for covering Klaatu Calling Occupants in 1975.  Great singles band although Sing with the children's choir does make me want to pull my hair out.

Partridge Family/David Cassidy    The Cowsills had better songs.  And the songs worked better on the TV show than on the turntable.  Songs I could listen to were Friend And A Lover from the Notebook LP (and a failed hit in 1972) or I Woke Up In Love This Morning  (my aunt had those 45s).  I did locate their Greatest Hits that Arista threw out and I still find that some of their songs are bubble gum fun. The late David Cassidy did embrace power pop with his live cover of the Beatles Please Please Me, which made me think he had more substance than what I gave him credit for.  

Helen Reddy:  In 1973 the underground FM station played Delta Dawn for some odd reason.  Sounded good at the time I guess.  More of a pop singer than rocker, two interesting albums she recorded for Capitol, Long Hard Climb and the Kim Fowley 1977 Ear Candy throw a few left curves.  Her strengths remain the ballads though.


More Pop Fluff:

Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast-Wayne Newton 1972
Something's Wrong With Me-Austin Roberts 1972
Don't Say You Don't Remember-Beverly Bremmers 1971
Precious And Few-Climax 1972
The Candy Man-Sammy Davis Jr. 1971
Torn Between Two Lovers-Mary McGregor 1977
Billy Don't Be A Hero-Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods 1973
You Light Up My Life-Debby Boone 1978
Reunited-Peaches & Herb 1979
Oh Babe What Would You Say-Norman Hurricane Smith 1973