Gladys Knight & The Pips Gold

Rhino's expansive six-CD box set of 1970s soul called Can You Dig It?, this wonderfully sequenced collection stands as an impressive survey of the genre in its own right, running the gamut from Al Green and Marvin Gaye to the Chi-Lites, Sly Stone, the Staple Singers, and Earth, Wind & Fire and beyond with nary a slack track in sight. It may technically be a sampler, but in being so it doesn't have the luxury of pausing for breath or historical reflection, which means this compilation, sampler or not, delivers bang for the buck from end to end.

As soul music moved into the early '70s, it became dominated by smoother sounds and polished productions, picking up its cues from Motown, Chicago soul, and uptown soul. By the beginning of the decade, soul was fracturing in a manner similar to pop/rock, as pop-soul, funk, vocal groups, string-laden Philly soul, and sexy Memphis soul became just a few of the many different subgenres to surface. Often, the productions on these records were much more polished than '60s productions, boasting sound effects, synthesizers, electric keyboards, echoes, horn sections, acoustic guitars, and strings.

BBC - The Old Grey Whistle Test: 70's Gold (2011)
HDTV | 1440x1080 | .MKV/AVC @ 2476 Kbps | 1h 28mn | 1.62 GiB
Audio: English AAC 135 kbps, 2 channels | Subs: English
Genre: Documentary

The Old Grey Whistle Test was launched on 21st September 1971 from a tiny studio tucked behind a lift shaft on the fourth floor of BBC Television Centre. From humble beginnings it has gone on to provide some of the best and most treasured music archive that the BBC has to offer. This programme takes us on a journey and celebrates the musically mixed-up decade that was the 1970s and which is reflected in the OGWT archive.

For anyone who grew up during the last days of AM radio, anyone who remembers gas shortages, disco scarves, and feathered hair, this mammoth seven-disc box set, Have a Nice Decade: The 70s Pop Culture Box, will be a holy grail of nostalgia. First of all, the discs themselves contain a staggering 164 tracks. Basically, if you remember the song, it's probably included: from enduring chestnuts even today's teenagers can sing ("Fire and Rain," "Fly Like an Eagle") to obscure gems of kitsch like "The Night Chicago Died" and the supremely maudlin "Billy Don't Be a Hero." If you were born in the 1960s, you'll probably find this stuff enjoyable rather than embarrassing (to the degree that you can think back on your adolescence without cringing). But don't let the music distract you from the packaging, either. The box is covered in avocado-green shag carpeting (embroidered with a happy-face pattern), and the booklet contains photos of all the artists, essays on the politics and culture of the period, and capsule references to notable events, fads, and people. Only Rhino Records could have put out a reissue package of music, images, and text this perfect.

The 70s Summer Album features sixty summertime sounds of the seventies across 3CD’s in a sleek and summery digipak design. Featuring The Jacksons, Bay City Rollers, Billy Ocean, Boney M., Bill Withers, The Isley Brothers and more!