Pop 1970's

Pop radio in the late 1960s and early 1970s was a delightfully diverse thing. Tune in your transistor to your local Top 40 station and you’d hear everything from easy listening to acid rock. But lost amidst the mythology of that tempestuous time are dozens of sweet, catchy, lightning-in-a-bottle hit records – we call them “Sugar Pop.” Many of these artists scaled the upper reaches of the charts and were never heard from again. But, one-hit wonders or not, these are some finest records of their era – and we’ve rescued them from obscurity and polished them to a fine-sounding gleam for the latest installment of Hard To Find 45s On CD.

Like Omigod! The 80s Pop Culture Box (Totally) is a seven-disc, 142-track box set of popular music hits of the 1980s. Released by Rhino Records in 2002, the box set was based on the success of Have a Nice Decade: The 70s Pop Culture Box, Rhino's box set covering the 1970s. Like Omigod! includes a 90-page booklet of cultural comment, a timeline for the decade, and liner notes for the tracks included in the set. As does Have a Nice Decade, the tracks tend to be from the lesser-known artists who were one-hit wonders, although music from the best-selling artists of the era are also included. In addition, many of the 1980s musical styles — rock, pop, country pop, new wave, funk, disco and rhythm and blues — are represented.

It’s been a little while since Eric Records’ acclaimed “Hard-To-Find 45s on CD” series visited the 1970s. And, we’ve never stretched into the ’80s! That makes Hard-To-Find 45s on CD Vol. 14: 70s & 80s Pop Classics a welcome addition to the family, as it celebrates the glittering decades that found popular music getting more popular – and unpredictable – than ever before. Hold on tight – or you might get whiplash as we survey nearly 20 years’ worth of pop rarities!

At ten CDs and 200 tracks, this survey of 1970s pop features 20 songs from each year between 1970 and 1979.

Back in 1975, Maxine Nightingale became an overnight sensation in the UK when her latest single, ‘Right Back Where We Started From’, stormed into the Top 10. Thereafter, the track’s catchy appeal spread like wildfire across the globe, topping the charts in Canada and the US and was a massive hit in most other countries.