Mixtape #7: Sucking Down the '70s

Last week I acquired all 25 volumes of Rhino Records' legendary Have a Nice Day compilation. Depending on your point of view, I either just scored royally or ensured my children are going to have terrible nightmares for the next few weeks. They're tough. They can handle it.

Super Hits of the '70s: Have a Nice Day collects exactly 300 songs that infected music pop culture in the '70s, which was a curious but doggedly democratic time on the Top 40 charts. Everybody had a valid shot at landing a Top 40 hit. The collision between the end of the '60s hippie ideal and the immediacy aspect of '70s marketing created a vortex of pop that was meant to be consumed and disposed. (Even entire careers were supposed to be disposed -- the '70s saw a virtual army of one-hit wonders.) The crass commercialism bugged many people who preferred more weighty music. Screw 'em.

However, cultural revisionism being especially popular these days, '70s top 40 sounds a little different from a distance. Thanks to Guardians of the Galaxy it's trickled down to my kids as well. So the time felt right for another mixtape, and here you have it. It's an hour of Top 40 hits from 1970 to about 1978, the slight majority of which even I wasn't that familiar with. I think it's fabulous. It's also intercut with edited sequences from Arnold Schwarzenegger's appearance on The Dating Game. I hope you enjoy/survive it.

Track listing in the comments.