Rock On 1974 CD - Import

Madacy's Rock On 70s series is a low-priced roundup of popular songs from each year of the decade. The songs seem thrown together with little regard to context or pacing, but mostly do a fairly good job of re-creating what 45 or so minutes of listening to a decent AM station would have been like. The volume from 1974 features a wide range of styles like Southern rock (Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama"), funk (Rufus' "Tell Me Something Good"), nascent disco (George McRae's "Rock Your Baby"), novelty (Carl Douglas' "Kung Fu Fighting"), and pop (Andy Kim's "Rock Me Gently," Blue Swede's "Hooked on a Feeling"). At 12 tracks, even 12 really good tracks, the disc is a little on the skimpy side to be of much use to consumers. ~ Tim Sendra

Each volume of Excelsior's Rock On series provides an extremely arbitrary snapshot of the year that's being covered. Only 12 songs are on each disc, meaning that a good amount of space goes to waste, and there's little in the way of stylistic focus. Needless to say, these hastily patched-together budget-line discs shouldn't be considered suitable documentation for the years they are covering. Rock On: 1974 includes Jethro Tull's "Bungle in the Jungle," Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells," Gladys Knight & the Pips' "Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me," Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama," and George McRae's "Rock Your Baby." ~ Andy Kellman

Feat.Blue Swede,Terry Jacks, Lynyrd Skynrd,Jethro Tull,+