Various – Believe In Music

Once again, I missed one even as I was catching up with my new records starting with ‘B’. Or maybe I wasn’t sure I was going to own up to this one? I actually have only owned this since last September, when I picked it up at the Forever Changes dollar bin. But it is absolutely iconic in my musical history, even though I never owned it before.

1972 was the very year that I first started listening to music in a serious way – occasioned by nothing more sophisticated than getting my own clock-radio and discovering Top 40 radio when I started seventh grade. And it seems like it was the year my group of friends got deeply into music as well. Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 show, then fairly new, was an obsession. Knowing what was where on the charts was absolutely critical. Figuring out lyrics, figuring out meanings, trying to know who was in the bands (without the advantage of modern media and search) – it was practically a full-time job for young teens.

None of us had a lot of spending money. 45s were 79 cents, and were bought carefully. Albums were $3.99, $4.99, with no guarantee that the non-hits were any good – buying an album was always a risk. Very often, if I’d picked up more than one single from an album, I was unlikely to buy the album – it just didn’t make economic sense.

Well, companies like K-Tel knew there was an appetite for the hits, and so they started producing these compilations of songs – songs that had absolutely nothing in common with each other but chronology, in most cases. There were other collections that featured sound-alikes, not always very good ones, and these were mistakes. But K-Tel promised the original hits (eh . . . there was substantial editing, keeping pretty much everything below 2:30) and the original stars. The vinyl was thin, the sound not great – but it was a LOT of songs for $3.99.

So my friends got this collection, and we listened to it over and over and over. There were probably some other K-tel records in their house as well, but this is the one that really sticks with me. It was also this compilation that led to the idea of taping off the radio and putting our own compilations together, complete with our own DJ patter. (I don’t know if I wish any of those tapes survived or not.) I never owned it, but I never forgot it either. I even remember the ads, because they were ubiquitous.

God, this is a ’70s fest – some absolute all-time bangers, some absolutely unbearable garbage, and at least one guilty pleasure.

I mean, it starts with “Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl)” – how can you go wrong. A little bit of filler and then Mouth & MacNeil’s epic, inexplicable hit “How Do You Do?” which is the aforementioned guilty pleasure. I love this stupid song, I love every video the duo ever made for it, and I love how much our 12-year-old selves were convinced it was the dirtiest song ever to play on the radio. Then it dips into the super cool “Long Cool Woman,” followed by what should be the record-scratch/sudden stop sound effect, because no, we did not then, or ever, want to hear Donny Osmond do anything. Then the incredible “Back Stabbers,” and the power pop classic “Go All The Way,” and suddenly a fucking Andy Williams number. A fucking Andy Williams number. But then! “Maggie May”! But then . . . Bobby Vinton?

The second side gets off to a fair start with what I think is now a pretty forgotten Cher song but it was a huge hit in the day, and then the passion of “Sylvia’s Mother.” Then more Donny Osmond. Not necessary. Heavy prog from Argent, an Eric Clapton song I cannot remember, and then two other songs I can’t remember by Brownsville Station and Bulldog . . . okay, actually, it’s all downhill from here. The only saving grace is that the title track isn’t the Mac Davis version; if the Gallery version is better, I don’t remember and I don’t intend to find out.

By the way, there are other versions of this record – same title, 100% different track listing.

No, I’m not playing this record. But I am owning it. And John Spencer is not, anymore.