Various Artists [Millennium 1970-1979] 

I like compilation albums, they really fill a need, and this one is a really inventive double disc set, featuring certain Artists / songs that are hard to come by, nicely kept around the theme of one decade of British hits, there's lots of number one hits on these discs, though it's not a compilation of number one's, in this series there's a Fifties and Sixties set also, maybe even an Eighties set, they're well worth collecting. 

I like the way the booklet is laid out, with black & white news stories of the decade, this booklet is yellow and blue in it's colours, it's a lovely visual marvel, the track listing on the back is also pleasing to read.

Well the tracks i liked the best were 9, 12, 19 & 26, and here's a synopsis of each,
9 Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street, The song that put the saxophone on the map, a stroke of genius in letting the saxophone take over the intro instead of the electric guitar, and a double stroke of genius to have the intro return before the start of the second verse also, and of course the outro as well, everyone loves the saxophone contribution [by Raphael Ravenscroft], the mix of instruments is delicious, a soft click clack on the percussion, nice warblings on the accordion, in the 'chorus' there's glockenspiel, and the travelogue meanderings of Rafferty [supposedly singing about himself], a real classic.
12 Hot Chocolate - So You Win Again, I remember when this first hit the charts, straight in at number 22, and the following week it shot right up to 3, before sitting on the top of the charts, Hot Chocolate's stroke of genius [as well as 'You Sexy Thing'], it's such a powerful song, there's elements of Reggae and Soul in there, and the xylophone is quite prominent in the background, the lead singer Errol Brown is from Jamaica. 
19 Wizzard - Angel Fingers, In the Seventies they were one of my favourite bands, Wizzard / Roy Wood were a throwback to old time Rock & Roll, with saxophones very prominent, 'As i was lying in my bedroom fast asleep...', always thought it was a great opening line, one of the songs that really benefit from a third verse, it descends into doo wop at the end. 
26 Real Thing - You To Me Are Everything, A real Disco masterpiece, got to number one, there's a certain flow to the whole thing, and the chorus is so strong, it really takes off, with three backing singers to make it more powerful, and the orchestral strings that come in also, reminds me of those endless summers as a teenager, hmmmn!.

Various Artists [Afrodisiac 'Forty Original Soulful Classics] 

This is a wonderful double disc album of real Soul classics, a well chosen bunch of songs, that border also on Disco, Motown, and Pop, some of these tracks i have nowhere else in my collection, so this makes these disc all the more welcome, virtually all of the music comes from the Seventies, what a great decade that was, and i personally remember many of these tracks in the charts when i was younger, but sadly i wasn't into this type of music at the time, mainly leaning towards Glam Rock and Punk, with some New Wave chucked in also, now this stuff really gets to me as i'm older, even tracks that i don't think are great, and i could easily live without, i'm now developing a real fondness for, nothing sounds out of place, everything fits together, it's not just about the individual songs, but how all together they make a lovely bigger picture, i've wrote about these disc in my Blog twice before [17th January 2012 & 30th November 2010].

Well a whole bunch of songs blew me away, tracks 5-6, 10, 16-17, 19, 28, 30, 32-33, 37 & 40, too many tracks to talk about individually, so it would be nice to pick just two, and talk about them both more extensively, but giving the discs another little sample, wow that's a hard task, there's so many moments within tracks that really got me going, however here they both are, with a more extended synopsis,

16 Lou Rawls [You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine] - What a voice!, as smooth as butter, and so soulful, he's able to turn small phrases into large pleadings, the way he can change the meaning of words just by the way he sings them, almost perfection, in the intro it's that click click click from the percussion that deliciously gets on your nerves in a nice way [0:01-0:18], and when Rawls comes in, the voice blows you away, and the piano echoes the voice, a great and satisfying technique, Rawls can really sing with power in the chorus, and it's good to hear the click, click, click again, that merges the chorus and the second verse [1:02+], and when the chorus comes back again, this time it adds female backing singers [1:54+], the piano now uses a lovely down the keyboard glissando to bridge the chorus and the third verse [2:15], ha ha very nice, such a nice beat throughout, the epitome of a Soul song.

30 William De Vaughn [Be Thankful For What You've Got] - I had to put this in, this was one of those tracks i spoke about at the beginning that i can easily live without, yet now i find a real fondness for this, it has a gorgeous bongo solo at the beginning, and then the Hammond swirls just come in, now that's real soul [0:00-0:25], and the guitars and voice come in [0:17+ & 0:25], the twangy guitar makes a real vibe to it, and then later a very inauspicious Vibist [Vince Montana] comes in [1:08+], what a tremendous instrument it is, it makes such a difference to the song, the lyrics are fairly repetitive, the original version lasted just over seven minutes, and on this disc it cuts two minutes off the instrumental in the second half of the song, the vocals end and there's some of the instrumental on this version [3:43+], i love the way the Vibist gets a lovely solo in [4:35-5:23], which takes the track into the fade, it's a real joy to fall in love with this song.

Various Artists [32 Dynamic Disco Hits]

This was one of the very first things i ever bought on Ebay, i owned a double cassette of this, so i bought the double disc set to replace it, it's a great set of famous tunes if you love Seventies Disco music, while sitting down it wanted to get my feet moving, at least i was twitching and snapping my fingers, almost a perfect set of 32 tunes, play real loud!.

The tracks that really hit me were 1, 3, 6, 11-12, 15 & 32, and i must admit that i seem to gravitate to those songs that are a little over the top, and in a way almost seem like parodies of the Disco era, or was it just the naivete of the time?, so tracks 6, 15 & 32 were the ones that i would pick as the triptych that i would like to give a summary of,
6 Edwin Starr - Contact, the vocal stylings of Starr on this track are nicely over the top, it starts with a huge instrumental intro [0:00-1:35], which start as a sort of jungle bongos, and then the chorus of rhythmic clappers start up [0:08+], the rhythm changes to something more funky [0:52+], and i guess the same clapper chorus are the shouters of contact! throughout, with the most improbable story line of two lonely people making eye to eye contact through a maze of disco dancers, and the excellent Starr goes over the top, 'ow ow oh yeah' [2:11 & 3:17], and the laughs! [2:31], 'my heart was beating like a drum, as i fought my way over', yep, i can just imagine him with an invisible machete, slashing away the jungle of disco-ees to reach his beloved!, the laugh near the end is fantastic [3:42] 'hahahahahahaha-haaaar!', life's a jungle safari, glad Starr captured his prey.
15 Wild Cherry - Play That Funky Music, another over the top vocal styling, sounds like he's high on drugs, i've mentioned before that i always thought he was black, he sounds so much like a black guy, but he's white, he got the idea of the title of the song when they were playing a gig, and the drummer shouted 'play some funky music white boy', with twangy guitar vibes at the beginning, and the spoken intro from the singer 'heyyyyy do it now' [0:06] is excellent, and almost on the end of every line he overemphasizes the last word, plus he speak comments on his own singing lines from time to time, at the end of the chorus he adds 'till you die, ohhh till die-high' [1:20 & 2:48], there's a screaming guitar solo in the middle [1:27-1:45], i like the lines 'i'm funking out in every waaaaay' [2:07], done really over the top, and right at the outro his says 'plaaaaay that funky music' [3:06], haha, it's not meant to be a parody or anything, it was the real thing back then, but now it sounds such a spoof, i love it more than when it originally came out!.
32 Change - Searching, a lovely intro, nice hits of the drums, and a rolling wave rhythm, i can almost feel myself on an inflatable bed out on a hypnotizing ocean roll, in the chorus the girl in the song says 'she said, stop, stop, stop, get out your heart, what i've got's hot stuff, the night is ours' [1:15-1:29 & 2:31-2:45], also there's an alto sax solo that takes us outro [2:47-3:13], another great song that i appreciate more on this listening.

Various Artists [Afrodisiac - Forty Original Soulful Classics]

This is a wonderful double disc set, featuring mainly Seventies Motown, Disco, and Soul, there's some really great songs on here, plus it brings back memories of when i was a teenager!, this disc appeared in my Blog in 2010 [30th November 2010], and basically the same feelings apply here, what a tremendous era in musical history that was, however i was more into Rock, Glam, and Punk at the time, it was only later that i delved into this stuff.

The visuals for this issue are great, the front cover is a mono black and white [brown and yellow] shot of a girl with a huge afro hairstyle, very Seventies, notice the CND [Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament] necklace!, even the back cover is excellent, black and brown on yellow really stands out, and the brown and black nicely differentiates between song and Artist, all round a great package.

In listening to these discs, i really enjoyed tracks 3, 5, 9, 16-17, 19, 32 & 37-40, and i suppose out of these if i could just mention four, and give a little synopsis of each,
9 The Isley Brothers - [Who's] That Lady, featuring a wailing lead guitar throughout, the intro is quite Reggae-ish, as is common with these guy groups, there's a call and response between the lead singer and the other guys, and every chance the guitarist gets, off he wails with his guitar, at the end he gets to do a long manic guitar solo, which i really enjoyed!.
19 Johnny Bristol - Hang On In There Baby, quite a long slowish introduction, of almost talking, but when the music really get going, it's a lovely moment, the chorus is excellent, lovely background guitar, there's a clever brass interlude in the middle [1:59-2:18], and Bristol really develops an intensity afterwards, 'let it go baby, let it go honey'.
37 Limmie & Family Cookin' - You Can Do Magic, the only track that i highlighted from last time, it's such a strong song, and it's got a clever vibe to it, mainly caused by the cymbal work of the drummer, 'you can do magic!', it's virtually shouted out, with such enthusiasm, makes you want to jump up and down, and a nice little sax solo towards the end [2:11-2:26]. 
38 Billy Ocean - Love Really Hurts Without You, Ocean has a nice strong voice, a slight warble to it, and such a powerful song to go with it too, the chorus is really infectious.

Various Artists [Ultimate Seventies]

I spent my teenage years in the mid to late Seventies, and of course i listened to the singles charts of the day, so i'm quite familiar with most of these compilation discs, except the very early Seventies hits, it's a good mix of music, Disco, Reggae, Glam Rock, Soul, Pop, and even Punk to some degree, mixing the well known with other tracks that might be somewhat obscure, i enjoyed listening to this today. 

This compilation came out in 1995, i like the booklet front cover, a re-creation of Leonardo DaVinci's The Vitruvian Man, nicely symmetrical, with some of the Artists names written round the edges in colour to form a square, a very nice concept indeed. 

The tracks i liked the most were 1-5, 6-8, 12, 14-18, 20, 22, 27, 31 & 36, disc one is so much more superior to disc two, here's the three very best tracks, and a synopsis of them,
2 Hot Chocolate - You Sexy Thing, as the title suggests, a really sexy track, with a really funky beat, and nice layered different guitars, what really makes the track is the bongos [0:09+], but more likely they're played by a synthesizer or guitar, it gives it a real reggae feel, Errol Brown's down to earth vocal delivery, with his 'lyrics don't quite fit the music' writing, and his cries at the end of certain words / phrases, as well as almost ad-libbing at certain points, in the outro i like the way Brown sings 'ahh ha-aa it's extacy, arghhhhh' [3:22-3:27] it really is a very bubbly track.
5 Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street, famous for the sax solo [0:23-0:41], which returns halfway through [1:43-2:16], and takes us out at the end [3:51-4:05], which justly catapults the song into greatness, the verses have a superb use of an accordian and neat rattling percussion, which give it a kind of folky feel, and in the chorus a glockenspiel is used, it's little touches that bring about enormous rewards, with a serious wailing electric guitar solo before the end [3:20-3:51], it's one of those biographal tales that weave away a story, it's just superbly put together and is a classic.
8 ELO - Turn To Stone,