The Dance Decade 1973-1983

So I'm perusing past issues of Smash Hits magazine and come across the following ad:

You have my full attention now, Smash Hits. Since I was in Texas and not England in 1983, it's not surprising that I didn't hear of this compilation when it was originally released. I could nitpick and complain that 1973-1983 is eleven years and, therefore, more than a decade, but no time for that - I gotta see a track list and quick. You can see the Discogs listing by clicking here or below is the best photo of the box set back cover I could find:

click to enlarge

That's a damn fine compilation plus many tunes with which I was previously unfamiliar. Here's a playlist (in dire need of updating) if you want to judge/discover for yourself:

YouTube Playlist: 70s Soft Rock/AC

Because of a firewall at my workplace, my music streaming options are quite limited. And by "quite limited," I mean that I can only currently stream music on YouTube unless I want to put on a set of earbuds and use my phone to bypass the firewall. In either case, they ain't making it easy for me to get my daily music fix.

While this playlist definitely skews to the latter half of the '70s, it goes beyond the scope of our usual parameters of 1976-85. I'm including this playlist here because I've found that if I embed a YT playlist in a webpage, I get fewer or no ads. So I made this for myself, but you're welcome to it (and go ahead and subscribe to the "Soft Rock Kid" channel while you're at it). There's nothing surprising on this page, but it makes nice background music at work and no, I don't work in a dentist's reception area.

Playlist (subject to change):

	Song	Artist	Year	AC	Pop
1	Reminiscing	Little River Band	1978	10	3
2	This Time I'm in It for Love	Player	1978	20	13
3	Love Takes Time	Orleans	1979	13	11
4	On and On	Stephen Bishop	1977	2	11
5	Holdin' on to Yesterday	Ambrosia	1975	46	18
6	Love is the Answer	England Dan & John Ford Coley	1979	1	10
7	Midnight at the Oasis	Maria Muldaur	1974	7	6
8	Took the Last Train	David Gates	1978	7	30
9	I'm Not in Love	10cc	1975	10	3
10	If You Leave Me Now	Chicago	1976	1	1

	Song	Artist	Year	AC	Pop
11	Never Gonna Fall in Love Again	Eric Carmen	1976	1	11
12	Can We Still be Friends?	Todd Rundgren	1978	45	52
13	Whenever I Call You "Friend"	Kenny Loggins & Stevie Nicks	1978	9	5
14	My Angel Baby	Toby Beau	1978	1	13
15	Precious and Few	Climax	1972	6	3
16	I Just Wanna Stop	Gino Vannelli	1978	4	4
17	Lotta Love	Nicolette Larson	1978	1	8
18	Magnet and Steel	Walter Egan	1978	18	8
19	Maybe I'm Amazed (Live)	Wings	1977	-	10
20	How Long	Ace	1975	24	3

	Song	Artist	Year	AC	Pop
21	Year of the Cat	Al Stewart	1976	8	8
22	Lead Me On	Maxine Nightingale	1978	1	5
23	We've Only Just Begun	Carpenters	1970	1	2
24	It's Too Late	Carole King	1971	1	1
25	Hello It's Me	Todd Rundgren	1973	17	5
26	Where is the Love	Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway	1972	1	5
27	You are the Sunshine of My Life	Stevie Wonder	1973	1	1
28	Neil Sedaka	Laughter in the Rain	1974	1	1
29	How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)	James Taylor	1975	1	5
30	Today's the Day	America	1976	1	23

	Song	Artist	Year	AC	Pop
31	Blow Away	George Harrison	1979	2	16
32	Summer	War	1976	1	7
33	It's Sad to Belong	England Dan & John Ford Coley	1977	1	21
34	How Deep is Your Love	Bee Gees	1977	1	1
35	(What A) Wonderful World	Art Garfunkel with James Taylor & Paul Simon	1978	1	17
36	Bluer Than Blue	Michael Johnson	1978	1	12
37	Fool (If You Think It's Over)	Chris Rea	1978	1	10
38	Time Passages	Al Stewart	1978	1	7
39	Sweet Life	Paul Davis	1978	7	15
40	Miracles	Jefferson Starship	1975	17	3

	Song	Artist	Year	AC	Pop
41	Home and Dry	Gerry Rafferty	1978	26	28
42	Dancing in the Moonlight	King Harvest	1972	22	13
43	Baby Come Back	Player	1977	20	1
44	Goodbye Girl	David Gates	1977	3	15
45	Better Love Next Time	Dr. Hook	1979	3	12
46	Fallin' in Love	Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds	1975	1	1
47	Get Closer	Seals & Crofts	1976	2	6
48	Love Will Find a Way	Pablo Cruise	1978	28	6
49	This is It	Kenny Loggins	1979	17	11
50	Emotion	Samantha Sang	1977	5	3

	Song	Artist	Year	AC	Pop
51	Lovin' You	Minnie Riperton	1975	4	1
52	You Make Me Feel Like Dancing	Leo Sayer	1976	19	1
53	Sentimental Lady	Bob Welch	1977	10	8
54	Suspicions	Eddie Rabbitt	1979	9	13
55	So Good, So Right	Brenda Russell	1979	8	30
56	What You Won't Do for Love	Bobby Caldwell	1978	10	9
57	Just the Way You Are	Billy Joel	1977	1	3
58	Save It for a Rainy Day	Stephen Bishop	1976	6	22
59	I Like Dreamin'	Kenny Nolan	1976	4	3
60	Song on the Radio	Al Stewart	1979	10	29

	Song	Artist	Year	AC	Pop
61	Knowing Me, Knowing You	ABBA	1977	7	14
62	Up on the Roof	James Taylor	1978	7	28
63	Chuck E.'s in Love	Rickie Lee Jones	1979	20	4
64	Can't Get It Out of My Head	Electric Light Orchestra	1974	-	9
65	We Don't Talk Anymore	Cliff Richard	1979	5	7
66	99	Toto	1979	19	26
67	Jackie Blue	Ozark Mountain Daredevils	1975	-	3
68	Still the One	Orleans	1975	33	5
69	Sara Smile	Daryl Hall & John Oates	1976	18	4
70	Lowdown	Boz Scaggs	1976	11	3

	Song	Artist	Year	AC	Pop
71	You Belong to Me	Carly Simon	1978	4	6
72	Imaginary Lover	Atlanta Rhythm Section	1978	20	7
73	This Night Won't Last Forever	Michael Johnson	1979	5	19
74	What a Fool Believes	Doobie Brothers	1979	22	1
75	We Just Disagree	Dave Mason	1977	19	12
76	Slip Slidin' Away	Paul Simon	1977	4	5
77	Arrow Through Me	Wings	1979	29	29
78	I'd Really Love to See You Tonight	England Dan & John Ford Coley	1976	1	2
79	Just You 'n' Me	Chicago	1973	7	4
80	Swayin' to the Music (Slow Dancing)	Johnny Rivers	1977	8	10

	Song	Artist	Year	AC	Pop
81	Whatcha Gonna Do?	Pablo Cruise	1977	-	6
82	Every Time I Think of You	The Babys	1979	36	13
83	Lost Without Your Love	Bread	1976	3	9
84	Dreams	Fleetwood Mac	1977	11	1
85	Peg	Steely Dan	1977	30	11
86	Who's Right, Who's Wrong	Pages	1979	-	-
87	Cool Change	Little River Band	1979	8	10
88	Moonlight Feels Right	Starbuck	1975	2	3
89	With Your Love	Jefferson Starship	1976	6	12
90	The Things We Do for Love	10cc	1976	12	5

	Song	Artist	Year	AC	Pop
91	Right Down the Line	Gerry Rafferty	1978	1	12
92	Day After Day	Badfinger	1971	10	4
93	Have You Never Been Mellow	Olivia Newton-John	1975	1	1
94	She's Gone	Daryl Hall & John Oates	1976	6	7
95	Your Smiling Face	James Taylor	1977	6	20
96	How Much I Feel	Ambrosia	1978	11	3
97	I Go Crazy	Paul Davis	1977	25	7
98	Sara	Fleetwood Mac	1979	13	7
99	FM	Steely Dan	1978	-	22
100	Minute by Minute	Doobie Brothers	1979	13	14

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Olivia (1978)

Last night, I received the following text message:

Ever see the Olivia Newton-John TV Special with Abba and Andy Gibb?  I don't remember ever seeing it but I just watched the ever loving crap out of it on YT.

And now you can watch the ever loving crap out of it, too.  And you should:

This is the original feed, not what actually aired.  More information about this clip is available over at the YouTube site. Other than the sweet tunes and gorgeous Olivia, what strikes me is that this is filmed one-take with a live orchestra and the medley lasts almost 19 minutes.  Impressive.  Sure, there's some clunkers (the most obvious is at 12:10), but it's more entertaining than any lip-synching performance.

The best I can determine, the Olivia special was aired Wednesday, May 17, 1978 on ABC.  Here's the running order for this medley:

• If You Love Me (Let Me Know)
• Dancing Queen
• Fernando
• I Just Want To Be Your Everything
• Have You Never Been Mellow
• Please Mr. Please
• Take A Chance On Me
• (Love Is) Thicker Than Water
• Shadow Dancing
• Hopelessly Devoted To You
• If You Love Me (Let Me Know)
• Thank You For The Music

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H/T to Herc over at Herc's Hideaway for hipping me to this video and to YouTube user ArgoWho for uploading and sharing this clip.  Many thanks.