Search - Various Artists :: Best Of 70's Rock Chart Toppers, Vol. 2

Great music--but there's just not enough of it

Matthew G. Sherwin | last seen screaming at Amazon customer service | 01/11/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Best Of 70's Rock Chart Toppers, Vol. 2 gives us a measly nine tracks of rock music from the awesome `70s scene. The quality of the sound is excellent but I am disappointed with a CD retrospective that only has nine tracks.



Queen opens with their smash rockin' tune called "Crazy Little Thing Called Love." Freddie Mercury sings this flawlessly and Queen rocks hard and strong on this one using their electric guitars, drums and percussion. What a great band they were! There's also Eddie Money doing his "Two Tickets To Paradise." Eddie Money does this well and I predict that you'll like "Two Tickets To Paradise" very, very much.



"Smoke On The Water" by Deep Purple is clearly one of the greatest rock hits of all time; they sing and play this tune like pros! I really like "Smoke On The Water" because of the way they use the guitars; and the drums and percussion make it all the better, too.



"Count On Me" by Jefferson Starship is a rockin' tune although after the first three numbers I just mentioned it starts to feel like light rock. "Count On Me" would probably have a more rockin' flavor if it stood all on its own; it's not the best song for this CD. In addition, there's also the classic "Sister Golden Hair" by America. I always loved this song ever since the days of my junior high school dances. My teachers played this song once or twice at the dances and it immediately had a huge, positive impact on me. I'll always fondly remember those great school dances we had whenever I listen to "Sister Golden Hair."



"Drift Away" by Dobie Gray mixes rock and a twist of country but this time the song that sticks out as different fits in better with the other tracks than "Count On Me" did. The CD ends with "Gold" by John Stewart; this tune also mixes country with rock although the emphasis remains on rock. The harmonizing is excellent and the guitar arrangement shines like diamonds!



The liner notes aren't much but the artwork is very well done. My complaint about this album is that it only has nine songs. They could have and should have added at least two more songs to this album. The material that we get is excellent; but there's just not enough of it.



Four stars.

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