Mom spent the mid- to late ’70s in and out of Columbia House, and she bought a lot of what was popular at the time. That means that in addition to competently performed but moderately banal rock like Sanford-Townsend and Orleans, I’ve got plenty of full-on disco in my memory too.
The disco tunes that most poignantly make me recall my childhood are the “almost instrumentals” (so put because they often do have sparse lyrics). They have a good hook, with generous strings and sometimes a horn or two. Walter Murphy’s “A Fifth of Beethoven” was a good example (and used probably the best-known hook in history). So was Van McCoy’s “The Hustle.” I think I’d even put the theme from S.W.A.T. in there.
My favorite was, and is, Silver Convention’s “Fly Robin Fly.” (Any of you tracking cool points on me who happen to have any left, just go ahead and rub out the rest of them now. It’s residing incriminatingly on my iPod and everything.) It’s a marvelous melody with era-typical splashes of drama. The hyper-polished production I dislike in most music serves this tune very well.
And wouldn’t you know that YouTube would have a suitably bizarre video? (Warning: one brief PG-13 moment.) In many ways I love them just as much as my ’80s, but man, the ’70s were weird.
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Though it’s a slightly different genre from that musical period, I have the fond memories of listening to Christopher Cross playing on the record player. I can still sing pretty much most of his songs from memory.
I like to watch old “videos” of ABBA, too. It cracks me up. Unfortunately, I was in middle school during the heyday of all that stuff. It was dying out, just when I was old enough to stay out past 9pm and take disco dancin’ lessons at the YMCA. (Did I just admit that?)