Have a Nice Decade: The 70s Pop Culture Box [Box] (CD - 1998)

HAVE A NICE DECADE: THE '70S POP CULTURE BOX was nominated for the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Historical Album.

When pop archivists Rhino Records began releasing its seemingly endless HAVE A NICE DAY SERIES, they took their mission of chronicling the '70s AM pop hits that are stuck in the collective unconscious seriously. That sense of purpose is both underlined and redeemed by the massive HAVE A NICE DECADE seven-disc box. It compiles some of the finest moments from the series' individual volumes for an overview of the decade. The '70s was nothing if not a decade of contrasts, so this set contains everything from the transcendent (Al Green's "Let's Stay Together, the Hollies' "The Air That I Breathe") to the silly (Carl Douglas' "Kung Fu Fighting," Melanie's "Brand New Key"). Listening to this embarrassment of riches, one is struck by the the melodic and harmonic creativity present in so much of this material, a quality noticably lacking in much of the succeeding decades' pop hits. Listen without guilt. minimize