Precious and Few: Pop Music of the Early '70s
The Breithaupt brothers are brave. Long before the craze for '70s nostalgia reared its ugly head, these part-time musicologists were up in Canada spinning 45 after 45 at wild '70s dance parties, hoping to redeem the reputation of the era's pop music. Critics have tended to dismiss nearly everything heard on the radio between the break-up of the Beatles and the Bee Gees' Saturday Night Fever movie soundtrack. The Breithaupts aren't critics, they're fans of the music would-be taste makers love to ignore: the Osmonds, Neil Sedaka, Linda Ronstadt, the Bay City Rollers. They give equal time to such true pop genuises as Al Green and Van Morrison, but the Breithaupts are bigger fans of big hits. Their appendix chronicles Grammy nominees and winners from 1971-1975, as if those awards evaluate anything beyond the obvious. Their singles-only aesthetic probably works well when choosing music for nostalgic dance parties, but there's no ignoring the import (and popularity) of album-oriented radio in the early '70s. The era's most lasting contribution was more than a collection of hit singles.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.