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Product Description ------------------- These 24 hits all made the Billboard Top 40 from 1970-76, and all of them stand the test of time. From one-hit wonders to those who still fill concert halls in the 21st century, all the featured artists here and their s played their part in helping to make the '70s as significant for American chart music as the previous 20 years had been. Features The Guess Who ("American Woman"), Jim Croce ("Operator"), Rare Earth ("I Just Want To Celebrate), Edgar Winter ("Free Ride"), John Sebastian ("Welcome Back Kotter"), Looking Glass ("Brandy"), Santana ("Evil Ways"), Sammy Johns ("Chevy Van"), Tommy James ("Draggin' The Line") and others. Review ------ Following in the tradition of its previous series The Golden Age of American Rock & Roll (which documented the 1950s) and Chartbusters (tracking the 1960s), the U.K. reissue label Ace moves into the Me Decade with The Hit List: 24 Hot 100 American Chartbusters of the 1970s. Its subtitle to the contrary, the first volume in the series actually focuses almost exclusively on Top 20 chart entries, documenting the autumn of AM radio's commercial heyday: sure, the pop hits of the 1970s have been maligned in many quarters -- and novelties like John Sebastian's theme to the TV smash Welcome Back, Kotter and cheese like Seals & Crofts' Summer Breeze won't change naysayers' minds - but as these two-dozen songs prove, the decade was unmatched for the sheer variety of music that accessed the top of the charts, with hard rock, country-pop, disco and bubblegum pop all vying for commercial success. While the decade's true heavyweights like Elton John, Led Zeppelin and Neil Young are nowhere in , Ace nevertheless does a good job of assembling an accurate composite from the one-hit wonders at its disposal - love 'em or hate 'em - records like the Looking Glass' Brandy (You're a Fine Girl), Jonathan Edwards' Sunshine, and Tommy James' Draggin' the Line sum up everything the 1970s were about. --Jason Ankeny, Rovi