[I am listening to the top 1000 singles of the 1970s (as determined by Billboard) on shuffle play on my mp3 player, and gradually weeding out the songs I don't want to hear anymore.]
Frankie Valli, My Eyes Adored You
The most irritating thing for me about 1970s pop is the omnipresent strings. Strings can be great, but they rarely were in the 1970s. Most of it is by-the-numbers coloring, filling up space for the purpose of filling up space. This song is an example; it's a nice melody, worthy of Frankie Valli, and it's a pretty good longing song. But the strings, and the occasional harp swooshes, are completely unnecessary, contributing nothing good that isn't there already. Also, jeez, those cliche key changes at the end, another 1970s overused tool.
B.B. King, The Thrill Is Gone
I don't hate it, but I don't need to hear it again.
Andy Gibb, (Our Love) Don't Throw It All Away
Typical expert Brothers Gibb popcraft, more subtle in its musical layering and backing vocals than a lot of their stuff in the late 1970s. It's just not one of their most arresting songs. The chorus is oddly limp.
Rod Stewart, Do Ya Think I'm Sexy
Making it through this once was deadly rough.
Mark Lindsay, Arizona
Gets ahold of a good vocal hook and works it to death (and does it no great service with the horns in the first place). Not fond of Mark Lindsay's Neil Diamond approach to phrasing, which is self-indulgent and more melodramatic than dramatic. Not that the words are any more charming:
Arizona, take off your rainbow shades
Arizona, have another look at the world, my, my
Arizona, cut off your Indian braids
Arizona, hey won't you go my way?
Mmm, Strip off your pride
You're acting like a teeny-bopper run away child
And scrape off the paint from the face of a little town saint
Arizona, take off your hobo shoes
Arizona, hey won't you go my way?
And after all that berating -- coming after "and all you can do is laugh at her", mind you -- he gives us this:
Follow me up to San Francisco
I will be guide, your way
I'll be the Count of Monte Cristo
You'll be the Countess May
Which has a kind of incoherent chutzpah. At least he's made it clear that condescension will be the cornerstone of the relationship.