We live in such a crammed and blasé world of re-mixes, extra tracks and transparent marketing ploys these days that most of us hardly recall the truly important steps rock/ pop and/or dance have made along the way. However, the coming of the hugely-influential 12” single is an event that ought to be recalled with more warmth and respect.
As a young vinyl head at the time, it suddenly made you think which format you’d go for. Stick to the 7”? Yeah, but that way you miss out on extra tracks that make it into an EP…and what if the ‘London’ version of “This Charming Man” is actually as good as the ‘Manchester’? I won’t know unless I plump for that one. Big decisions and not ones to be taken lightly, even for the hardline indie kid. And don’t even get me started on how the advent of 12” vinyl began to affect out attitude to the dancefloor.
Besides, the evidence is here for us all to hear again across these three generously-apportioned CDS, handily broken down into the categories ‘Pop’, ‘Disco’ and ‘New Wave’ and – in all – featuring 34 pretty damn crucial tracks that anyone growing up in that era (i.e your reviewer) will be only too happy to return to. And for those of you suffering the adolescent pangs right now, well you won’t have to get creamed on E-bay trying to pick these up anymore, because they’re suddenly under one roof. Hooray!
With hindsight, of course, the distinction between many of the choices on the ‘Pop’ and ‘Disco’ CDS have become blurred with age. To these ears, you could just as easily classify the likes of DONNA SUMMER’S “Love To Love You Baby” and KC & THE SUNSHINE BAND’S “Get Down Tonight” (from the ‘Pop’ CD) with the disco selections, while the likes of SUGARHILL GANG’S still-monstrous “Rapper’s Delight” and LAMONT DOZIER’S white-hot “Going Back To My Roots” could just have easily been rounded up under ‘Pop’, but then I largely have a problem with the slavish devotion to ‘genres’ we seem to have in the 21st Century. As a rule I wish we’d never created the ‘genre’ selector with W&H, actually, but that’s another gripe for another day.
Anyway, none of that alters the fact that most of this remains potent gear. Whatever heading you want to shove it under, the full 15-minute spread of DONNA SUMMER’S “Love To Love You Baby” sounds every bit as shimmery and seductive as the first time I heard it; EARTH WIND & FIRE’S “Fantasy” is deliciously smooth and CHIC’S marvellous “Everybody Dance” shows exactly why the Bernard Edwards-Nile Rodgers axis was the one everyone referred to during the acid house/ Madchester days a decade later. The ‘Pop’ CD also generously finds room for EDDY GRANT’S “Living On The Frontline”: not as oft-recalled as “Electric Avenue” of course, but its’ clavinet-heavy electro-skank stills sounds militant and anthemic, while “Are You Ready For Love” reminds us there was a time when the mere mention of ELTON JOHN’S name didn’t provoke a priming of verbal grenades. Shame about the inclusion of SHALAMAR, but hell: it’s a compilation, right?
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Although it would be less this reviewer’s cup of nettle tea by design, CD2’S ‘Disco’ selection is also surprisingly successful and engaging. As well as the aforementioned SUGARHILL GANG and LAMONT DOZIER, we get evergreen dancefloor staples like DAN HARTMAN’S squidgy, house-y piano-stuffed “Instant Replay” and HAMILTON BOHANNON’S hot, supremely funky and much-sampled “Let’s Start The Dance” and even the less-essential stuff (LOOSE JOINTS’ “It’s All Over My Face”) sounds curiously infectious.
CD3’S ‘New Wave’ selection, though, is the one closest to this writer’s heart, as it’s basically a chunk of the soundtrack to his teenage years. More importantly, all these songs show just how fast New Wave was converging on the dancefloor at the close of the 1970s and extended-but-disciplined mixes of perennial winners such as SPARKS’ “Beat The Clock”, BLONDIE’S immortal “Heart Of Glass” and TUBEWAY ARMY’S chilling “Are Friends Electric?” instantly fling us back to a time when ‘Top Of The Pops’ was essential viewing from week to week and you’d unashamedly buy ‘Smash Hits’ on a regular basis.
Back then, there was always room for the weirdos too, and “Extended Seventies” also finds room for the likes of PUBLIC IMAGE LTD’S “Death Disco” (John Lydon’s nightmare tribute to his recently-deceased Ma and the band’s fabulously grotesque overhaul of “Swan Lake”) and novelties such as LENE LOVICH’S “Lucky Number” and THE FLYING LIZARDS’ “Money.” Elsewhere, a couple of reputations are re-assessed (THE MOTORS are always dismissed as duff pub-rockers, but “Airport” still sounds ace) and someone had enough class to include the whole 10-minute version of TELEVISION’S crystalline epic “Marquee Moon”. Bliss.
Of course, the 12” single’s inextricable link with the dancefloor would be forever cemented by the arrival of NEW ORDER’S “Blue Monday” in 1983 and to this day no self-respecting DJ would be without hefty boxes of such slabs of vinyl, but that’s another history lesson for another day. A few latent duffers aside, “Extended Seventies” is an open-minded collection and a notable signpost back to a time when anything seemed possible.
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