Melancholia Vol. 8 - The K-Tel Generation

Back in the day I had a mixtape series called Melancholia. The basic running premise was that each song had a certain feel to them that took me somewhere else. The first volume was a collection of headphone friendly tracks from my cleanest vinyl. The series continued after the media format changed from records and tapes to CDs and playlists and has now run for 16 volumes.

The first four volumes were compiled from Vinyl. Volume five was made by dubbing from tape to tape. Volume six took me into the CD era and for a while it was a rotating tracklist on a 60 minute tape that I would recompile every few weeks where earlier volumes were all on 90 minute tapes. CDs were easier to work with and blank tape was starting to become harder to find so this worked better at the time. I later finalized volume six once CD burners were more affordable and all older volumes have been reconfigured to fit on CDs.

Later volumes often followed a theme. This CD here is based on volume 08. All of the songs are early to mid 70s AM Top 40 and all of them are songs I either first heard or only knew from various artist albums. Most, if not all, were on K-Tel records. K-Tel was the "That's What I Call Music" of its day. These albums were budget collections of the hits of the day. Somehow they managed to squeeze ten songs on one side of an LP.

Each one of these songs brings a smile to my face and an indescribable sense of nostalgia. While I might have heard them on the radio when I was younger, I discovered them listening to records. Sometimes at a friends house, sometimes they were found on a various artist album I bought for a completely different song. Each one seems to be part of a memory from somewhere.

I'm not going to do track by track notes for this one. None of these songs are rare or obscure in any way. Collected together they do create a unique and satisfying listen. I'll post more Melancholia volumes in the future.

01 Jonathan Edwards - Sunshine
02 Albert Hammond - The Free Electric Band
03 Sammy Johns - Chevy Van
04 Audience - Indian Summer
05 Bill Withers - Lean On Me
06 Dobie Gray - Drift Away
07 Five Man Electrical Band - Signs
08 Lobo - Me and You and a Dog Named Boo
09 Thunderclap Newman - Something in the Air
10 Jim Stafford - Spiders and Snakes
11 Mungo Jerry - In the Summertime
12 Starland Vocal Band - Afternoon Delight
13 Looking Glass - Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)
14 Mel & Tim - Backfield in Motion
15 Vanity Fair - Hitching a Ride
16 Johnny Nash - I Can See Clearly Now
17 The Jaggerz - The Rapper
18 Freeda Payne - Band of Gold
19 R Dean Taylor - Indiana Wants Me
20 Rick Springfield - Speak to the Sky
21 Tommy James - Draggin' The Line
22 Steeler's Wheel - Stuck in the Middle with You
23 Sweet - Little Willie

The cover does its best to emulate those old K-Tel albums