Various Artists - Billboard Top Dance Hits 1977 (1992)

Truth in advertising from the good folks over at Rhino: ten top dance tunes from 1977, and half of those hit #1 on the Billboard Dance chart. After purchasing, I discovered many tracks with which I was unfamiliar. CD liner notes here.

One in a series of ten covering the years 1976-1985, not to be confused with either The Disco Years or Special Editions Disco series, also issued by Rhino.

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks, with chart peaks. Extended mixes marked with an asterisk, others are 7" single versions:

	Song	Artist	Time	Dance	Hot 100	R&B
1	Overture*	D.C. LaRue	5:08	2
2	Quiet Village*	The Ritchie Family	3:09	1
3	Rumour Has It	Donna Summer	3:37	1	53	21
4	Girl Don't Make Me Wait*	Pattie Brooks	10:52	2
5	San Francisco (You've Got Me)	Village People	3:31	1	102
6	Slowdown	John Miles	4:21	2	34
7	I Feel Love	Donna Summer	5:57	3	6	9
8	Hold Tight	Vicki Sue Robinson	5:58	1	67
9	Got To Give It Up (Pt.1)	Marvin Gaye	4:12	1	1	1
10	Do What You Wanna Do	T-Connection	3:27	1	46	15

Nothing to skip - a great mix of the familiar and previously unfamiliar. The Summer and Gaye tracks are disco classics and continue to get much play around these parts. Of the new-to-me tracks (and there were quite a few: 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, & 10), my favorites are Overture, Girl Don't Make Me Wait, Do What You Wanna Do, and Hold Tight (written by David Gates and originally released by Bread earlier in 1977). The Village People track bears quite a resemblance to their latter hit, Macho Man.

I Feel Love certainly deserves more recognition as a groundbreaking song. With none of the typical disco strings and high-hat cymbal, the backing tracks are all electronic, save for the bass drum (more on the recording over at Wikipedia). Pretty gutsy for 1977, but the song set the blueprint for dance music in the '80s and beyond. People may argue that Kraftwerk was the pioneer in electronic music and there's certainly some truth to that, but there's no denying Kraftwerk didn't get nearly the same amount of radio airplay as I Feel Love.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Previously revisited for the blog:

Billboard Top Dance Hits 1976 (1992)	Billboard Top Dance Hits 1980 (1992)
Billboard Top Dance Hits 1978 (1992)	Billboard Top Dance Hits 1985 (1998)
Billboard Top Dance Hits 1979 (1992)