I had to read it twice. The first time, I was like, "Merengue? This is very clearly a ballad!" It was the 70s. There was no shortage of sap, and it got as much airplay as the "heavier" stuff. Just turning on a mainstream station back then would build up your tolerance...
Here's another one I'm not embarrassed to like. A David Gates (of Bread fame) composition for Hanna-Barbera. If you were a pre-teen sitting in front of the TV one Saturday morning in 1972, you get it.
Yeah, I never gave a lot of bands/artists that I got exposure to via older relatives a fair shake, Chicago, Anne Murray, and some Corey Hart come to mind. That said, I totally wore out a cassette of the Jazz Singer (“We’re coming to America!”) by Neil Diamond and my love of all things Gordon Lightfoot (especially “The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald”), which were totally my aunt’s influence.
Do those people exist? I mean, he may not be on someone's list of favorite artists; but......if you like music at all, there's a good chance he wrote a song you really like.
Saw these guys in late summer ‘91 when they were the opening act for the latter leg of the ZZ Top Recycler World Tour when they came to Copps Coliseum in the hammer. This was the ballad on their ‘Pornograffitti’ album, and I’ve had a soft spot for those kinds of songs, since forever. I had my drivers license for less than a year at this point, and my folks were leery of letting me drive my friends down to a concert with the family car, so I remember my dad making me take a practice trip down the QEW/403 before he’d let me have the car to go to the concert. Within a month of that ‘Nevermind’ was released and I kinda considered that concert an embarrassment of sorts to mention - and this is the first time I’ve talked about it in decades.
Not nearly as much as "Maggie May" or "Desperado" or "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" or "Superstition" or "Money" or "Boogie On Reggae Woman..." It ain't the song's fault that radio can't seem to slim the rotation down early enough to save some of the impact for later years, or spread out a little more into some of the guy's other stuff. The world was barraged with about 10 Bob Marley songs over and over and over-- but barely got exposed to "So Jah Seh" or "Them Belly Full" or "Crazy Baldheads..." That doesn't make "No Woman No Cry" or "Three Little Birds" or "Redemption Song" embarassing...
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/...7dCfkXAYSFC77QHV4nwrQUG1TL49bmU0wreLdIAWIonMM Robby Steinhardt, Violinist and Co-Lead Vocalist of Kansas, Dead at 71
I saw that tour. What I came away with is that Frank Beard can play hia ass off, as pop/rock stuff goes. Extreme wanted to be one thing and their hits made them something entirely different. Nuno with his unfinished Washburn and posing shirtless like a real rocker... while their fans scream for More Than Words ans Hole Hearted. "Well, at least we got paid" has never been more appropriate... BooooooooOoooooOoooooo... That's a classic.
ABBA was part of the era. Like Barry Manilow, somebody bought those records. I have their Greatest Hits. which introduced me to Eagle. Bought it for Take A Chance, which hit me* when I was on a merry go-round in Orlando during a band trip. *You ever hear a song for a few weeks and it's just okay, then one day you hear it in an environment where it stands out?
When it came out, the radio stations played it over and over and over and over.. (To be fair, they probably did that with a lot of songs; this one stood out, I guess, because I wasn't all that crazy about it to begin with.) Then years later, all the "Classic Rock" stations played it several times a day - almost as often as when it was originally released. Now, I haven't listened to an oldies station in years so they may have moved on to other songs. It just seemed this was one of their 'go to' songs - when in doubt, play "Dust In The Wind." A bit off topic, here: Speaking of "Classic Rock" stations...I don't know how many times they would play a song and I'd think, "Man, that song wasn't good when it first came out; and it hasn't gotten better over time. Just because it's old doesn't mean it's a 'classic'."
There it is. I like the song. Liked it the second or third time I heard it. Plenty of others do as well. You don't like it, so hearing it a lot bugs you. Maybe you just don't dig the era. I haven't heard much on a classic rock station that I didn't like. Probably because I love the music of the era. Side note... Seger's (Written by a guy named Crowell, but his version was lacking in production) Shame On The Moon is an example IMO of an 80s song that sounds like a 70s song. I heard Hello, It's Me for the first time in 1982, almost a decade after it dropped. I was immediately certain that it wasn't an 80s song, but I can't point to what made it so different I don't quite have the theory/composition knowledge to pick it apart like I should. So much more study to do...