Arriving 12 years after the initial volume,
Ace
's 2016 compilation
Hit List 2: More Hot 100 Chartbusters from the 70s
doesn't follow any precise genre or even methodology. Instead, it grabs 24 American hits from the 1970s -- some big, some small, some clear flukes -- arranging them for listenability's sake, which is appropriate for any collection that salutes the glory days of Top 40. Many of the songs here are familiar, perhaps overly so: "China Grove," "Drift Away," "Ramblin' Man," "Rocky Mountain Way," "Fooled Around and Fell in Love," "How Long," "Long Call Woman," "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo," and "Still the One" are still mainstays on radio and often pop up in films or commercials. Other singles here show up quite often on one-hit wonder collections -- "The Rapper," "Please Come to Boston," "Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)" -- which means the most interesting things lie on the margin, such as the bubblegum raver "That's the Way a Woman Is,"
Fanny
's glam throwback "Charity Ball,"
the Band
's back-porch swinger "Rag Mama Rag,"
Frijid Pink
's heavy metal revision of "House of the Rising Sun," and
Teegarden & Van Winkle
's reworking of
Hank Williams
' "I Saw the Light" into "God, Love and Rock & Roll (We Believe)." None of these seem like likely entries into the Billboard charts and that's why they're so valued here, surrounding by songs that have become staples: they help illustrate how weird and glorious Top 40 radio could be in the '70s. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine