Class Reunion '79: Greatest Hits of 1979 (CD) by Various Artists

0731452027023. New condition. CD. The brilliance of Rebound's Class Reunion series of year-by-year anthologies is that the compilers invariably pick exactly the sort of famous but innocuous songs from each year that one would be likely to hear at a class reunion. This may be a collection of songs from 1979, but there's no "Brass in Pocket" or "Not Just Knee Deep" here. (Even M's harmless novelty "Pop Muzik" is too weird for these middle-of-the-road folks.) Instead, we've got Peaches and Herb's "Reunited," Captain and Tennille's "Do That to Me One More Time," Kool and the Gang's "Ladies Night," the Village People's "In the Navy," and, of course, Gloria Gaynor's immortal disco anthem "I Will Survive." Of course, it's easy for hipsters to giggle, but here's the thing: these are all really good songs!! 1979 was the tail end of a certain era in pop music, just before sequencers and samplers took over the Top 40 for good, when even the dance songs were still built on real instruments, with all the interesting imperfections that implies. Even Donna Summer's Giorgio Moroder-produced synth extravaganza "Hot Stuff" sounds downright quaint next to the soulless likes of Mariah Carey. So Class Reunion '79 might be terminally uncool, but at least it's listenable. ~ Stewart Mason, Rovi