POP MUSIC - The Modern Era 1976-1999 (2-CD) (Import CD) [New]

Pop Music: The Modern Era 1976-1999 is impressive. Beginning with Aerosmith's "Dream On" and ending with Lauryn Hill's "Doo Wop (That Thing)," the collection covers a huge amount of ground, featuring not just major artists, but era-defining one-hit wonders. Sure, it's easy to spot omissions or quibble about the featured selections, but it's amazing to think that all these songs came from one group of labels. Some selections don't hold up -- Michael Bolton's "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You" actually sounds more dated than anything from the late '70s -- but that's fine, since this winds up being a representative snapshot of mainstream pop in the last 25 years of the 20th century. After all, any collection that has Wild Cherry ("Play That Funky Music"), James Taylor ("Your Smiling Face"), Electric Light Orchestra ("Don't Bring Me Down"), Journey ("Open Arms"), Herbie Hancock ("Rockit"), Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias ("To All the Girls I've Loved Before"), New Kids on the Block ("Step by Step"), and Will Smith ("Gettin' Jiggy Wit It"), to name but a few, goes a long way in capturing how ephemeral, weird, and wonderful the '70s, '80s, and '90s could be.