Mixtape: Cerromar Circle – Birth of the Uncool (Summer '77)

See that picture? It's a screen capture from Google Earth, looking down on the backyard of the house where I grew up, on Cerromar Circle in Orangevale, a suburb of Sacramento. We moved there in the spring of 1977. Look at that pool. That was the coolest swimming pool anybody in my family's tax bracket ever had. No kidney shapes for us. Our pool was full-on brutalist. That summer I began listening to Casey Kasem's American Top 40. The pop charts were still in transit from bubblegum to sugar-free, so there were some songs that might have been improvements on what we were used to, but still weren't aesthetic home runs. Some were hits; others died on the bottom rungs of the Billboard Hot 100. Not many of them are celebrated in the present day. Until now. This might be the first in a series. I haven't decided yet and my schedule's tight.

Tracklist:

Wildfire - Here Comes Summer

Starz - Sing It, Shout It

Chilliwack - Fly at Night

Climax Blues Band - Couldn't Get It Right

10cc - Good Morning Judge

Alan Parsons Project - I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You

Poco - Indian Summer

Bee Gees - Edge of the Universe (Live)

Eric Carmen - She Did It

Sea Level - That's Your Secret

Hot Chocolate - So You Win Again

Charlie - Turning to You

J. Geils Band - You're the Only One

Dave Mason - We Just Disagree

Blue - Gonna Capture Your Heart

Elvis Presley - Way Down

Greg Lake - C'est La Vie

Sam Neely - Sail Away

Frankie Miller - The Doodle Song

Cat Stevens - (Remember the Days of the) Old Schoolyard

Bruce Foster - Platinum Heroes

Alice Cooper - You and Me