Things take a turn for the cosmic. Thanks to a special introduction from our old pal George Clooney, we learn that Elon Musk has apparently purchased Past Tens, folded it into SpaceX, and blasted Dave and Milt into separate pods orbiting somewhere above Earth. Fortunately, we were able to transmit this episode back to civilization before running out of Tang.
The mission? Count down our picks for the most underrated songs of the 1970s.
Now, whenever you do a list like this, you've got to define your terms. Milt comes out firing with a whole taxonomy of underratedness. Some songs were overshadowed by bigger hits. Some were unfairly dismissed by critics. Others were forgotten despite being huge at the time. And a few are simply masterpieces that never got the attention they deserved.
Milt's list includes Bruce Springsteen's epic New York City Serenade, Player's silky smooth Baby Come Back, Joe Tex's forgotten smash I Gotcha, Sniff 'n' the Tears' Driver's Seat, and Stevie Wonder's breathtaking As.
As for Dave, he took a different route. He championed the Bay City Rollers' terrific cover of I Only Want to Be with You, Aerosmith's bluesy rocker Chip Away at the Stone, the criminally overlooked studio version of the Jackson 5's Going Back to Indiana, Devo's wonderfully weird Uncontrollable Urge—complete with a story involving Mark Mothersbaugh and John Lennon—and Dr. Hook's Sylvia's Mother, penned by none other than Shel Silverstein.
Along the way, listener Al Nadel checks in with some underrated gems of his own, and we spend a little time wondering whether NASA, SpaceX, Matt Damon, or literally anybody is coming to rescue us.
So grab your headphones, fire up the oxygen generator, and join us for a journey through some of the most overlooked songs of the decade that gave us disco, punk, yacht rock, and bell-bottoms.
Topics
00:00 – George Clooney Cold Open From Orbit
02:02 – Establishing the Rules of "Underrated"
02:50 – Our Number Five Picks
06:32 – Number Four Selections
10:57 – The Forgotten Hit Category
12:41 – Listener Al Nadel's Picks
14:43 – Jackson 5 Deep Cut Spotlight
16:51 – Songs That Should Have Been Bigger
18:30 – Devo's New Wave Masterpiece
20:49 – The Number One Showdown
24:18 – Final Transmission From Space
