Radio City: Class Of ’77 (Radio Heartbeat, 2009)
This is a lost power pop gem from the late seventies.. or can you lose something that was never released. Radio City was too pop for the punk scene of New York and never got the break they would have deserved, but they did record a fantastic bunch of songs that finally thirty years later see the light of the day. Especially the opening tracks Don’t Mistake Love (recorded 1980) and Little Runaway (recorded 1978) are really wonderful pop songs that should be listed among power pop classics. The next eight songs are from Radio City’s demo tape that was recorded live in winter 1977. It still sounds good to me and there’s some really good songs like Tomorrow, It’s Ok, Bleecker Street and She’s A Heartbreaker among them. Class Of ’77 ends with three songs from their live rehearsal tape. I’m not 100% sure was it a good idea to add them, because eventhough the songs are good the sound quality isn’t and it doesn’t make it that enjoyable to listen to them. However, the first one So Easy is such a great song that I suppose it would have been criminal to leave it out. Not as criminal as not giving this great band a record deal back in the seventies though.
