SHAZAM

Best of the Seventies is another in that procession of 10cc collections that comes so close to being a good idea that it's difficult to see what went wrong. But wrong it is, as the band's first two albums, 10cc and Sheet Music are plundered for all but two of their twenty songs ("Ships Don't Disappear" and "Fresh Air for My Mama" are the absentees), and then jumbled up into a random gathering that neither adds nor subtracts anything from the power of the original records. Anybody seeking a quick introduction to the albums in question will probably find it a useful primer, but really, why not just buy the actual LPs? ~ Dave Thompson, Rovi