Homecoming
Artist: America
Community Score: 8.50

Homecoming, America's finest album, refines and focuses the folk-pop approach found on their debut release. The songs here are tighter and more forthright, with fewer extended solo instrumental sections than before. The sound quality is clear and bright; the colorful arrangements, while still acoustic guitar-based, feature more electric guitar... Read More

Just a Boy
Artist: Leo Sayer

Before Richard Perry took Leo Sayer to the top of the charts in 1976 and 1977, his former bandmate and sometimes songwriting partner David Courtney provided all the music to Sayer's lyrics here and co-produced with manager Adam Faith 1974's Just a Boy album, featuring the Top Ten 1975 hit "Long Tall Glasses (I Can Dance)." Leo Sayer had a geeky... Read More

Pilot (From the Album of the Same Name)
Artist: Pilot

With its swirling keyboards and falsetto vocals, "Magic" became one of the great one-shots of the '70s, and it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone familiar with one-hit wonders that Pilot's accompanying full-length isn't as good. Despite the lack of strong material, the album is hardly without merit. Pilot, along with producer Alan Parsons,... Read More

Horse with No Name
Artist: America
Community Score: 9.60
10cc/Sheet Music
Artist: 10cc

10cc's first two albums, recorded under the sponsorship of entrepreneur and one-time pop star Jonathan King, are combined on one disc for this CD reissue. 1973's 10cc shows that from the start, the group had an uncommon command of recording studio technique; the performances are polished, the harmonies superb, and the production flawless and... Read More

Boz Scaggs & Band
Artist: Boz Scaggs

Although most listeners know Boz Scaggs primarily for his 1976 disco-era, multi-million seller Silk Degrees, he produced several excellent recordings in the years leading up to that breakthrough. Boz Scaggs & Band is the middle release of a three-disc spurt which Scaggs produced in a two-year period, between 1971 and 1972. Although it is weaker... Read More

Dave Mason
Artist: Dave Mason

Using his touring band, which included keyboard player Mike Finnigan and guitarist Jim Krueger, Dave Mason turned in a strong pop-rock collection on his second, self-titled Columbia album. "Show Me Some Affection" was one of those songs that should have been a hit single, Mason recut a fuller version of "Every Woman," originally heard on It's... Read More

Dave Mason & Cass Elliot
Artist: Dave Mason

Ostensibly a Dave Mason solo album, this is one of his finest. Coupling him with Cass Elliot, however, was a stroke of genius. Elliot's involvement is, while not suspect, somewhat limited. Although she provides excellent background vocals, she tends to get a little lost in the harmony stack. Never the less, this is a great moment for her too.... Read More

Angel Clare
Artist: Art Garfunkel
Community Score: 9.00

Garfunkel (he was billed without his first name here) had a lot riding on his debut solo album, and Angel Clare, named after a character in Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles, lived up to the heightened expectations for the man who had sung "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and other Simon & Garfunkel favorites. Garfunkel took no chances,... Read More

Close to You
Artist: The Carpenters
Community Score: 7.46

Hurriedly put together in the wake of the success of the title song, and containing the follow-up hit "We've Only Just Begun," Close to You is a surprisingly strong album, and not just for those hits. Richard Carpenter's originals "Maybe It's You" and "Crescent Noon" are superb showcases for Karen Carpenter's developing talent, the latter a... Read More

Manna
Artist: Bread

Bread's third album, Manna, isn't so much a step forward as it is a consolidation of strengths, as the group sharpens their skills and carves out their own identities. It's clear that the rift between David Gates and Robb Royer and James Griffin is beginning to take shape, as the album is evenly divided between Gates tunes and Royer/Griffin... Read More

Alone Together
Artist: Dave Mason
Community Score: 10.00

Dave Mason's first solo album was one of several recordings to come out of the Leon Russell/Delaney & Bonnie axis in 1970. (Other notables included Eric Clapton's solo debut and Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen.) Alone Together contains an excellent batch of melodically pleasing songs, built on a fat bed of strumming acoustic guitars with... Read More