Auditory Abominations: "Afternoon Delight" - Starland Vocal Band

The 1970s, in my opinion, is the best decade for music, sure the 60s refined a lot of musical genres and the 80s was just a powerhouse of amazing music, but the 1970s was both. It was the decade that defined Heavy Metal, Progressive Rock, Soul, Funk, R&B, and also Soft Rock, and at the same time we had some pretty awesome bands from Queen to Earth Wind and Fire. What made the 70s amazing was not only that there was a lot of good stuff, but the best stuff was amazing, I could make a top 50 of the best songs of the 1970s and I would still make some very tough choices, I mean seriously, it's tough deciding between Alice Cooper and Boston now try to decide between them and at least twenty-five other amazing bands.

Now, the 70s is a lot like our modern era, the best stuff was really damn awesome, and the worst stuff is pretty mediocre at best. This decade was not immune from crap, and quite frankly, people who say that music from their generation was better, in some respects yes, but I would much rather listen to generic modern EDM than kitschy 70s soft and light rock. The thing is, the big selling genre of this decade was not only disco, in fact it might not even have been disco, it was mostly soft and light rock, and unlike disco, it never went away, it only devolved into the white guy with an acoustic guitar. We've had some bad offenders from Chicago to Foreigner. Chicago may have been the worst offender, but this group comes close, The Starland Vocal Band, because you could not think of a name that didn't scream 70s light rock.

What do you expect from the opening instrumentals? Orchestral backing? Slow guitar strum? light tapping bass drums before the lyrics? Well, you are in luck because that is exactly the opening to this song, I couldn't make a more generic song opening if I tried. The singer also sounds like a generic light rock singer, like if Bob Dylan didn't have any nasal. I really should stop picking on Dylan, but seriously, this is the kind of voice I would imagine Bob Dylan would have if there was no nasal in his singing voice.

the song was written to be enjoyable and hint at sex, and when I say hint at sex, I mean in the 70s, this is not the kind of song you could record today and not have it be shocking. Sex has become one of those things that was Taboo but no longer is because of the internet, so now songs that hint about sex are as good as songs that explicitly have sexual language in the lyrics. Also, some of these lyrics are pretty blatant, like "Rubbing sticks and stones together make the sparks ignite/ And the thought of rubbing you is getting so exciting", those are actual lyrics from the song. I can't really say that I'm to surprised that this got passed censors in the 1970s when "Pour Some Sugar on Me" got passed them in the 1980s. "Pour Some Sugar on Me" is actually a song that is better than this because of it's pseudo explicit lyrics, though both songs have lyrics less explicit than something like  "A.D.I.D.A.S.", but are more explicit than "Get Lucky" which also got rather explicit at times.

There are also times that the songs tempo just drops and all the band members sing together. I really have no idea why, but they are pretty dull, even when compared to the rest of the song. There are also times the song repeats the song title again, I guess in place of an actual chorus, some trends never die I guess.

I really can't recommend this song on any merits. I can't think of any reason you would play this song un-ironically, when there are other, better songs for the exact same occasions. It's dull, not very interesting, not explicit enough by todays standards, and quite frankly a bit to explicit for the time, at least until the 1980s when "Physical" came out, but that is for a different review. there is no reason for this song to exist either, because not three years prior, we got "Let's Get it On" by master of being smooth Marvin Gaye which let's face it, is a song that sets the mood better than any other song.

I'm the Entity of Darkness, and listen to "Pour Some Sugar On Me" instead of this.