I haven't been on a campus much for the last decade, but Chuck Berry's bangers (Johnny B Goode, You Never can Tell, Roll over Beethoven) were current for at least 50 years, from the late 50s to the late 00s.
At the opposite end, Joan Osborne's "One of us" was inescapable during 1995 fall semester and then kinda vanished (or maybe I just graduated).
Some of the women on the Williams track team would absolutely wear out Billy Joel's "Greatest Hits Vol. II" on road trips when they got to pick the music in the cassette player, leading me to come to the conclusion that Billy Joel is an affront to humanity.
Billy Joel was in kind of a weird place, as I recall it, because he had been popular recently enough that a ton of people had the Greatest Hits record but he had also picked up a bit of a cheeseball aura, so tended not to be played all that much. He's had a big revival since, but I don't think of him as a core element of the campus soundtrack (even though he spoke there that one time...).
I hit college in 1972. Here is what I remember was spinning on dorm turntables:
Carole King’s “Tapestry," especially if you were trying to get into a girl.
Same thing for Cat Stevens “Teaser and the Firecat”.
Yes “Fragile” (and especially the song “Roundabout” played over and over again).
Rod Stewart’s “Every Picture Tells a Story” (and especially “Maggie May”).
People would have brought at least one Creedence Clearwater Revival album. The cool kids had The Rolling Stones “Sticky Fingers”.
And I mostly discovered and studied to The Allman Brothers “Live at the Fillmore East”.
I haven't been on a campus much for the last decade, but Chuck Berry's bangers (Johnny B Goode, You Never can Tell, Roll over Beethoven) were current for at least 50 years, from the late 50s to the late 00s.
At the opposite end, Joan Osborne's "One of us" was inescapable during 1995 fall semester and then kinda vanished (or maybe I just graduated).
Some of the women on the Williams track team would absolutely wear out Billy Joel's "Greatest Hits Vol. II" on road trips when they got to pick the music in the cassette player, leading me to come to the conclusion that Billy Joel is an affront to humanity.
Billy Joel was in kind of a weird place, as I recall it, because he had been popular recently enough that a ton of people had the Greatest Hits record but he had also picked up a bit of a cheeseball aura, so tended not to be played all that much. He's had a big revival since, but I don't think of him as a core element of the campus soundtrack (even though he spoke there that one time...).
I feel that everyone I know at least had Fugazi “13 songs” cd and joy division lp (the one that had the radio astronomy picture on the cover)
I feel like pretty much everyone I knew had the Eagles' greatest hits collection or Hotel California.
Yeah, that second Eagles Greatest Hits collection was another one. Good call.