What's wrong with the 70s?

Item 1: Last year we had some friends over and we put on McAlmont and Butler's Bring It Back CD, and I commented that they totally nailed the 70s pop style.  "Is that a good thing?", one of them asked.  To me it seems glaringly obvious that that's a good thing; listen to the title track and tell me you can't envision these sounds coming out of a chunky white plastic tabletop radio with an honest-to-goodness tuning dial:

I won't go into Bernard Butler's background here, as he merits a post all to himself (which has been gestating for the last year or so).  "Bring It Back" is such a perfect soul-pop confection, a love song to the songcraft--writing and arrangement--of the 70s.  Bring it back, indeed!  Who could be against that?

Item 2: Now that I get around to writing about it I can't find it.  I read an article decrying the resurgence of 70s-style music as "infantilism," a retreat into the past as a denial of aging, or of present-day societal problems, or something like that.  I say it's a rediscovery of the joys of, well, I just said it, songcraft, writing, arrangement, vitality, after the decade-plus ascendancy of lyrically morose and musically lazy songwriting.

In 2003 Josh Rouse put out a CD called 1972, his attempt to recreate the popular music styles of the year of his birth.  It has catchy melodies from start to finish; even when the songs are sad, they are still full of life.  Among an album full of great songs there is still an obvious standout, "Come Back (Light Therapy)"--

Josh's next album, Nashville, was less catchy, and each subsequent album has further shed melody in favor of monotonous introspection.  It is as if he thinks, "Catchy melodies and bouncy rhythms are things they did in the 70s, music's not about that anymore."  I won't bore you (or myself) with any examples.  Instead I will post a new guy (new to me) who also has the 70s vibe down pat, Andy Lewis.  Lewis's background is as a DJ; for his 2005 album he wrote the songs and brought in a series of singers.  Dave Jay sings "100 Oxford Street"--

60s?  70s?  A mashup of both?  It works for me.  Confirming the similarity of the vocal rhythms in the verse to those of "Listen Now" by Phil Manzanera/801 is an exercise left to the reader.