HORIZONS [1981]

Not to be confused with a jazz compilation of innovative instrumentals with the same title issued by K-Tel in the UK, Horizons is the second in a series of three albums featuring today's soft rock hits or the soft sounds of today's rock.  It was preceded by Expressions and will be followed by Songbird.  Horizons features four songs that would be later included on Rhino's brief Radio Daze series and there is little doubt in my little mind that most of - if not all - fourteen tracks on Horizons rocked the AC charts, you know, in a soft way.

There are more songs on Horizons that I'd rather not ever hear again than songs I want to listen to again so I could guess you say it is not one of my favorite albums.  The big surprises, given K-tel's licensing history and rather strict musical genre profiling, are the first two tracks that kick off Side Two of the album:  "I Believe In You" by Don Williams and "Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime" by The Korgis.  My esteemed colleague, the Soft Rock Kid, called the former "boring country pablum" before confessing "I wish I had written it" and in regards to the latter song he said "My favorite song on this playlist.  I bought the 45" which is about as high an endorsement as you can get from the Kid.

The Don Williams song was one of the last ones I remember being added to the legendary Cow Talk Steak House and Auction Barn jukebox just outside of Navasota, Texas, so I have fond memories of listening to it while sitting on a barstool, staring at the glass door refrigerator cases in front of me.  And the Korgis song has been a huge favorite of mine since the moment I heard it on 94.5 WLRW-FM.  You know my M.O.: grab the 45 ASAP and then ease back and wait to buy the album.  (Unfortunately, due to a certain someone who never learned sometime, I no longer have either in vinyl format.)  Let's run Horizons through the K-Tel Scale and see how it does.

HORIZONS [1981]		K-tel Scale:				23.18
		Billboard Top 40s
		Pop	R&B	COU	AC	CB	WLS
Never Knew Love Like This Before	Stephanie Mills	6	12		5	8	11
You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling	Hall & Oates	12			15	10	19
Someone That I Used To Love	Natalie Cole	21	21		3	29
One In A Million You	Larry Graham	9	1		37	15	24
Heroes	Commodores	(44)	27		(54)	(50)
If This Is Love	Melissa Manchester	(102)			19
No Night So Long	Dionne Warwick	23	19		1	28	27
I Believe in You	Don Williams	24		1	8	25
Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime	The Korgis	18			22	23
Why Not Me	Fred Knoblock	18		30	1	32
Let Me Be Your Angel	Stacy Lattisaw	21	8		34	21
All Out Of Love	Air Supply	2			5	2	3
Steal Away	Robbie Dupree	6			5	5	4
Make A Little Magic	Dirt Band	25			12	28

I'm genuinely disappointed in the low score Horizons earned but with two songs missing the Pop Top 40 completely, I understand.  And the songs really didn't rock the AC charts either with only two Number Ones.

As it turned out, my two favorite tracks on the vinyl album ended up being the final two tracks on the 8-track version of Horizons.  There was also a cassette version of Horizons available but my Summer intern research team was unable to unearth an image or even a tracklisting.  A Canadian edition of Horizons was not turned up either so before we re-announce the next album to be featured from the Kollection, here's an actual rip of the vinyl album in its clickin' and poppin' entirety:

Coming up next time on the K-Tel Kollection, the soft rock triple play continues (and ends) with Songbird!