Playlist: The Softest Rock Ever!

When constructing this flawlessly gorgeous and heart-wrenching compendium of soft rock, I was once again reminded that much of history's mellow gold is in fact a secret depository of mental imbalance (see playlist selections by Helen Reddy and Gilbert O'Sullivan and Lobo for instance) and downright sleaziness (the ones by Mac Davis and Cher and Gordon Lightfoot, for starters.) Or at least that was the case in the singles-bar-and-suburban-wifeswap-and-pagan-teenage-drug-commune '70s; the '80s tunes below are perhaps more inscrutable -- if no more deniable.