Helen Reddy - “Ain’t No Way to Treat a Lady”
Helen Reddy spent much of the seventies looking to perpetuate her mainstream rep as the leading musical exponent of squeaky clean, inoffensive feminism. She roared, she took on the world with her son, she captured a man in her radio (don’t look at me - ask Alan O’Day), and in this case, well, she kind of whined a little bit.
Still, this is one of my favorite MOR hits of the Me Decade; smoother production you’ll never hear this side of the most detail-oriented Yacht Rocksmanship, and the chorus delivers a satisfying shot of melodic bliss just as the verse begins to get wearying (if only everyone had followed the Raspberries’ blueprint of five second verses - seriously, time “Go All the Way” and “I Wanna Be With You”).
