AM Gold (Time-Life Music)

Super Hits -- later retitled AM Gold -- was a 35-volume series issued by Time Life during the 1990s, spotlighting popular music—primarily, soft rock and non-disco Top 40 music—played on Top 40 radio stations during the 1960s and 1970s.

Much like Time-Life's other series chronicling popular music, volumes in the "AM Gold" series covered a specific time period, including single years in some volumes and stylistic trends in others; in addition, one volume focused on the music of The Carpenters. Each volume was issued on a compact disc, cassette or (on "Super Hits"-titled volumes issued in 1990) 2-LP vinyl record set. Individual volumes generally contained 22 tracks, and represented the highlighted time period's most popular and noteworthy tracks. Also included was a booklet, containing liner notes written by some of the most respected historians of the genre, photographs of the artists, and information on the songs (writers, performers and peak position on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart).

The series originally titled "Super Hits" was first issued in the summer of 1990, with the first volume in the series titled Super Hits: 1966. The original "Super Hits" series included volumes for the years 1962-1973, while the volumes that covered the early 1960s in general also included music from 1960-1961. The "Super Hits" volumes can be identified by artist drawings of scenes from Americana (for instance, the 1965 volume had a drawing of a Ford Mustang on its cover).

The original "Super Hits" series saw 20 volumes issued and continued through 1993, the last volume spotlighting the music of The Carpenters.

As was the case for many various artists compilations spotlighting 1960s music, including Time-Life's Classic Rock series, tracks by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were not included due to licensing restrictions.

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