First things first, this album is now mathematically 40% of the way through the 1089 albums that I’ve got on my 1001 Albums list, that compiles all editions of the book. Well done if you made it this far.
Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards are back again, their second album this year. It feels a little like they expended their best tunes on Sister Sledge. This one has some good tracks on it, but perhaps not the non-stop onslaught of hits that We Are Family was.
The opener is an extended cut of Good Times, a track that’s been sampled and borrowed within an inch of its life (see, for example, Rappers Delight by Sugarhill Gang, or Queen’s Another One Bites The Dust). But, really, who can blame them? Edwards’ bassline is that golden spot of both simple yet effective. If you listen closely to this track, it’s really Edwards and Rodgers that carry it along – there is no percussion apart from handclaps, and some really faint hi-hat tss-tss-tss-ing away in the far background. When Alfa Anderson’s vocals drop away and the extended break comes in, you can really appreciate Edwards’ skill on the bass.
Other stand-out tracks on this for me were My Feet Keep Dancing, another good disco groove, and the slower more soulful A Warm Summer Night. And that’s another thing about this album – it shows how close the relationship between R&B, soul, funk, and disco are, as many of the tracks could be classed as several of these genres.
The lyrics are generally sparse and simple, more repeated refrains than any prog-rock type serious poetry. Which is fine, it works. There’s an interesting tension, however, when you listen carefully, between what appears on the surface to be simple joy, and something darker underneath, giving a kind of Weimar Republic feel of hedonism being used to escape a darker social reality. Good Times says that “The clock keeps turning, why hesitate? You silly fool; you can't change your fate”. Rodgers and Edwards drop in lyrics from Depression-era songs, and the cover photo, resembling a scene from a speakeasy, suggest that they are well aware that disco is merely papering over the cracks of late-Seventies grimness. Like an oil crisis precipitated by conflict with Iran. Good job we're not stupid enough to repeat those mistakes.
But, I have to say, people need a bit of simple joy in dark times, and Rodgers and Edwards (and Anderson) deliver that in spades. If you want to enjoy your melancholy, listen to Joy Division. If you want to lighten the mood, listen to Chic.
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