CANDI STATON: CHANCE (1979)
1) Ain't Got Nowhere To Go; 2)
When You Wake Up Tomorrow; 3) Rock; 4) Chance; 5) I Live; 6) Me And My Music.
Well, here's your oh-so-obvious answer to the
question about what it is that makes a good or a bad disco album — the
difference between House Of Love and
its follow-up, Chance, pretty much
says it all. For some reason, Dave Crawford is out, both as producer and
songwriter, and the album ends up being nominally self-produced by Candi
herself, with the supervising of Jimmy Simpson — the brother of Valerie Simpson
of Ashford & Simpson fame. Meanwhile, the songwriting is largely taken care
of by Candi herself, or by a bunch of corporate donors who clearly have neither
any interest in Candi Staton as an artist, nor in doing anything except supplying
a steady stream of body-oriented grooves.
The result is an album as uninspired and stupid
as House Of Love was inventive and
supportive of the artist's personality. The only song worthy of some attention
is ʽI Liveʼ, contributed by Ashford & Simpson in person — a slow, funky
ballad rather than a straightahead disco groove, with a chance for Candi to
burn some authentic soul, even if the arrangement still leaves much to be
desired (no instrumental parts deserving of special attention). Everything else
ranges from passable to ridiculous: ʽAin't Got Nowhere To Goʼ is at least
reasonably short and reasonably complex, but the single ʽWhen You Wake Up
Tomorrowʼ is completely dependent on its single musical phrase, never brought
out of stasis due to the lame sound of the synthesizer — and then there's
ʽRockʼ, which might just be the nadir of Candi's entire career. Here is a
representative sample of the lyrics: "Why? Not? Rock? Rock! Rock! Why ?
Not? Rock!", and it does not get much better when the lead vocal comes in,
especially since the song has nothing whatsoever to do without «rock» in any
possible meaning of the term, unless you really stretch it out to cover «corny
disco shit» as well.
Neither the title track nor ʽMe And My Musicʼ
on the second side make much of a difference: in fact, pretty much everything
is interchangeable and never goes one step beyond the simple «give 'em a good
vibe» message. And that smart touch of having Candi wrap things up with a
strong gospel number? Apparently, it never caught on, even if it is precisely
little things like that which make a world of difference. The less said about
this Studio 54 blandness, the better; thumbs down without any further questions or
comments. And you gotta love how they gave her that hip urban look on the
photo, but never forgot about showing some
cleavage all the same: trying to sell music like this without a bit of boobs is
a marketologist's nightmare.
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