CHIC: CHIC (1977)
1) Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah); 2) São
Paulo; 3) You Can Get By; 4) Everybody Dance; 5) Est-Ce Que C'est Chic; 6)
Falling In Love With You; 7) Strike Up The Band.
General
verdict: Very
silly, sure, but still some of the best musicianship from when even lowly dance
pop entertainers still played their sweaty instruments...
It has never been formally explained, I think,
whether there are any significant general musical differences between
«Euro-disco» and «American disco», other than merely a matter of geographical
disparity. Subconsciously, we would probably think that «American disco» is
closer to its funk roots, emphasizing a livelier and slightly more free-form
approach to performing, while «Euro-disco» is more robotic and more strictly disciplined,
with even more emphasis on the mechanistic strings and no deviations from the
formula. Think Gloria Gaynor vs. Boney M, or something like that. But is there
some strict waterline dividing the two?
Chic are probably the best example of a band
that took a big piss on that waterline, if you pardon the language. Guitarist Nile
Rodgers and bassist Bernard Edwards, the group's perennial backbone, were
based in New York — the least American of all American cities — and while both
were outstanding musicians, they were also quite open to the idea of musicians
dissolving themselves in the music, chained to and ruled by the supreme power
of the immovable groove. The ideological emphasis is on being cosmopolitan:
with Chic, you can name one of your
tracks ʽSão Pauloʼ, give another one of your tracks a French chorus, and quote
"it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing" on yet another
one. But above everything else, Chic
asks the question, "is it possible to exercise creative and spiritual
freedom while writing some of the tightest, rigid-est dance music in the
universe?" — and attempts to give a positive answer.
These songs ain't ʽHeart Of Glassʼ, and they
ain't even ʽStayin' Aliveʼ — it would be useless to search for hidden meanings
or subtle layers of irony or paranoia. This is dance-pop par excellence, whose
primary purpose is to lighten up the life of a Tony Manero. But the coolness of
Nile and Bernard is that, in between the endlessly repeating vocal hooks, they
find plenty of space to assert themselves as a couple of merry, spritely,
expressive spirits. ʽDance, Dance, Danceʼ, the album's lead-in track and the
band's first successful single, is at its greatest not when they chant the
enigmatic "yowsah yowsah yowsah!" refrain, but when the vocals die
down and you get to lose yourself, with no strings attached, in the amazing
bass groove — that bit when it's literally just Bernard laying on the zoops and
Nile chicken-scratching his way through could go on endlessly, as far as I'm
concerned. It is the sound of life itself.
Almost every track here works, one way or
another, even if most people probably only remember the hits (ʽDance Dance
Danceʼ and, uh, ʽEverybody Danceʼ — another case where I much prefer Norma Jean
Wright's vocals on the verses to the corny chorus, and where Edwards' little
bass solo blows everything else away anyway). ʽSão Pauloʼ, I guess, with its
slightly more relaxed pacing, could be considered elevator-ish filler, and
ʽEst-Ce Que C'est Chicʼ is almost impossibly ridiculous with its French
choruses and vaudevillian descending riffs, but it is hard to forget either the
former or the latter. Perhaps the most obvious candidate for filler is the
ballad ʽFalling In Love With Youʼ, very BeeGees-Olivia-Newton-Johnish in flavor
and all, but its saving grace is the cooing delivery of Norma Jean Wright, the
band's lead lady singer at the time — most likely, it will either irritate the
living daylights out of you or
seriously boost your sex hormones (regardless of your gender identification).
In other words, everything here is shallow, stupid, dated, and absolutely
adorable nevertheless.
Most importantly, it is a textbook example of
why it is wrong to generalize «disco» as an inherently inferior successor to
«funk». Sure, at its core disco relies on simplification — like boogie-woogie —
but with some effort and dedication, it can easily be re-complexified, as Mr.
Edwards will be glad to show you on most of these tracks. I said «stupid», yet
there is really no sense that any of this music was written and recorded with
the direct goal of insulting our intelligence — most of the arrangements are multi-layered
and melodic, and most musicians would kill to be able to lay down some of that
mean, mean Edwards bass. It is largely the lyrics that have not stood the test
of time ("strike up the band / makin' music is our plan" is bad
enough when spoken once — and they just had to turn it into the song's main
hook!); but now that it is not 1977 any more, and nobody remembers what Studio
54 was all about, Chic can be taken out of the glitzy context and simply
enjoyed for the awesome musicianship. Like, who is the guy playing that terrific smooth keyboard solo on ʽDance,
Dance, Danceʼ?..
"It is the sound of life itself." Love it.
ReplyDeleteGeorge, I would love to see you review Ministry's albums. I wonder what you would make of them.
ReplyDeletehttp://starling.rinet.ru/music/minist.htm
DeleteBut why is this issue raised on a Chic review, of all things? Are we dreaming of a disco-industrial mash-up?
Just thought I had a good chance of you noticing my post, this being your newest review. Yes, I remember the two Ministry reviews from your old site and how positive they were. I listened to "The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste " in its entirety for the first time in years yesterday and I thought what a fun album it still is. I found that it's a great album not only for the mind but also for the body. If you're in the mood for some wiggling, spasms and occasional headbanging :)
ReplyDeleteNice to see a deservedly positive review for an album that you likely would have savaged 20 years ago. Looking forward to your takes on the post-Risqué albums.
ReplyDeleteGood Review. Chic were an ultratight band, and though their material was not always great, their albums are fun to listen to.
ReplyDelete