BOBBY BLAND: I FEEL GOOD, I
FEEL FINE (1979)
1) I Feel Good, I Feel Fine;
2) I Can't Take No Mo'; 3) Little Mama; 4) Tit For Tat; 5) Someone To Belong
To; 6) Soon As The Weather Breaks; 7) In His Eyes; 8) Red Sails In The Sunset.
All right, this one does not even deserve three
paragraphs. Apparently, two ladies approached Bobby on the corner, each
planting a kiss on one of his aging cheeks, while a third one almost literally "picked his brain", convincing him to go disco. And
even if the anti-disco backlash had already started by that time, how can you just
say no, with two lovely ladies planting kisses on your cheeks? The only thing
to do is to hop it up and go — with the six-minute title track announcing that
trouble is finally over, and now you
are listening to a Bobby Bland album for the hip dance grooves, none of that
depressing «deep soul» stuff that might lead you to dark thoughts of... never
mind. In fact, it would even be best for him not to sing at all — and he doesn't (on the title track, that is).
The most hideous realisation of all, though, is
that the silly hop-along title track, with the ladies chanting "I feel
good, I feel fine, it's alright" as if they were advertising Prozac, is the
best thing on the album — once Bobby
cuts in on the second track, the tempos start slowing down (without losing the
disco skeleton), and things start getting less fun and more serious without any
adequate compositional, instrumental, or
vocal merit to justify the change in style. Strings and brass almost completely
drown out guitars and even keyboards; gospel (ʽIn His Eyesʼ), blues (ʽI Can't
Take No Mo'), balladry, and pop are sifted through the same sieve; the lyrics
accordingly suck (I swear I remember something along the lines of "you are
my magnet, I am your dragnet"), as do some of the song titles (ʽTit For
Tatʼ? — yep, very 1979-ish indeed); and although Bobby dutifully attacks all
these monsters like a pro, he can do nothing worthwhile, saddled with this kind
of material. Thumbs
down for the sleeve alone, although we'd only seen the beginning of
the slide.
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