1) Hangin'; 2) I Feel Your Love Comin' On; 3) When You Love Someone; 4) Chic (Everybody Say); 5) Hey Fool; 6) Sharing Love; 7) City Lights.
General verdict: More decent electrofunk grooves that do not play to the band's biggest strengths.
Continuing the by-then unstoppable slide into
irrelevancy, the blatantly awfully titled Tongue
In Chic stalled at #173 on the US charts and at #47 on the R&B charts —
too bad, because the lead single, ʽHangin'ʼ, was actually one of the band's
best grooves in the post-disco era. With a slight whiff of menace rather than
one of sentimentality, it is sternly ruled by an amusingly «popping» funky
rhythm track from Nile, and brings back the atmosphere of friendly swag that
was sorely lacking on ʽStage Frightʼ. It's still not on the level of ʽLe Freakʼ
(with disco in the dumps, nothing could ever be, though), and they probably
should have the leading ladies do the vocals instead of Bernard, but the
guitar/brass interplay is cool, especially when Nile comes in with that little
squeaky-pitched jazzy solo at the end.
After that, though, it is very much a case of
one's general attitude towards generic dance music of the early Eighties. Depending
on that, ʽI Feel Your Love Comin' Onʼ may seem to be a forgettable piece of
dancefloor fodder, or a curious exploration of the possibilities of the
synthesizer in introducing that robot strain to traditional African-American
dance patterns. Years earlier, I would probably have hated Bernard's synthetic
bass sound on this one, but now I am able to appreciate its calculated cool —
at the same time, every time I go back in my mind to Chic's first albums, it is
hard to get rid of the feeling that they have pretty much traded in the joyful,
life-asserting extravagance of their early dance tracks for the common exaggerated
android futurism of the Eighties, which sort of puts synthetic implants in your
bloodstream rather than organic stimulators. But hey, to each his own.
Elsewhere, there is a very dubious attempt to
blend in with the hip-hop crowd (rapping on the pseudo-live ʽChic (Everybody
Say)ʼ — along with nice orchestral swirls, but overall, probably their weakest
self-referential composition); some Luther Vandrossian sleazy swill (ʽSharing
Loveʼ — this bland and instrumentally unappealing piece could have come from
the hands of any of the million R&B outfits existing in 1982); some okay
balladry (I like the tense, insisting, near-epic bass riff of ʽWhen You Love
Someoneʼ, and Alfa Anderson's vocal performance is somewhat touching, but on
the whole, it's just a ballad like so many others); and a fun closing instrumental
(ʽCity Lightsʼ) that will be highly appreciated by all fans of our favorite
bass/guitar combo, but does not have a particularly strong hook to go down in
history as a classic.
In short, the problems that they had to deal
with on Take It Off persist and turn
out to be insurmountable — in this new age of musical and spiritual values,
Chic simply cannot allow themselves to let their hair down enough to attract a
new generation of listeners; and their greatest strength, instrumental
virtuosity, has to be (partially) sacrificed again in order to adapt to this
new age. As far as taking a retrospective look at this stuff is concerned, I'd
still rather listen to this kind of music than anything by Bruno Mars, for
instance, but the real choice is not between early Eighties Chic and retro-style
2010s R&B, it is between early Eighties Chic and early Eighties Prince and
Michael Jackson, or even Madonna, and there can be no debate here about which
one remains more exciting to ears that have evolved past 2000.
It is time to re-visit Bee Gees again (just finished reading your old blog reviews of their records). Fascinating band and so underrated.
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