As usual, Earth Wind and Fire manage to combine a lot of different styles (relatively speaking) for what is essentially pretty soul with touches of disco, world music and jazz. Though they are always slightly too slick for me, I find their diversity extremely refreshing compared to their contemporaries. But something about this album isn’t …
Tag: Disco
Never Too Much (1981) by Luther Vandross
So first off, I don’t know if I’m seeing things but doesn’t Vandross look like Mos Def on the cover of this album? Anyway…
Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places (1981) by Kid Creole and the Coconuts
Coincidentally, I am listening to the first Dr. Buzzard record. (If you don’t know Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band was led by Kid and some of the same people.) Listening to this record, it’s clear that a lot has been learned since that previous band. Nearly everything is better here than on the Dr. Buzzard …
Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band (1976)
I’m really not sure what to do with this strange record. It’s extremely critically acclaimed and had a minor hit. It’s also stuck in the distant past while trying, at least a little bit, to be contemporary. In many ways, it feels like a dress rehearsal for the sequel band, which I just happen to …
All Things in Time (1976) by Lou Rawls
This is my first Lou Rawls album, despite having heard the name many, many times. So basically all I knew was that it was soul.
Street Songs (1981) by Rick James
What I know about Rick James can basically be summed up in two things: “Super Freak” and Chappelle Show. And I really know “U Can’t Touch This” much better than Super Freak. Oh, I know a third thing: he was once in a band with Neil Young. (That’s actually true.) So I had no idea …
Autoamerican (1980) by Blondie
I didn’t grow up with Blondie like I should have. With their biggest hits accessible enough for mainstream radio, and my dad buying a Greatest Hits record, it’s kind of weird I don’t know them better. But he bought that compilation in my mid teens and they were always too recent to be played on …
Dirty Mind (1980) by Prince
Like so many artists’ early work, I’ve come to this Prince album backwards. And I suspect that a lot of my issues with it come from all the later Prince I’ve heard. Because, on first listen, this record just sounded like Prince in utero or, um, proto Prince.
Guilty (1980) by Barbra Streisand
I feel like I grew up with people making fun of these two. I was still an impressionable teenager when I first encountered Mecha-Streisand. And, though the only Barry Gibb impersonation I can think of is relatively recent (i.e. I was an adult when I saw it), I feel like I must have been exposed …
Give Me the Night (1980) by George Benson
Who is this album for, exactly? Is it for fans of scat singing? Is it for fans of smooth soul? Is it for fans of soul jazz? Is it not stupid to assume those groups of people overlap? Apparently it’s not as this album topped both the Soul and Jazz charts (ugh) and went to …
Honey (1975) by Ohio Players
Ostensibly this is the Ohio Players best album. I wasn’t aware I knew the band, beyond their name, but it urns out that I know at least one of these songs here (and you likely do too). But, given that it is my first experience of this band, I don’t know that I can comment …
In the City (1975) by Tavares
This is a pretty damn catchy smooth soul record. I don’t like this style of soul and I find myself almost overcome by the sheer catchiness of the material.
KC and The Sunshine Band (1975)
This is one of those groups where I know the name and, if pressed in a trivia contest, I might be able to name their biggest hits out of a list, maybe. But, otherwise, I really don’t know much about them. (I didn’t know the leaders were white, for example.) So I was familiar with …
Real People (1980) by Chic
I’m definitely more receptive to Chic’s version of disco than I am to many others, I guess because sometimes it’s hard to tell whether they’re disco or funk. (And I, of course, prefer funk greatly to disco.)
Main Course (1975) by Bee Gees
This album is considered a bit of a landmark in the Bee Gees catalogue because it marks the transition (or the beginning of the transition?) from their earlier baroque pop sound to their disco sound, as well as the introduction of Barry’s falsetto. This is as far as I know one of their albums.Personally, I’m …
diana (1980) by Diana Ross
Diana Ross’ biggest hit, which I really had no idea about. In part, I guess, because I didn’t know “I’m Coming Out” was her song. I knew it, but I didn’t know it was her. Teaming with the creative team behind Chic seems like a pretty inspired idea, at least from a commercial standpoint. Also, …
That’s the Way of the World (1975) by Earth, Wind and Fire
This album is from a commission soundtrack. I have never seen the movie, FYI.
Sugarhill Gang (1980)
I know just about zilch about the history hip hop which means I know nothing about the history of record labels and producers thinking they know better how to market the genre of hip hop. But I know a fair amount about how they did that to other genres which, I hope, gives me some …
Rufusized (1974) by Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan
I know so little about Rufus or Chaka Khan that I thought, by the attribution, that this was a Rufus album on which she had guested. So I guess that means you should take what I say with a grain of salt.
Midnite Vultures (1999) by Beck
I really like Beck. You might say I love Beck, or at least Beck’s mainstream records from ’90s and early ’00s. (I have slowly become less of a fan, over the years.) And I’d like to think I also really enjoy listening to musicians I enjoy having a great time, though I don’t know if …
Nightbirds (1974) by LaBelle
Because of my age, I’m actually more familiar with the turn-of-the-century cover than the original of “Lady Marmalade”, but I’ve still heard it a bunch of times. I don’t think I had ever heard another LaBelle song before (consciously, anyway) so I had no idea what I was in for.
Off the Wall (1979) by Michael Jackson
I was listening to this record and I was struck once again by the fact that I just don’t like Michael Jackson. I was so struck by this that I posted a crude joke about him on my podcast’s social media which I will refrain from including in this review because it’s both not the …
Discovery (1979) by Electric Light Orchestra
I don’t know ELO much at all, though I know a lot of Jeff Lynne’s work as a producer (which I hate). I first read about the band in the first music book I ever owned, but I never got around to listening to them in part because when I first consciously encountered their singles …
Bad Girls (1979) by Donna Summer
I do not like disco. I do not like disco for both intellectual reasons and emotional ones. My intellectual reasons? Disco, to me, sounds like robotic, neutered, safe funk where everything musically interesting within funk has been abandoned to emphasize repetitiveness and sameness. My emotional reasons are more complex. I am pretty self-reflective and can …
C’est Chic (1978)
I don’t know much about disco, its history or the major artists who performed it. That’s because I don’t much like music that exists solely for you to dance to – I can’t help it but I like music that has an intellectual component to it more often than not. (And, if it doesn’t, I …
Grease Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1978)
When I was young, I absolutely hated nostalgia. I saw it as the enemy of creativity. Time, and particularly age, has softened that approach; I now understand nostalgia and even sometimes like it despite myself. But the thing is, when I do like nostalgia, it’s nostalgia for something I experienced. So I can understand why …
Thriller (1982) by Michael Jackson
Much like Bad, so many of the songs from Thriller were hits when I was a little kid that I know more of this record than I could have ever imagined. That knowledge once again puts me in a weird position, having the memory of what some of these songs sounded like to me as …
All n All (1977) by Earth Wind and Fire
Earth, Wind & Fire are yet another one of those bands I have preconceived notions about, due to over-exposure to a couple of hits songs. Let this be the nth reminder to never judge a book by its cover.
Saturday Night Fever Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1977)
I don’t like disco so you can imagine that when I found out this was a double album I was… unhappy.