I really love this Canadian double compilation from 1979 which as far as I can tell only contains one Canadian artist (shame) but is otherwise just a rip-roaring exploration of an art form that was peaking just as it was about to be shot down by all those anti-disco types who couldn’t handle how much they loved disco and how great it was.
Side one: Musique’s ‘In the Bush’ kicks off the set in adroit fashion, with a categorically ridiculous set of catchphrases and a whole insanely not unlike ESG or Delta 5 but a little more (a) sanitised (b) crude (c) stupid (d) sly than those groups. Patrick Adams, the man behind Musique, has produced a thousand recordings (well, he’s been a producer for fifty years and he’s 70 – that almost seems a little lazy) but in typical Wikipedia style his entry includes a ‘discography’ of two albums credited to other people. ‘In the Bush’ is followed by Rick James’ ‘You and I’ virtually his first hit and one of those records where the baseness of the one musical idea is remedied by the power of the performance. After Rick we get the Saturday Night Band, and the question forms in our mind, where the fuck did someone get the great idea to compete for the least imaginative band name? Because Musique is bad enough, but fuckin’ Saturday Night Band? I mean they’re not serious, but are they serious?! ‘Come on Dance, Dance’… I love what they’re doing, but it’s like a ten year old’s first novel. Why not ‘Come come on on dance dance’? That’s what they mean. Laura Taylor’s ‘Dancin’ in my Feet’ is a lot more BeeGeesy pop, including a tasteful cocktail section and once again the thirties-ish swing feel to the main verse. She apparently used the Bee Gees’ backing band, whatever that specifically means (I got that from her website).
Side two: T-Connection’s ‘On Fire’ is everything you’d want in a disco-rock-pop concoction. T’s full name is Theophilus which I also approve. Hi-Inergy’s ‘You can’t turn me off (in the middle of turning me on)’ is no doubt in danger of being cancelled by the PC police and quite right too. Hi-Inergy modelled themselves on the Supremes but obviously hornier (?). I would really like to hear this recited by John Laws over a Leon Berger-derived groove. Within a few years we’ll have the software to just program those in and get such a thing, which will be cool. Foxy’s ‘Get off’ is probably the best record ever made, but I never want to hear it or think about it again. Chanson’s ‘Don’t Hold Back’ is much better, seemingly effortless and yet so infectious, also refreshingly puts Frankie’s ‘Relax’ back in its box.
Side three: Michael Stevens apparently got a demo of ‘Love is in the Air’ before JPY’s version had come out and did his own recording. Wikipedia is very keen to point out that this competed with JPY’s LIITA, and that’s why neither was a huge hit in Canada but I think there’s a counter argument, to whit: who gives a shit? This is a really decent version, actually, with a very slightly different syncopation to JPY’s rendition and a very very different kind of jam/rave-up section at the end which really elevates the whole. Peter Brown’s ‘Dance With Me’ is a great inspirational anthem which is bound to get the whole world dancing (any day now). I gather (I say this as though I deduced something cleverly; actually I read it on the internet) Brown and Robert Rans, who also wrote this song, wrote Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ which was a hit, although I find that if you try to think of how that song goes while you’re listening to ‘Dance With Me’ you get Sheila E.’s ‘Glamorous Life’. Michael Zager’s ‘Music Fever’ is yeah, sure, whatever, the kind of song that you are not surprised to find in its original appearance opens an album the second side of which is a Disney medley. I gather (there I go again) that Zager ‘discovered Whitney Houston at the age of 14’ but who exactly was 14? USA-European Connection is next with ‘Come into my Heart’. This three-piece vocal group with an extraordinarily utilitarian name was formed by producer Boris Midney, possibly not the name he was born with, but maybe it was. A very lush and creative foray. John Davis and the Monster Orchestra perform the slightly thirties-ish ‘Ain’t that Enough’, a very lively and exciting piece of work with a bass player called Sugar Bear.
Side four is to be honest the dud side, or at least, it’s still great but not as great as the others. ‘My claim to fame’ by James Wells is a punchy pop song. The Wonderland Disco Band’s ‘Wonder Woman Theme’ is a mystifyingly low-key version of a track that was almost glam as I remember it applied to the actual show. Macho’s ‘I’m a Man’ is solid enough but was it really necessary? And Dan Hartman’s ‘Instant Replay’ is, sure, fine, and I have a strong feeling that it Is What It Is. So I’m sort of guessing that while this album was most likely not really compiled, more just decided by where the chips lay i.e. what was available/what was categorizable as disco/what had sold or was selling, whoever sequenced it was less enthused about the material on this side and was kind of hiding it away from the more solidly disco other four sides, notwithstanding the Dan Hartman song was a great big hit record (well, top 20 in Canada anyway, higher than it got in the US, though it was top 10 in the UK and the only place in the world it got higher than Australia (no. 6) was New Zealand (no. 5). We are such happy-go-lucky people here in the antipodes).
That’s right. The album does not feature ‘Dance (Disco Heat)’ by Sylvester. Too damn bad if that’s what you were looking for here. It’s weird that it doesn’t though isn’t it.
