UK Import
Some records are bathed in such a happy spirit that listening to them is like taking a short, revitalizing vacation. The effect has nothing to do with the loudness of the music or the heaviness of the beat; it's all in the spirit of the performance.
Review of As One in Stereo Review, February 1983, p. 76
I was in down mood recently and arbitrarily spun the Kool & The Gang compilation The Dance Collection and found my spirits immediately lifted. Not only were there many comforting, familiar tunes, almost all the tunes were positive, happy, major-keyed, at dance speed or midtempo. So I ordered this 6 albums on 3 CDs set from BGO and the albums have been in steady rotation ever since. I didn't have any of these albums back when they were originally released and boy did I ever miss out on some good stuff. The dates perfectly cover the years I was in grades 8-12 in middle/high school and on into my freshman year at university.
Why start the set in 1979 with the group's 11th studio album? Ladies' Night marked the beginning of the group's most successful era which (probably not coincidentally) also marks the debut of lead vocalist James "J.T." Taylor and the use of Eumir Deodato as producer. All six albums here peaked in the top 30 on the Billboard 200 chart and spawned multiple top 40 singles on both the pop charts (14) and the R&B charts (17).
Excellent remastering job on these plus a fantastic liner note booklet that includes full credits as well as a nice essay by Charles Waring, columnist for Record Collector and contributor to MOJO and Wax Poetics. Well done. I'll probably never listen to all three discs consecutively, but just putting one CD in and enjoying 2 albums is just the right amount of good vibes. Or maybe shuffle tracks from all six. I prefer the first two CDs to the third, but it's all just a big box of feel good.
LADIES' NIGHT (1979)
6 tracks, 34 minutes
6 tracks, 34 minutes
Press of the time:
- Rolling Stone: "It's clearly a long way from 'Jungle Boogie'"
- Billboard: "The group effectively fuses funk and disco with jazz, r&b and pop"
- CashBox: "worth the wait"
- Record World: "slick rhythmically and vocally with Deodato's production to match"
- US Billboard Top 200 chart: #13
- Billboard R&B album chart: #1
- CashBox album chart: #14
- Rolling Stone chart: #32
Tracks: The singles are fantastic - Ladies' Night (#8 pop, #1 R&B), Too Hot (#5 pop #3 R&B, #11 dance), Hangin' Out (#36 R&B) - but the other three cuts are just as good and discolicious. The smooth grooves of Too Hot take me back to 8th grade dances/parties in a big hurry.
CELEBRATE! (1980)
8 tracks, 35 minutes
8 tracks, 35 minutes
Press of the time:
- Record World: "winning combination is back"
- CashBox: "The band continues to craft top-flight R&B/pop songs"
- Stereo Review: "the music is never very heavy, never very hot, never very anything except comfortable"
- Robert Christgau (C-): "they've adapted painlessly, nay profitably, to disco"
Chart peaks:
- US Billboard Top 200 chart: #10
- Billboard R&B album chart: #2
- CashBox album chart: #12
- Rolling Stone chart: #19
Tracks: The title track has become the group's signature tune and wedding reception staple. Case in point: my lovely wife and I attended a wedding last month and all the 20-somethings in attendance at the reception flooded the dance floor when this song played and they knew every word of the lyrics. (Oddly enough, they belted out Whitney Houston's I Wanna Dance With Somebody even louder than Celebration, but that's neither here nor there.) The truth is, I've heard Celebration thousands of times by now yet I never tire of it and it never fails to improve my mood. A rare thing, indeed.
Celebration (#1 pop, #1 R&B, #1 dance, #34 AC) was the platinum-selling hit, but there were two other singles from the album: Jones Vs. Jones (#39 pop, #33 R&B) and Take It To The Top (#11 R&B, #1 dance) - of those two, the latter gets the nod from me. But that's just the first three cuts on the album. We're then treated to the tasty dance instrumental Morning Star (that sounds like it was lifted from a Tom Browne album of the time), then the funky Love Festival. There isn't much going on in the remaining tunes, but they're certainly enjoyable enough filler.
SOMETHING SPECIAL (1981)
8 tracks, 36 minutes
8 tracks, 36 minutes
Press of the time:
- Rolling Stone (★★½): "finds the band comfortably rehashing the successful pop-soul formula they launched with 'Ladies' Night'"
- Billboard: "light, lilting tempos, sprightly jazz tinged horn lines and simple good time messages"
- CashBox: "looks like it will continue the hot streak"
- Stereo Review: "These are nearly all monotonous, thumpy productions of songs about steppin' out an' gettin' down."
Chart peaks:
- US Billboard Top 200 chart: #12
- Billboard R&B album chart: #1
- CashBox album chart: #10
- Rolling Stone chart: #19
Tracks: The lead track, Steppin' Out (#89 pop, #12 R&B, #16 dance), is a fantastic opener and I can't believe it didn't chart higher than it did. The other singles from this album were Take My Heart (#17 pop, #1 R&B, #16 dance) and my personal favorite from this release, the funk-fest of Get Down On It (#10 pop, #4 R&B, #16 dance). Take My Heart is a fantastic shuffle for sure and might have the best arrangement on the album, but "Get your back up off the wall!" is so dang catchy, the English teacher in me will even excuse the two consecutive prepositions. ;-) Good Time Tonight is the obvious attempt at duplicating the sound and feel of Celebrate and almost succeeds; Be My Lady and the super-positive Stand Up And Sing could each have been chosen for a single release; No Show is as close to a ballad as the group gets around this time and it's a dang good one, at that. The bonus track, Stop!, is a driving instrumental in search of lyrics and a melody but it's catchy enough that I'm glad it's included here.
AS ONE (1982)
7 tracks, 36 minutes
7 tracks, 36 minutes
Press of the time:
- Rolling Stone (★★★): "slick but substantial R&B-fueled pop"
- Billboard: "their best bid yet to make a substantial splash"
- Stereo Review: "one of the best dance records in many months"
- CashBox: "a best bet"
- Smash Hits (9 out of 10): "What more can you ask for?"
Chart peaks:
- US Billboard Top 200 chart: #29
- Billboard R&B album chart: #5
- CashBox album chart: #36
- Rolling Stone chart: #24
Tracks: Street Kids is just an okay opener, but that's followed by Big Fun (#21 pop, #6 R&B) - which is indeed big fun with great horn licks and falsetto vocals. We're later treated to two entirely different but equally fantastic dance tunes with silly lyrics: Hi De Hi Hi De Ho and, my favorite cut on the album, Let's Go Dancin' (Ooh La La La) (#30 pop, #7 R&B). There's a nice variety here with some balladry, a little pseudo-reggae, funk-lite, some disco strings, the familiar Celebration and Too Hot grooves, and "I find its uncomplicated optimism heart-warming and irresistibly danceable."
IN THE HEART (1983)
9 tracks, 35 minutes
9 tracks, 35 minutes
Press of the time:
- Stereo Review: "a disappointment"
- CashBox: "takes them even further into the pop territory"
- Rolling Stone (★★★½): "state-of-the-art soul, brimming with optimism"
Chart peaks:
- US Billboard Top 200 chart: #29
- Billboard R&B album chart: #5
- CashBox album chart: #30
- Rolling Stone chart: #50
Tracks: Joanna (#2 pop, #1 R&B, #2 AC) and Tonight (#13 pop, #7 R&B) were the big singles while Straight Ahead (#103 pop) didn't quite make the Hot 100. Regardless of chart success, those three are the cream of the crop here. Definitely my least favorite of the six albums included in this set.
In the late fall/early winter of 1983, I was briefly interested in a girl named JoAnn. She was a couple of years younger than me and, in her father's opinion, too young to go on a "car date" so that relationship never got off the ground. Other than the similar names, the girl and the song have nothing to do with each other. However, I'm always reminded of JoAnn when I hear this tune. The trombone solo, the sappy lyrics, the constant eight note electric piano motif - it all works for me.
The dance-rock sound of Tonight certainly laid the groundwork for the next album...
EMERGENCY (1984)
7 tracks, 36 minutes
7 tracks, 36 minutes
Press of the time:
- Stereo Review: "can always be counted on to deliver easy-to-listen-to r-&-b dance music"
- Billboard: "the group continues to develop"
- CashBox: "one of the strongest song-for-song B/C collections of the year"
- Robert Christgau (B-): "anonymity is their signature"
Chart peaks:
- US Billboard Top 200 chart: #13
- Billboard R&B album chart: #3
- CashBox album chart: #19
- Rolling Stone chart: #17
Tracks: This double-platinum album became the group's all-time biggest seller on the strength of four hit singles:
Pop
|
R&B
|
Dance
|
AC
|
|
| Misled |
10
| 3
|
9
| |
| Fresh | 9
|
1
|
1
|
5
|
| Cherish | 2
|
1
|
1
|
|
| Emergency |
18
| 7
|
41
|
For those keeping track, the above four singles make up over 57% of the whole album; they're all great and I can't imagine 1985 without them. They're also the first four track on the album. So what about the remaining three tracks? Surrender is a danceable attempt at Minneapolis funk, Bad Woman is a poor man's Careless Whisper, and You Are The One is a prayer set to a manic-synth-Latin-syncopated accompaniment. Still, 5 out of 7 ain't bad.
Previously revisited for the blog:
The Dance Collection (1990)
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