{"id":41562,"date":"2009-06-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-21T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/dreamland\/"},"modified":"2009-06-21T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-21T00:00:00","slug":"dreamland","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/dreamland\/","title":{"rendered":"Dreamland"},"content":{"rendered":"

For much of the early \u201890s, songs from Black Box\u2019s Dreamland <\/i>were played in high rotation in dance clubs all over the world. It\u2019s got four, count \u2018em, FOUR #1 hits for disc jockeys and disco lovers to hold fiercely to their hearts and hold in high regard. For a group of four nameless and faceless Italians to create piano-house music this good is a miracle in itself. Yes, it\u2019s a tad repetitive in places, and the guttural vocals won\u2019t be everyone\u2019s cup of tea, but it\u2019s still one foolproof record that is guaranteed to get the booties on the dance floor.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Memories of when I used to frequent Studio One, Rage and Micky\u2019s out in West Hollywood flood back every time I put this CD on. I didn\u2019t much like \u201cRide On Time\u201d or \u201cI Don\u2019t Know Anybody Else\u201d when they first became hits, though now I recognize how effective and timeless these tunes really are. Maybe it was the fact that they were overplayed to death back then. Now that a lot of time has passed, they sound fresher and fuller of life than ever.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The two other big hits to be found on Dreamland<\/i>, \u201cEverybody Everybody\u201d and \u201cStrike It Up,\u201d are definitely the best of the lot, These are gay disco anthems that still resonate today, even though the words aren\u2019t always easy to comprehend (lyric sheet please!). I did mention that these folks are Italian, right? They clearly intended from the outset to make this album sound as American as possible, but something was bound to get lost in translation. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

After the hedonistic rush of all these thumping house cuts, Black Box wisely included some chill-out, cool-down tracks as filler. There are two instrumentals, the elegant Kenny G-esque \u201cGhost Box\u201d and the peaceful, meditative \u201cDreamland,\u201d as well as an obvious nod to Chic entitled \u201cOpen Your Eyes,\u201d which comes replete with strings and a sexy slow groove. The one track that doesn\u2019t really seem to fit in is \u201cFantasy,\u201d mainly because it sounds like a television theme song that you can\u2019t get out of your head.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In the dance music world, Black Box managed to carve out their own niche and were able to compete with the likes of Technotronic, C&C Music Factory and Deee-Lite. Certainly, these acts all owe a debt of gratitude to bigger names like Madonna, Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson for paving the way, but once they arrived on the scene there was no stopping them. That is, until the polar opposite arrival of grunge in 1992. Then, unfortunately, disco was killed yet again. Later, of course, techno took over in 1997 and hip-hop brought back the beats for the 2000\u2019s. All things retro have now become the new trend, and there aren\u2019t as many dance acts who deserve to be remembered as fondly as Black Box.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":29939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8415],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-41562","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-black-box","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41562"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41562"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}