There\u2019s no denying that Chic was one of the leading proponents of disco music in the \u201970s. With \u201cDance, Dance, Dance\u201d and \u201cFreak Out,\u201d their music was ubiquitous at any club.<\/p>\n
But to simply write Chic off as a disco band would be a misnomer. Their self-titled debut serves as proof of this, but it also suggests that they didn\u2019t quite know which direction they wanted to take their music\u2014and this proves to be their Achilles\u2019 heel.<\/p>\n
There is no denying the musical talent that Chic had. With guitarist Nile Rodgers, bassist Bernard Edwards and drummer Tony Thompson, their musical pedigree was firmly established. And with a revolving support cast that included Luther Vandross (!) and Jay Beckenstein, Chic was a musical powerhouse.<\/p>\n
Yes, disco plays a big role in two of the album\u2019s seven songs. \u201cDance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)\u201d and \u201cEverybody Dance\u201d are decent enough tracks, though they do sound a bit dated at times.<\/p>\n
But Chic seemed to want to go in many different musical directions on this album. \u201cSao Paolo\u201d is a smooth jazz piece that, honestly, is the best track on the disc; had they gone in this direction, they might not have achieved the fame they did, but they would have been untouchable musically. \u201cYou Can Get By\u201d and \u201cStrike Up The Band\u201d both feel like they belong in the funk-rock category; not bad, but George Clinton won\u2019t be losing any sleep.<\/p>\n
Add into this a pseudo-ballad in \u201cFalling In Love With You,\u201d and a song I personally can\u2019t make heads or tails out of in \u201cEst-Ce Que C\u2019est Chic,\u201d and you have an album that had great ambitions, but ended up a bit disjointed as it tried to cover too many genres in too short a span of time.<\/p>\n
The thing is, Chic<\/i> is not a bad album\u2014sure, a product of its time, but not a bad disc per se. Had the band focused on one or two musical styles, this would have been a powerful disc. As it is, it\u2019s still listenable, but one wonders what it could have been.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8328],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-46453","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-chic","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46453","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46453"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}