Over the years my understanding of Wham! and the role they played in the UK post disco scene of the early 80’s had become so much more pronounced. Today they are primarily known for their mid decade hits such as “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” and even the now iconic holiday favorite “Last Christmas”. George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley also made for the prototypical boy band in terms of their image. Still they came to prominence in a period where such labels didn’t create such a negative stigma for anyone. As a result, both of these men had plenty of chance to hone and polish their craft even before they came into the public eye in such a huge way.
When I was a young adult about a decade and a half ago, there was a record store in my area called Summit Sound. A pre owned copy of Wham!’s debut album Fantastic was something of a fixture there until I finally picked it up when the store was closing out a few years later. Turns out the album was recorded over the course of three years. The album was actually very impressive as well as being very catchy and radio friendly for it’s day. The songs are also very soulful and have a strong groove to them as a whole. One song on the record stood out as…well at least to me one of the finest pieces of music Wham! ever made. And it was called “Club Tropicana”.
The stage is set by the sound of crickets and a car pulling up to music behind closed doors. With the sound of the door opening,Dion Estes thumping slap bass line and Trevor Morell’s pushing drum beat opens the groove with the sound of crowd sounds before Ridgeley’s strident,dance floor friendly rhythm guitar comes in-the Brazilian style percussion opening up the beat even further. The horns of Ian Ritchie and Roddy Lorimer come in with just the right melodic spice on each chorus of the song. The instrumental bridge isolating the slap bass and synth accents is sandwiched in between two jazzy acoustic piano solos courtesy of Tommy Eyre before George Michael literally coos the song into it’s fade out.
A key conversational point between Henrique and myself has been a tendency in the early 80’s to focus in on the more brightly melodic elements of the Caribbean pop music when it came to American uptempo funk grooves of the period. And this song does something wonderful with what Henrique referred to (in specific reference to the Earth Wind & Fire song “And Love Goes On”) as the “cruise ship sound”. The slap bass is bumping,the piano’s swinging,the horns are hot and the funk is turned right up. Andrew Ridgeley really channels Chic’s Nile Rodgers disco era guitar wonderfully on what is surely one of the funkiest jams Wham! ever threw down.
Andresmusictalk 