Funky Revelations Of 1987: ‘Alphabet City’ by ABC

Officially, this was not ABC’s final album of the 1980’s. At the same time it did a lot to some up these survivors of the 1980’s. In many ways, the 80’s had a few different pop cultural periods. And when each one was over,it was over. There was new-wave/synth pop early on, then it evolved into a more dance/pop sound. And by decades end, it was getting into different house/DJ dance music variations. ABC had seen themselves through the first two of those movements very cleanly. Even surviving a bit of a near miss with their second (and underappreciated) 1983 sophomore album Beauty Stab.

ABC  came back with vigor to spare on their follow up album How to Be a Zillionaire .  And stayed on track from that point on. Even if (as the decade wore on) pop music was becoming less and less fashionable, especially with more adult listeners, ABC remained on a roll after this. Even as pop music listeners found other things to listen to. But creatively and commercially, they remained at their peak when their  fourth album here. And it shows. Basically this album features songs that,both musically and lyrically are more balanced than anything since their debut The Lexicon Of Love.

Alphabet City is presented as something of a loose follow up to that debut- with bluish cover art and a movie poster like liner notes. And the songs here very much stick out as well oiled 80’s pop basically. And it brings in all their elements from the Motown inspired “When Smokey Sings”,with a similar rhythm to the Smokey/Steve Wonder track “Tears Of A Clown”, praising Smokey and (seemingly) Marvin Gaye as influences to the band. Excellent artists to be inspired by musically anyway. Especially for pop/soul oriented people.

“The Night You Murdered Love”, “Think Again,”Rage And Regret” and “Ark Angel” all have a more down to Earth pop/funk-dance sound without a lot of the heavy sound attack of the proceeding album. Rhythm and catchy melody are the key to these songs. “King Without A Crown”,”Rage And Regret” and “One Day” showcase a heavy contemporary (for 1987) sophistifunk. The album closes with one of it’s finest cuts “Minneapolis”. Needless to say,it’s totally a Jam-Lewis/SOS Band styled number musically,not dissimilar to what you might hear on a record such as Sands of Time.

To be honest. it’s kind of too bad Jam/Lewis didn’t produce ABC as they did Human League and Robert Palmer. Their style of polished, electronic sophistifunk would’ve been ideal for ABC’s stylized sound and probing melodies and lyrics. Over the years I’ve heard ABC’s singles and always been on the cusp of picking up a compilation of them. But being an album listener I had this feeling it might be the best way to deal with their particular musical bent. And it was an excellent choice too. ABC craft these wonderful little mini synth/pop/dance/funk symphonies,complete with strong arrangements and harmonies.

But they definitely carry that over into album length concepts as well. All of ABC’s first four albums are very strong musical affairs. Full of liveliness,energy and some extremely clear buts of writing. And to hear them all back to back..well at least on my end I know what I’ve been missing all this time. As my friend Henrique pointed out? The funk/soul music that 1987 produced balanced classic live and cutting edge electronic sounds in the audio equivalent of fine wine. On Alphabet City, ABC showcase how this musical ethic was strong and vital on both sides of the pond in its time.

Swing Out Sister: “Blue Mood” by Swing Out Sister

Swing Out Sister began life as a UK trio in 1985. This consisted of keyboardist Andy Connell, drummer Martin Jackson and lead singer Corinne Drewery. While both Connell and Jackson had been in the bands A Certain Ratio and Magazine prior to this point, Drewery came from the world of glamour-being a fashion designer and model. This likely helped with their suave image. It was a member of another group called 52 Street, Diane Charlemagne. Connell’s association with her label Factory helped get the band signed.  Charlemagne sang on Swing Out Sister’s original demos as well.

The bands debut album Its Better To Travel came out in the spring of 1987. Its jazzy,horn fueled and very catchy debut sing “Breakout” had become a major UK hit in the autumn and early winter of 1986. It happened exactly a year later in the US of course. It was actually only several years ago that I picked up the record on CD. Did so because,while vinyl copies were available to me, the CD contained four bonus tracks. Heard “Breakout” while growing up. And enjoyment of that groove helped me to appreciate another song on the album-their non charting debut single from 1985 called “Blue Mood”.

A theatrical,orchestral crescendo beings the song. Then the popping synth bass line pops in-along with the digital percussion that is soon joined by the electro funk styled drum machine. Bursts of rhythm guitar and MIDI horns leap in and out of the mix on the refrains. For the chorus, the chord changes key to a jazzy,keyboard based melody-coming after a leaner B section of the refrain. There is a bridge of sorts that showcases a frenetic rhythm guitar playing on where the vocal line. An extended chorus closes out the song until it all fades out.

“Blue Mood” combines a number of musical threads of the mid/late 80’s. The base of it comes out of the post disco, techno based club music.  Rhythmically however, the song is structured more like an Afro-Latin jazz funk number. Tons big,bouncy percussion and freestyle drums. Accordingly, the melody is strongly based in jazz as well. It goes right in with the jazzier end of the post disco UK club scene-not dissimilar to the work of Basia/Matt Bianco in that regard. Its the emphasis on groove,from both the groove and the singer, that make this song do distinctive for Swing Out Sister.

Anatomy of THE Groove: “Too Funky” by George Michael

George Michael celebrated his first posthumous birthday yesterday. His death came very sadly and suddenly on Christmas day last year. Since that time,I have learned (along with my boyfriend) just to how important George Michael and Wham were to the post disco UK dance/funk/soul scene of the 1980’s. Wham were one of the “big four” bands on the UK’s major music program Top Of The Pops.  As for Michael’s solo career, it operated from 1987 through 1991 before his record company conflict began. Yet that five years had Michael as part of a huge growth period for cutting edge,funky dance music.

His final single before these record company conflicts was originally recorded for his sophomore solo album Listen Without Prejudice Vol.1. It eventually ended up being released for the AIDS charity CD entitled Red Hot+Blue in 1992. All the proceeds from that and Michael’s accompanying single went to HIV/AIDS related causes. It was also Michael’s first extensive use of sampling-from sound clips from The Graduate and The Tony Hancock Show to a sample from Jocelyn Brown’s “Somebody Else’s Guy”. The name of the George Michael song that did all these things was “Too Funky”.

A fast electronic piano drum rundown introduces the song. Its a thick,slow drum machine rhythm with some shuffling, Brazilian style conga/percussion accents. The melodic body of the song is a round,five note synth brass part-along with pulsing electronic strings and like minded bass line. The piano/bass/drum interaction make up the refrains. With each choral variation, the synth brass returns and varies in tone. After a bridge that condenses the song down to the drums and bass line,the chorus fades the song out to a close with the piano part and the final sound sample of the song.

“Too Funky” is a song that basically pulls together all of the funkiest elements of 80’s dance music innovations. It has the the percussive shuffle of DC go go, the dramatic synthesized horns of the Minneapolis sound and the repetitive bass and piano of house music. What makes it “too funky” is not merely the sexually free (yet somehow post AIDS) lyrical content. But also the somewhat slower tempo and that percussive jump on the rhythms. George Michael wouldn’t put any new music out for four years after this. But it sure capped off the beginning of his solo career with a strong groove.

Anatomy of THE Groove: “Two In Love” by Midnight Star

Midnight Star are a band who represent something that this blog was founded on: showcasing unexplored directions in artists/bands music. One of the things about a lot of the early to mid 80’s electro/boogie funk bands is that many of the bands who helped developed it didn’t begin their careers doing that. Midnight Star are a prime example of this. The band formed in 1976 at Kentucky State University by the horn player Calloway brothers Vincent (who celebrates a birthday today) and his brother Reggie-along with singer Belinda Lipscomb.

When the band released their first album The Beginning Solar in 1980,they had a completely different sound than the more electronic grooves they’d start to develop by their next album in 1981’s Standing Together. Their sound on this debut was based around the horns in mid/late 70’s funk style-showcasing a very live instrumental sound with strong songwriting and brightness.With the exception of one song produced by Leon Sylvers,the rest of the album was handled by Harvey Mason. Including my favorite song on it in the closing track entitled “Two In Love”.

A high stepping Afro Latin march of a drum beat opens the album. The Calloway’s horn blasts segue into a pulsing synthesizer,an exploratory bass line and occasional muted trumpet accents from Reggie Calloway. This represents the chorus of the refrain. The refrain has a more conventional post disco dance beat-along with the bass/rhythm guitar interaction along with the strings. The bands brightly melodic vocal harmonies along with Lipscomb’s lead segue into each chorus. The bridge consists of a vocal improvisation where the chorus builds back into itself as the song fades out.

“Two In Love” represents one of my favorite types of funk. Its got just about everything in that respect. The climactic Afro Brazilian jazz/funk beat on the chorus,the textural mix of horns and synthesizers and a bright,gospel inspired melody. The sheer passion in this song goes right along with its epic instrumental groove. Its not likely that too many will associate Midnight Star with this particular side of their sound in the future. It not only surprised me to hear it for the first time. But was also surprised to find one of my favorite Midnight Star songs on their lesser known (and not particularly defining) debut album.

 

 

 

Anatomy of THE Groove: “Switch On Your Radio” by Maurice White

Maurice White,one of the musical icons who passed away this year,it best known as the founder of Earth Wind & Fire-the most commercially successful of the 70’s funk bands in terms of crossover. On the other hand,the band broke up in 1984. And one of the many reasons brought up was that White had it in his mind that Columbia (the bands record label) were looking for him to do a solo album. This album got released in 1985. Its biggest single was with a (mostly) uptempo version of Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me”. But it still remains something of a footnote in EWF history.

When I first heard the album on vinyl album around 18-20 years ago,am not 100% sure it came off as anything all that exciting. Of course,that could’ve just been a case of seeking something different from it than what it was. And what Maurice White’s self titled (and sole) solo debut does is present a series of electronic,pan African rock/funk/soul fusions with a mild melodic pop new age vibe about them. The EWF message is still intact. Its just going more for an attitude than a sound by a large. The one song that always got my attention strongly was the opener “Switch On Your Radio”.

A totally electronic synth orchestration fades slowly on the intro. Than suddenly the song bursts with a bluesy funk melodic statement. And it has all the instrumental elements of the song itself. The drum machine and Paulinho Da Costa’s percussion play off the guitar,electronic hand clap and slap bass lines with this melodic electro funk wall of sound. This represents the choruses of the songs. On the refrains and the bridge,the mix is somewhat more stripped down to focus on the vocals a bit. An extended chorus with vocal ad lib’s finish out the song as it fades.

“Switch On Your Radio” has a sound that crosses a lot of musical bridges. The overall drum programming of the song has the bigness of sound that was very much of its time. Yet the live percussion accents along with Martin Page slap bass,Marlon McClain’s rock guitar and the ethereal synthesizers of Robbie Buchanan  make for a powerful sound that basically amounts to a progressive dance/funk sound. And the melody has that strong song construction White and Page are so noted for. Its an extension of the EWF sound for sure. And it also pointed to a possible future solo direction for White which didn’t continue.

 

Anatomy of THE Groove: “It’s All In Your Hands” by Nile Rodgers

Nile Rodgers remains one of my musical heroes to this very day. He’s survived the anti disco backlash his band Chic received,drug addiction and most recently a cancer scare. He’s also done so with gusto,a confident smile and strut,and plenty of new musical activity. Among them (so I hear) working with Janelle Monae on her upcoming album. His rhythm guitar style became one of the most identifiable and influential of the final quarter of the 20th century. That guitar style also shaped his second career as a producer for some of the 80’s biggest  acts such as Duran Duran,Inxs and Madonna.

On another level,he actually had a third musical career. And its one that didn’t earn him quite the accolades that he had with Chic or as a producer. That was,irony aside,his own solo career. It all occurred when Chic petered out following their final album  Believer. That same year Rodgers embarked on his solo career-presenting himself primarily as a multi instrumentalist/writer/producer/singer. This first solo album was a wonderfully conceptualized package called Adventures In The Land Of The Good Groove. One song that stands out strongly for me is called “It’s All In Your Hands”.

A brittle yet rolling drum machine beat starts out the song unaccompanied-sounding very in keeping with early 80’s hip-hop spareness. After 10 seconds of this,a lead melodic synthesized piano comes in-along with a brittle synth bass line. Rodgers brings in a smooth,reverbed rhythm guitar repeating a rather jazzy melodic theme over this. This acts as the primary body of the entire song. The sexual surrender expressed in the lyrics also remain on the one throughout. The bridge of the song emphasizes Rodgers’ rhythm guitar riffing before that ongoing chorus fades out the song.

Listening to this song outside the context of the wonderfully grooving album its from,it becomes clear how many bridges this song actually crosses. It has the hard break beats and stripped down ethic of period hip-hop-along with the rhythmic instrumental exchanges of funk. Not to mention some of the smoother production values of new wave pop/rock of the mid 80’s. This song represented the transition between Chic’s funky,often jazzy type of disco to the rock friendly dance productions of Nile Rodgers career of the 80’s. And is a superb example of his solo sound.

 

Anatomy of THE Groove: “All Night Long” by Dexter Wansel

Dexter Wansel first became known to me as one of the Philly PIR team who worked on the 1976 debut album by the Jacksons. Being more broadly aware of the Philly soul sound now,Wansel seems to have a very different approach to music than Gamble & Huff and Thom Bell did. With disco era classics such as the Jones Girls “Nights Over Egypt” and “Keep On Dancing”,one of my favorite Jacksons’ songs off that Epic label debut,Dexter Wansel’s arrangements were based in his keyboard and guitar playing. Therefore his productions seem to have some of the funkiest bottoms of 70’s Phily funk and soul.

One thing Wansel also did was maintain a solo presence on PIR concurrent to his productions. One of these albums,which I never managed to pick up on vinyl despite seeing it all the time,was 1978’s Voyager. The album cover always stood out to me as a Trekker/sci fi admirer because of the prominent Star Trek model kit bash featured as some sort of robot riding through the desert. Through MP3 and YouTube,I’ve been fortunate enough to hear this album all the way through.And its an album that starts out with a funky bang with the jam “All Night Long”.

An otherworldly space funk Moog bass starts the song off. Then the drums come in playing a disco era friendly dance/funk beat. This is accompanied  by a mid toned rhythm guitar sustain,accenting horns and a SERIOUS slap bass thump. With the addition of an accompanying Fender Rhodes piano and Wansel’s falsetto/tenor vocal leaps this represents the choruses and refrains of the song. On the last part of the song,a major horn chart segues into a percussive,jumping beat over which a sassy,rocking blues guitar riffs with the phat slap bass and keyboard lines before scratching hard as the song closes out.

Without any hesitation, this is one of the hardest straight up funk jams to come out of the PIR camp. The beat has a swaggering,percussive shuffle. The keyboard/synthesizer parts are layered in a manner that lays somewhere between early 70’s “united funk” and mid/late 70’s space funk. And Wansel’s vocals (I’m pretty sure they’re his) have some of the slyly sexy attitude of his particular musical camp. Honestly I tend to think of Philly soul as the breezy,string laden proto disco sound of the 70’s. This helps showcase Dexter Wansel as a major player in the harder groove based element of the Philly sound.

 

Andre’s Amazon Archive: ‘Body Talk’ by Imagination (1981)

My history with this trio of Lee John,John Ashley Ingram and Errol Kennedy began with hearing a song (actually from this album) on a disco compilation in the late 1990’s. Though I was reading about Imagination in music literature? Learning about their transitional music from Eurodisco into the electro/new wave funk era? Their music was next to impossible to locate. This was a group whose CD’s came into my life entirely through my earliest exposure to the internet. I ordered this hear in fact,started right from the beginning. And am still finding different things to enjoy about it all these years later.

The title song opens the album with it’s slow burning stomp built around a metallic keyboard,flowing piano and accompanying melodic synthesizer. “So Good,So Right” brings a Caribbean feeling to a similar style groove-only this time putting the focus more on the bass synthesizer. With it’s medium tempo disco beat,repeating rhythm piano and lightly psychedelic electronic effects,”Burnin’ Up” is basically straight up house 7-8 years before the music’s peak. “Tell Me Do You Want My Love” is a spare,Steely Dan like precision jazzy funk dance number while “Flashback” comes right out with the phase filtered hi hat based stop/start Rhodes piano fueled dance/funk groove.

“I’ll Always Love You (But Don’t Look Back)” is a tender piano ballad with a sad and spacious melody while “In And Out Of Love” returns to the spare Caribbean flavored groove of the opener. I’ve heard the musical style of this album referred to as many things. Post disco,Euro dance,synth funk and many other variations. With Imagination? It’s their musical personality distinctions that really make this band work so effectively with what they do. The instrumental approach is consistently stripped down,yet harmonically full. The arrangements don’t sound complex. But the playing of all three members is fluid,slick,clean and very expert. It’s again solid proof,as Miles Davis ones said in a nutshell,that the caliber and personality of the musicians were what made or broke electronically derived music.

Originally posted on June 23rd,2015

LINK TO ORIGINAL REVIEW HERE!

Andre’s Amazon Archive: ‘Aquemini’ by OutKast

 

Now coming a decade after Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions this album not only arrived as OutKast’s third effort but in a time when the sample-centric mentality was still a mainstay in hip-hop. Sometimes it was interesting,sometimes fun and sometimes it was just a yawn if done in an overly predictable way. One thing a friend pointed out to me,which I should’ve guessed looking at the liner notes was this album was a direct byproduct of an era when bands such as The Roots were really talking hip-hop music into a more instrumental than a sample/scratch oriented context.

What’s unique about this is how the Organized Noize crew who put the music on this album together. Especially towards the end of this album layored jazz/soul/funk songs such as “SpottieOttieDopaliscious”,the late 70’s synth/dance/funk polyrhythmic style of “Da Art Of Storytellin Part 1” and the rhythmically complex “Liberation”,featuring vocals by Cee Lo later of Gnarls Barkley fame all have a sound that could easily make one believe they’re built on samples but they aren’t;the music is 100% organic and very much rooted in the 70’s as well as contemporary and futurist as well.

This makes a lot of sense considering Dre and Big Boi’s state of mind at the time. Both spend most of this album trading rhymes and licks at a lightening pace all regarding the correlation of cultural standards from the more Afrocentric,revolutionary 70’s culture towards the more aggressive and uncertain atmosphere on the 90’s. Tunes such as “West Savannah”,”Hold On Be Strong”,”Return Of The G” and the infamous “Rosa Parks” (apparently with the lady herself taking a certain exception to her name being used) all pull these ideas together.

It blends tales for the nostalgia of this pairs youth with the reality of drugs,romantic abandonment,dysfunction and search for hope that linked both the earlier and modern era together. Sometimes,especially in the case of Big Boi the language used may be somewhat tart for hip-hop’s detractors but if you hear past that to WHAT is being said as opposed to how it’s BEING said there’s an important story told. “Synthesizer”,featuring George Clinton and the closer “Chonkyfire” both bring together both aspects of this album together in a great way.

It’s that somewhat more retro 70’s musical aspect as well as the slower,almost G funk,live instrumental variation on the old Bomb Squad soundscape style up front. This also clues you in to the fact OutKast are more than willing to transend generational barriers with their music:the chorus are beginning to feature the Leroy Sugarfoot Bonner styled drawled vocals from Andre’ that would define albums from Stankonia and the subject matter of their raps have become significantly broader. No two OutKast albums are particularly alike and many are more or less hip-hop oriented than others. This favors a period where they’ve found the middle ground and thankfully for us received a lot of well deserved respect for their efforts.

Originally posted on September 24th,2010

LINK TO ORIGINAL REVIEW HERE!

Anatomy of THE Groove: “Good Times” by Cameo

Cameo started off under the name of the New York City Players-changing their name when they signed Cassablanca’s generally funk based Chocolate City imprint. The reason for that is thought to be avoidance of a lawsuit by the Ohio Players. Either way,they evolved from Larry Blackmon’s first band East Coast. That group had included the late vocalist Gwen Guthrie.  By the time of their 1977 debut album Cardiac Arrest,the now septet had spent nearly two years polishing their grooves based on everything from the dance floor friendly grooves of Brass Construction to the sounds of P-Funk.

With each successive Cameo album,the band developed a sound that grew more and more distinctive. Most interestingly how they kept the growling flavor of hard Southern funk while adapting to the stripped down instrumentation of 1980’s naked funk. There are far too many wonderful and influential Cameo songs to discuss here on Andresmusictalk. With “I Just Want To Be”,”Shake Your Paints” and “Flirt” being just a few of a couple dozen. For the sake of Larry Blackmon’s 60’s birthday,I’m going to cover a song from their debut that epitomized their overall musical focus called “Good Times”

Dancable,cymbal heavy drums and hand-clapping start out the song-accompanied by a round grooving Clavinet. That’s when the low rhythm guitar comes in-along with a gurgling synth bass and a jazzy electric bass line jam their way into the mix. On the refrains,smoothly melodic electric piano gooses all the other instrumentation right along. On the choruses that start the song and repeat throughout,the horn section play some sharp and intensely rhythmic charts. Towards the end of the song,the drum begins fan-faring around a squirrely space funk synth before closing out on the chorus.

Musically speaking,this song showcases the early Cameo sound extremely well. In terms of sound,it is built around the thick wah wah sounds that defined their first hit “Rigor Mortis” from the same album-while also maintaining it’s jazzy harmonics as well. It also has the faster tempo and loose jamming style that would show up on “It’s Serious” from their sophomore album We All Know Who We Are from later that same year. Upon first hearing Cameo with this fuller sound some years ago,it came as a bit of a shock. It all showcased the versatility of funk that is the Cameo sound.