- So, is a band a band if it is just a person? Is Nine Inch Nails just Trent Reznor, and it’s no secret that Wham! was George Michael and Smashing Pumpkins is pretty much Billy Corgan these days. Therefore, is Chic now just Nile Rodgers? The ninth Chic album, It’s About Time, is Nile Rodgers all right. That signature “chucking rhythm” guitar style and the layered grooves are there from the get-go on the opening track (and first released single) Til The World Falls
The construction of this album (and it is a construction equal to any large undertaking in the physical world with more credits on this album than you’d find at the end of a superhero blockbuster film) grows from what Rodgers has been good at for 40 years – a solid beat that organically grows throughout the track and introduces instrumentation that elevates the mood to one long party – and track four Do You Want To Party? tells you that, thanks to vocoder enhanced semi-rap from LunchMoney Lewis and a bevy of female backing singers.
Once you are at the party, rising actor/singer Hailee Steinfield is inviting you to put your hands in the air, turn the music up loud and Dance With Me. And that’s the schtick of It’s About Time. It’s about time Nile Rodgers returned to the dance roots that made Chic memorable in the late 70s and launched his career as a Svengali producer of classic pop-dance tracks.
The Chic production unit has, in the main, looked to who is buzzing in this century, pulling in Craig David sounding as smooth as ever on Sober (with a bit of the Jam & Lewis/Janet Jackson period rolling around in there), young rappers Vic Mensa and Stefflon Don (Till The World Falls and Sober respectively) plus “wonky funk” stylist Nao on Boogie All Night. As the album draws to a close, Rodgers slows it down a little with Elton John (yes, Elton John) duetting with Emeli Sandé on the ‘last-dance-of-the-night’ Queen
Then there is the last track bar one (final track is a Teddy Riley mix of Sober under the title ‘New Jack’ Sober). Something that has been hiding in plain sight for a while, a 2015 version of the Chic 1978 classic I Want Your Love. Created by Tom Ford for his Spring/Summer 2016 Collection promo video, he asked Rodgers to revamp the song, and then recruited none other than Lady Gaga to provide her distinctive vocal styling to the beefed-up disco stomper.
Yes, it is about time we had a classic disco album with modern touches that doesn’t sound embarrassingly gauche, and as this is being released in the Australian springtime, it will be a very stylish summer party musical accompaniment.
- Blair Martin.