Club Classics 1976-1987

"Hot Stuff" and "Bad Girls"? Is that the best they could do with Donna Summer? No "Love To Love" or "I Feel Love" or "Down Deep Inside" or entire first side of "Once Upon A Time"? Invalidates the entire list really.

Also no Bobby Womack "So Many Sides Of You" nor any Cristina - "Is That All There Is?" not to mention "Things Fall Apart" the best Christmas song ever?

Gwen Guthrie - er, Ain't Nothin' Goin' On But The Rent, anyone?

"SHAME" by Evelyn King? On every fucking club floor for 18 months in 1978-9?

ONE NATION UNDER A GROOVE??????

Funka-fucking-politan get in but the Gap Band don't? EXCUSE ME - BURN RUBBER ON ME - OOPS UPSIDE YOUR HEAD - ANYONE AWAKE IN THERE?

"I AM" BY EARTH, WIND & FIRE?

"OFF THE WALL" BY MICHAEL JACKSON??????????????????????

They've got Inner City Jam Band but not Inner City.

"Chic Cheer"! Not "Good Times" or "Le Freak" or whatever.

And Rockers Revenge apparently made two records in 1982: Walking ON Sunshine and Walking IN Sunshine.

And that's just a cursory glance.

What a truly pathetic list.

Of course I could be misreading the whole thing, and this could be a "connoisseurs" list, leaving out anything obvious (i.e. anything that sold in double figures or which was good) vis-a-vis the more devout followers of Northern Soul.

I have many of the crossover pop hits and tracks by not-generally- regarded-as-club acts, but you probably know those already. Whoever compiled this list seems to have gone out of their way to exclude the most obvious cuts by certain artists. The one EWF choice seems especially odd. A most rockist list, then. I'd go get the Pleasure lp from '77 and be done with it.

I think the list wants to portray things-as-they-seemed-then: to give a chart for a thriving scene that didn't have charts. I think it's pretty excellent as history, whatever the artistic merits of its contents. On the other hand you're absolutely right about the Gap Band needing much better representation.

Sorry, needing representation, period.

These alphabetical chart lists invariably remind me of DJ Martian, so now I'm trying to imagine said estimable DJ getting his groove on, with little success. Although he could have little signs to hold up at convenient intervals like "this track is released domestically on November 4!"

Marcello is so bang OTM with his first point that it hurts.

The sort of list that deliberately leaves out certain records simply because Peter Powell or Gary Davies (insert US equivalents at will) played them. Has anyone even *heard* the one Earth, Wind and Fire album that's on there?

Also: "Down Deep Inside" best single of decade, "Hot Stuff" airpunching 1985 MTV hell anticipated.

I've seen this list before and I seem to remember reading that it catalogues most of the records that Larry Levan played at the Paradise Garage during the period 1976-87. The list may seem highly obscure, but it is quite easy to find the vast majority of these tracks on c.d. compilations. I recommend the Mastercuts "Classics" series and also a number of albums released by Strut, such as "Disco (Not Disco) and "Jumpin'". It is also worth investigating the rest of Jahsonic's site. It is quite confusing to navigate, but you'll find lots of obscure information about many musical genres.

My personal favourites on the list include "Let No Man Put Asunder" by First Choice (in fact I like most of the Salsoul stuff), "Is It All Over My Face" by Loose Joints, "There But For The Grace Of God Go I" by Machine and "Could Heaven Ever Be Like This" by Idris Muhammed. It goes without saying that there are some horrible, horrible records on the list such as "Touch Me" by Samantha Fox. Maybe records like that sounded good if you took the right drugs.

I'll write something tomorrow about why I like the tracks that I recommended.

I'm rather proud to say that I'm on this list...at position 941 out of 1000.

The First Choice / Loose Joints / Machine records v. good, no question.

I was just joining Marcello pointing to the omissions.

I'd be a bit surprised if Larry Levan was paying attention to Gary Davies as a negative guide to playlisting, but club exclusivity is surely at least SOMEWHAT made up by leaving OUT what got played "everywhere": eg Donna Summer, EWF, Michael Jackson... If you're paying $10 to get into the Paradise Garage, you don't want to hear stuff you already own, or get on the radio for free.

In this context, Mark, you're right.

It's just that I wasn't aware of exactly what this list was when I made those comments. I'm not sure Marcello was, either.

Hey, what surprises David has up his sleeve sometimes!

Robin...it's strange being a footnote in history...

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Sorry about that!

Is there any way I can remove the previous message?

Yours Jan

why on earth would you want to?