At its edited-for-radio length, the more modest of the two hits off Chic’s second album was even more obnoxious than the immodest hit ("Le Freak" – Atlantic's best-selling 45 ever, once). There is barely a song there: just the same four descending notes in a single chord over and over. However, at its full seven-minute length, it becomes completely different music, and the most weirdly pure example of what distinguished disco once its aesthetic definition began to take hold. The vocalists sing the humdrum words in unison, abjuring any soloist’s “expressivity,” but the guitar and bass vamping weightlessly over drummer Tony Thompson’s rippling straight four with no clear downbeats allows the music to distend itself, making the ostensibly inexpressive vocals strangely hyper-emotional, and extending into the instrumental breaks which do not, by strict definition, contain solos. A string section plays a cleanly articulated counter-melody; brass repeats the same phrase and same rhythm; and by the time Nile Rodgers takes the track out with nothing but a rhythm figure on guitar, the tune is in midair. It was difficult to discern this breakthrough amidst the treacle marketed as disco on late ‘70s radio, but it still is.
Note: For Advent, 25 secular essays about 25 songs, one per day from Dec. 1 through Dec. 25. Each essay is exactly 200 words long.
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