Date: Sept 4, 1976
Weeks: 1
Finally, finally I've found a Bee Gees song that is pure, unmitigated disco fun. I don't know why it is, but for some reason I've really come around on disco and come to appreciate it as fun dance music. Maybe it's the misery of 70s pop music. Maybe it's the misery of 2000s dance music. Genuine 70s disco just seems fun in comparison, and this is a perfectly nice, fun dance song.
It helps that the lyrics aren't what I've come to know as the usual Bee Gees misery-wallowing. The lyrics are, primarily, "you should be dancing." The rest of the lyrics are about how he's in a relationship with a woman who likes to dance and tells him he should dance, too. Ordinarily I'd find this kind of repetition irritating, but in this case I find it refreshingly minimalist.
It helps that the song actually contains a surprising amount of variety. It has verses, choruses, and transitions between them. It has an instrumental bridge that gives an electric guitar and the horns a chance to shine. Then it has a section where most of the instruments fall away but the percussion gets to come to the front. The orchestration in this song is really quite good, and the variety of sounds and sections keep it entertaining for its entire length. An impressive feat considering the repetitive lyrics and the need for a dance song to keep a consistent sound going throughout.
My verdict: Like it. Disco may have been rejected by everyone after the 70s were over, but it was a genre of music that really did include some gems. This is surely one of them.
That song really is very disco.
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