C'est Chic

Chic

album cover

C'est le Best Disco Album Ever

Most musicians heard disco and sneered. The slick band called Chic found joy in its repetitions, and with this album created a blueprint for a tonier, upmarket disco style that depended upon serious musicianship.

Chic could play the same four-measure vamp for an hour and keep it riveting. That's because it was, above all, a real band. Guitarist Nile Rodgers fitted Memphis-style chicken-scratching rhythm guitar to disco rhythms. Bassist Bernard Edwards popped his way up and down the fretboard, often handling the melodies (check the opener "Chic Cheer" for a hint of how powerful he could be in this role). Drummer Tony Thompson's patterns were as effective as those from a drum machine, but infused with heart. It didn't matter what else was happening—elaborate string parts, the cool vocals of Norma Jean Wright, layers of keyboards—because the core locomotion was so strong. (Rappers got it right away: The Sugar Hill Gang appropriated the rhythm loop of Chic's 1979 hit "Good Times" for its signature "Rapper's Delight.")

That flamboyant locomotion is the reason to seek C'est Chic, the band's second album. It's got the massive hit "Le Freak," and several equally exciting tracks, including "Savoir Faire" and "I Want Your Love," which might just be the grabbiest dance floor anthem ever.

Genre: R&B
Released: 1978, Atlantic
Key Tracks: "Chic Cheer," "I Want Your Love," "Savoir Faire," "Le Freak."
Catalog Choice: Risqué.
Next Stop: David Bowie: Let's Dance
After That: Prince: Lovesexy
Book Page: 163

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About 1,000 Recordings

Celebrate the joy, the revelation, the mystery, the fun, the sheer shivers-up-the-spine pleasure of great music.

Essential operas. Milestone rock albums. An education in the blues. The world of world. Classical from Bach to Bartók to Beethoven to Brahms. And dozens of unexpected gems, surprising discoveries, and long-lost masterpieces.

This is an online version of the list (published alphabetically in the book). The entries in the book break down genre bias and broaden every listener’s horizons—think Miles Davis to Claude Debussy to the melodic story-songs of The Decemberists. And the writing is passionate, informed, opinionated.

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