By pejepeine
Hold on Tight for the A-list
I suggested this topic after browsing the Marconium and discovering that several of my favourite tunes were missing. I DJed for several years and always bought records for their effect on the dancefloor, but I always had a soft spot for the slower, sexier shuffling ones, typified by dancehall reggae, lovers and an obscure genre of soul known as two-step. When I stopped spinning records for a living, I began to discover slower songs and revisit ones I’d always loved.
I’ve only snogged under a mirrorball once, as far as I remember, with an extremely tall German exchange student to Abba’s Chiquitita, so I’m no expert on the actual skills involved. I wish I had been, but at 6’4”, I usually needed a step or high kerb before there was any chance of a snog and dancefloors don’t have many steps or high kerbs. Sometimes, while parading with one of the scuttling munchkins I’ve gone out with since, I wonder whether me and Heike weren’t meant for each other from the start.
Jean Adebambo’s Paradise is one of the greatest examples of lovers’ rock – a uniquely British genre featuring young girl singers and ambitious young producers performing commercial reggae cover versions of US soul hits as well as wonderful originals like this.
Sade’s vocal style owes a lot to the deliberately naive, unmodulated technique of lovers’ rock, but watch her dancing barefoot and captivating a crowd at the age of 52 and you’ll also understand how she forged a new definition of sophistication. Lyrics like “There’s a quiet storm and I never felt this hot before” nod to the smouldering style she blended with jazz and latin.
Johnny Duncan’s Slow Dancing uses a fascinating echo effect that summons up dusty, empty dancehalls where just a couple or two are left shuffling in each other’s arms.
The Droge and Summers Blend’s Two of the Lucky Ones was apparently made famous by a scene in Zombieland, which I haven’t seen. But it’s certainly a fine song for a slow-dancing scene.
Another song from a film is Yasmin Hamdan’s stunning Hal, from the end of Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive, just before the two ancient vampires head off to drink the blood of two young lovers. Drones and a spot of heavy percussion mean it’s far from a classic smoocher, but it certainly holds you enthralled
“Ya make it with some of these chicks, they think you gotta dance with them,” - to complete this little film trilogy, here’s the Bee Gees, with the wonderful two-against-the-world closing ballad from Saturday Night Fever, after the dancing stops and Stephanie thanks Tony for his “admiration, respect and support”.
Eddie Kendricks Intimate Friends kills it – expectant chords, an insistent riff and a pulsing beat means things are really starting to get serious, while Eddie’s effortless falsetto is light and perfectly seductive. Eddie always reminds me of Fred Astaire for some reason- something to do with masculinity worn incredibly lightly.
Phillipphillip had a fling with an exchange student, and ended up being introduced to the electronic waltz Réponds Mois by Mathematiques Modernes on a mixtape. It’s a reminder of how appealing and unique 80s French pop could be.
Sometimes it’s just about two damaged people holding on tight to each other. Rihanna & Mikki Echo’s Stay is a devastatingly emotional duet sung over a simple, rhythmic piano backing.
Jeff Buckley’s Everybody Here Wants You is another of those songs that just stops time in its tracks and makes you hold tight on to what you’ve got.
Let’s put on a slow-train 6/8 soul ballad to tempt out the remaining wall flowers as Lavern Baker gives us Soul On Fire.
Last dance is Billy Preston & Syreeta’s With You I’m Born Again – the best duet ever, in which the two singers each enter the song alone, tentatively sing a few lines together then soar into flight, lifting each other up triumphantly with lyrics that use religious imagery for a vision of love as refuge and redemption. And yet it’s all, unmistakably, about sex
Hold On Tight for the A-List Playlist:
Jean Adebambo – Paradise (magicman)
Sade – Sweetest Taboo (LoudAtlas)
Johnny Duncan – Slow Dancing (SweetHomeAlabama)
The Droge and Summers Blend – Two of the Lucky Ones (EnglishOutlaw)
Yasmin Hamdan – Hal (Untergunther)
Bee Gees – How Deep Is Your Love (ParaMhor)
Eddie Kendricks – Intimate Friends (Nicko)
Mathematiques Modernes – Réponds Moi (phillipphilip)
Rihanna –Stay (sonsounds)
Jeff Buckley – Everyone Here Wants You (megadom)
Lavern Baker – Soul on Fire (isabelle Forshaw)
Billy Preston & Syreeta – With You I’m Born Again (AltraEgo)
The Throbbing Soul B-list
Roberta Flack sets the mood with her original version of Gene McDaniel’s song. Later versions , not least D’Angelo’s , lay on the sexiness with a trowel, but this clear, light version is all you need.
Marvin – Let’s Get It On. The big one, although I have to admit I always preferred the anguish and chanting pleas of Please Stay and the ridiculous romanticism of If I Should Die Tonight, either of which would have hit the A-list .
Inside My Love is pure filth, with Minnie Riperton slowly working up to those outrageous whistle notes and an even more outrageous 24-second sustained note. I said I wouldn’t consider smutty songs, meaning humorous, jokey stuff, but Minnie’s explanation that the song is about “intimacy” was helpful to bear in mid as she asks if you want to ride.
Just Like You by the Brides of Funkenstein is like one of Bootsy Collins’s stoner slow jams from the late 70s –with Bootsy, Bernie Worrell and Dawn and Jeanne’s gorgeous voices meandering and drifting gorgeously for almost ten minutes.
Darondo gives it a bit of Curtis and a bit of Al Green to make the rediscovered classic Didn’t I a 21st-century favourite round here.
Eddie Holman’s 1969 version of Ruby and the Romantics 1963 hit actually seems older than the original, swapping the latin tinge for a light 6/8 tempo and adding Eddie’s pleading falsetto. But they’re both swaying, snogging classics.
My mum likes Adele. I like this Dylan cover, too. She’s definitely got a voice on her.
Odyssey are the only band whose fan club I ever joined, after buying three of their singles in a row when I was supposed to be a punk and not even into disco. Tindersticks covered If You’re Looking for a Way Out, but the original remains one of the all-time great mirrorball smoochers, sad, grown-up, sophisticated and generous.
Quiet storm queen Anita Baker brought jazzy class to the 80s, and Sweet Love is one of the high points of the decade – a glorious, chugging celebration of romance.
Richee Benson replaced Gwen Dickey as Rose Royce’s singer, but the sumptuous arrangement and shimmering electronics remain, and Benson’s plain, lovely voice is perfect for a message of optimism and rebirth.
Commodores singer and sax player Lionel Richie wrote Three Times A Lady after being inspired by his dad’s toast to his mother. It followed the equally courtly smash, Lady, he wrote for Kenny Rogers, and every time I hear either one I get the bizarre urge to marry someone.
Throbbing Soul B-List Playlist:
Roberta Flack – Feel like Making Love (severin)
Marvin Gaye – Let’s Get It On (amylee)
Minne Riperton – Inside My Love (OliveButler)
Brides of Funkenstein – Just like You (Tatanka Yotanka)
Darondo – Didn’t I (attwilightlarks)
Eddie Holman – Hey there Lonely Girl (philipphilip99)
Adele – Make You Feel my Love (severin)
Odyssey – If You’re looking For A Way Out (ParaMhor)
Anita Baker – Sweet Love (magicman)
Rose Royce – Golden Touch (Uncleben)
The Commodores – Three Times a Lady (Nicko)
Three’s a crowd: Guru’s picks:
Cheba Kheira & Cheb Abbes – Ya Wah Ya Laadou
Mindbending Algerian autotune duet.
Nilsson – Without You
I remember my parents having a smooch to this immense power ballad.
Jon Lucien– Rashida
No percussion, just shimmering guitars, strings and Jon’s luscious baritone. Responsible for a spate of Rashidas in the 70s, including Quincy Jones’s daughter.
Anita Baker
These playlists were inspired by readers' song nominations from last week's topic: Move closer: slow, intimate, sexy love songs. The next topic will launch on Thursday at 1pm UK time.
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