The 50(ish) Greatest Albums Of All Time
So Underrated, So Chic
Album #11 : Chic — C’est Chic
I think Chic might be one of the most underrated bands of all time. They have so many hits: Le Freak, Good Times, Everybody Dance, I Want Your Love, Soup For One, My Fobidden Lover… If you’re sat there thinking ‘I don’t know those songs’, you do, go and have a listen. They are all songs that you recognise but never knew who wrote them, and they are all written by Chic. If you can, think back to the last song your mum was dancing to at a family party — if it wasn’t Abba, there is a about a 60% chance it was Chic.
As well as hits, they are also credited as influences by pretty much everyone you can think of from Queen through to Madonna. Even The Smiths’ guitarist Johnny Marr lists Chic as an influence.
Led by Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers (who went on to become arguably the best producer ever), Chic basically reinvented disco. At a time when disco music was getting bigger and bigger, but less and less popular, Edwards and Rodgers stripped everything back to its bare components and just made catchy hits. Such a simple idea, really, but one executed perfectly.
I have been thinking a lot about simple and underrated things recently. That’s because, as well as playing Unsung Onion, a friend and I have been trading a daily Thing That’s Getting Me Through Lockdown (“TTGMTLD”) and it has really helped focus the mind on the little things that you get to enjoy regardless of the state of the world.
A TTGMTLD can be absolutely anything, but by their nature they tend to fall into various categories. Sometimes it is the weather (we have been in lockdown so long now we have had both ‘the snow’ and ‘the clear blue skies’ as examples), often it is food (we’ve had more than one burrito, at least two Sunday roasts and, remarkably, a cheese platter). It can range from the huge, like Donald Trump leaving the office, to the tiny, like celebrating a really good nap.
More than once, my choice has been having a night in with my fiancée. There have been, admittedly, a lot of them recently but I am extremely lucky to have someone I love so much and who can make me happy so easily, so simply.
As I write this, kids in England are going back to school — a sure fire TTGMTLD for some of my friends and colleagues who are parents (perhaps less so for teachers) — and so, as we start to move out of the latest lockdown, and hopefully the pandemic, I intend to try and keep up with noticing an appreciating the little things. Hopefully in the (can’t believe I’m about to say this…) New Normal, I will continue take the time to appreciate the things that make me happy each day.
I would encourage you to do the same. Even in the hardest days, it helps to at least try and take stock of something good — it doesn’t have to be something big (one of mine was a nap for god’s sake!) but just something.
Like, for example, a great album by a great band like C’est Chic or, even smaller, the piece of advice given in the final moments of the closing track:
“Remember, the whole world’s a circus, don’t you be the clown.”
There is absolutely no context for it, it comes out of nowhere. There aren’t even lyrics in the final song. And yet, it cheered me right up.
Thanks for reading — over the course of 2021, I’ll be reviewing 50(ish) of the greatest albums ever recorded. You can see the list here.
