Obviously Risqué opens with "Good Times" one of the greatest disco/funk songs ever. I normally lament about albums opening with a band's superhit, and I'm going to do it again. Now I have really nothing to look forward to, because I seriously doubt Risqué is going to get any better than "Good Times". It's a really fantastic song, featuring a brilliant bassline that was aped by Queen for "Another One Bites The Dust" and sampled (ripped off) by The Sugarhill Gang for "Rapper's Delight". One complaint... the song is 8 minutes long and achieves that length by just repeating the bassline for a few extra minutes then repeating the second verse for some reason. Still a good song, but a breakdown or a solo would have been preferred.
A similar problem plagues the follow-up "A Warm Summer Night" which has a slow repetitive progression and sparse repetitive lyrics. It happens again with "Forbidden Lover." It's a real shame because Chic has a great sound and certainly knows how to write and play a bassline. But it seems when they run out of lyric ideas they just do the analogue version of copy-paste.
"My Feet Keep Dancing" almost continues this pattern, but it does contain a breakdown late in the song that starts out with the band slapping their knees, but eventually builds into a somewhat satisfying instrumental passage. I also like the song because I have a morbid fascination with dance songs that make dancing seem so epic.
Except for "Good Times" Risqué is nothing really special. A good disco album I guess, but what does that say? 2 stars.
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