I used to buy CDs at large record stores, especially in Shibuya, with touching real ones in my hands. Sometimes I got them impulsively by faint knowledges of the stuffs, sort of ' I once heard its name' for example, and designs of the sleeves in front of my eyes. Now I occasionally stop by at local shops and find there only hit discs, and some of these shops price up import ones as expensive as domestic ones or more than them. In Japan the Diet approved an act this year (2004) that controls 'import rights', which restricts the influx of cheaper import discs of domestic artists for the primary purposes and can also restrict ones of foreign artists according to the interpretation, and such shops may be under the influence of it (I mention it no more here). I come to use internet CD shopping frequently and to search CDs by myself from the enormous catalogue. And then I am often urged to buy them by having some interests in them, though they are not what I want to get at first.
I got "Say It Loud ! " by internet shopping, a six CD set of looking back the way in which American black community had been in the 20th century with music and gorgeous liner notes, and in this set I was excited about Barry White's You're the First, the Last, My Everything during songs I had not known yet. Listening to the song starting with low voice rapping through the extravagant orchestra and the disco rhythm and spreading crooning as wide as the high-flown sound world, I kept it in my mind, while I was caught in the presence which lead to the thought that " Van McCoy's The Hustle is awkward". And then I found the name Barry White again on a 7 CD set "Have a Nice Decade", looking back America's '70s pop culture. The slow rhythm of 16 beats I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More, Baby made me feel fine and I was accustomed to this kind of feeling because it is often used by hip-hoppers of on and after '90s. Meanwhile, I knew Love's Theme of The Love Unlimited Orchestra, produced by Barry White, as a background music of the Haneda and Narita Airport's traffic information program on some radio station, and I wondered this tune wasn't performed by three women though the photograph of them was printed on the liner notes.
I have got Barry White's 2 CD best "The Ultimate Collection" in my hands, though it's not because I search a key answering the question above. Barry's lyrics often show the world sort of whispering to women at the pillow of the bed, which is interesting to me by making shabby men hold such fantasies that they can work well with women when they croon in this way. The tunes until 1974, before The Hustle, have danceable and comfortable grooves derived from his own uniqueness. I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More, Baby is cool for its long rapping and sexy but stoical arragement, which makes me remember the hits of Akira Terao (Japan's great actor and crooner of the '80s). Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe and You're the First, the Last, My Everything are fun in their luxurious arrangements, and The Love Unlimited Orchestra's Baby Blues and Midnight and You are wonderful in their good mood, and the heavy funk-rock groove of Satin Soul is also good. The tunes of on and after 1975's The Hustle, but on the other hand, are likely to lose thier own characters on uniform disco grooves you can hear at any place, and after the latter half of '80s, his songs are sort of his sexy low voice putting on then prevailing arrangements. Many artists' individualities were lost in the disco magic of bringing anything to be familiar grooves, though their own creativities had their limits, and Barry White might be the one of them. But he can be appreciated since he used his low voice well on the complicated arrangements of after '70s.
By the way, the three women were chorus singers of Barry White songs and originally they formed a girl group Love Unlimited and released songs in the Barry White production. In "The Best of Love Unlimited", you can hear their voices as pretty as their appearances. The fact that many of backing musicians of Barry White songs, especially who came from Love Unlimited Orchestra, show their skills on after '80s black contemporariy music makes me surprised, though it's not so much in my taste. Barry White, who had already been in music business since his teens and had been a competent A&R man concerning hit-making and sales-enhancing, not only let almost amateur girls be his chorus group, but led skillful men who are known to many like Ray Parker Jr. and Lee Ritenour and Kenny G. a.k.a. Kenny Gorelick as members of his orchestra. This makes me think he is one of the starting points of the currents which always pursue comfortable music as silk. (2004/09/24)(2006/01/15)