Chuck’s Record Collection:
K-Tel’s “Get Dancin’ “

​To listen to “dance music” in the fall of 1982 was to be in a strange place.

​It was a place of musical segregation.

Disco was dead – or so went the prevailing wisdom.

Rap and hip-hop were bubbling up, but only occasionally on the Hot 100. 

Top R&B/pop superstars (Stevie Wonder, Donna Summer, Rick James, Aretha Franklin) saw releases underperforming. 

Air Supply and other balladeers reigned, with frequent country crossovers from acts such as Alabama, Ronnie Milsap, Kenny Rogers, and Juice Newton.

​Within weeks, that would change.

Prince’s blockbuster “1999” would be released, with Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” coming a month later. 

Both albums, and the artists, would push MTV, the Hot 100 and pop music overall in a much more rhythmic – and integrated – direction for the rest of the decade.

K-tel’s 1982 compilation “Get Dancin’,“ subtitled “Hot Hits to Get You Movin’,” highlights that singularly interesting time:

Post-disco, pre-“1999” and “Thriller.” 

And it does so quite well.

​By this time, K-tel was past its U.S. peak.

MTV satisfied one-stop consumption of current hits. 

And although stratified racially and musically, FM radio and record stores catered to their audiences. 

And for anyone who wanted more, there was always Columbia House’s “dozen hits for 1 penny” pitch. (I got a good number of albums that way.)

So, the 1980s K-tel releases needed more sophistication than the omnibus approaches of Sounds Spectacular or Hit Machine. 

“Get Dancin’” works as a primer to post-disco R&B, with peppy new-wave influences thrown in. This is clear as early as the second track of side one, Jermaine Jackson’s “Let Me Tickle Your Fancy.” 

Anyone who thinks brother Michael pioneered R&B/rock hybrids through his work with Eddie Van Halen on “Beat It” ought to be reminded that Jermaine collaborated with Devo, of all artists, on “Let Me Tickle Your Fancy,” a top 20 hit a half-year earlier.

Similarly, it’s easy to forget that the Pointer Sisters’ “I’m So Excited,” a Top 10 pop hit upon re-release in 1984, was originally a Top 30 hit in 1982.

Its bouncy, keyboard-heavy melody straddled dance, R&B and adult contemporary.

To me, side one is flawless:

Beginning with Kool & the Gang’s “Let’s Go Dancin’,” a Top 40 track that mines the reggae-lite dance lilt to greater effect than Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long” would a year later. (Neither holds a candle to Stevie Wonder’s “Master Blaster,” though.)

From there, we hear some of the best R&B and dance pop of the day: Jackson’s hit; Patrice Rushen’s stellar “Forget Me Nots”; Luther Vandross’ “Never Too Much”; Aretha Franklin’s “Jump to It”; and then-newcomer Laura Branigan’s “Gloria.” (I bet the use of the year-old Vandross hit was intended to pair with the then-hot Franklin song, co-written and produced by Vandross.)

One of the album’s pluses is that by this time, K-tel had stopped editing and compressing their tracks to offer 8 or 10 hits per side. I’d rather have six tracks like these than harder-to-enjoy snippets.

Side two may be more adventurous, but it’s also more bewildering.

The leadoff track, Toni Basil’s “Mickey,” is the biggest Hot 100 hit on the album (with “Gloria” not far behind). At the time of this release, “Mickey” was just catching fire – and it’s not at all the slinky R&B of Rushen, Vandross or Franklin. Still, it has its charms and certainly meets the criterion of being a “hot hit to get you movin.”

​Q-Feel’s “Dancing in Heaven (Orbital Be-Bop)” is more curious. It did not hit the Hot 100 in 1982, bubbling under in its initial run and making it only via a re-release later in the decade.

I guess the producers wanted a nod to the British new-wave pop making noise on MTV and “American Top 40.” Maybe they simply couldn’t afford a bigger hit, like the Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me,” A Flock of Seagulls’ “I Ran,” or ABC’s “The Look of Love.” Still, I would have gone with any of these songs before the more anonymous Q-Feel track.

The next track, Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message,” completely stands out. In some ways, that’s good: It would have been a big oversight not to have included at least one rap track.

And “The Message” was as big a Hot 100 hit as rap songs got in 1982, hitting No. 62. 

Although “The Message” doesn’t sample Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love” – a different Grandmaster Flash track, “It’s Nasty,” does that – its intro bears enough resemblance to help the song fit on a dance album.

At the same time, it’s disconcerting to hear an anti-gay slur- not once, but twice, on a K-tel record, even as the same track beeps out part of the word “pissing.” 

Following “The Message” is “I Really Don’t Need No Light,” a track from former LTD lead singer Jeffrey Osborne. It’s a bit too midtempo; K-tel could have gone with either The Dazz Band’s “Let It Whip” or the Gap Band’s “Early in the Morning” or “You Dropped a Bomb on Me” (all of which were hits in this time frame) and kept the energy up.

Evelyn King’s “Love Come Down” is a fitting closer.

Not only is it a great track on its own, but King is one of the few artists on this album to have success in the days of disco. That makes “Love Come Down” a fitting wrap to a collection bridging disco and the R&B/power-pop of the next few years.

Top-shelf:  All of side one:

• “Let’s Go Dancin’,”
• “Let Me Tickle Your Fancy,”
• “Forget Me Nots,”
• “Never Too Much,”
• “Jump to It,”
• and “Gloria.”
• On side two, “Mickey,”
• “I’m So Excited,”
• and “Love Come Down.”

Yuck: 

• “Dancing in Heaven (Orbital Be-Bop),”
• “I Really Don’t Need No Light.”

Question marks: ?

• If K-tel had applied the same beeps to “f*g” that it did to “*issin,” I’d be OK with the inclusion of “The Message.”

As it stands: I’m not a fan.

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