Released: April 1977
I repeat… this album is sooooooo stooooooopid.
“Uptown Festival” is not original or even a song of its own. Instead it is an eight-minute medley of discofied Motown classics. What’s most annoying about this is that despite it being an awful idea, the thing is still catchy because they are covering some of the best songs in American history.
Think of how hard it is to make “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)” or “Baby Love” sound terrible? It’s really really hard, yet Shamalar almost did the impossible. And this nonsense goes on for nearly nine minutes.
It gets a 4/10 just on strength of the songs they’re bastardizing.
The album only gets worse from here.
“Inky Dinky Wang Dang Doo” is more stoooooooopidity. 3/10
“Beautiful Night” is a boring instrumental. 2/10
“High On Life” is the first real song. I was startled when it came on because the production quality took a dramatic leap upwards, which means it scores a 5/10. That counts as momentous success here.
“Ooh Baby, Baby”. Look man, you ain’t no Smokey Robinson. 3/10
“You Know” serviceable, underwhelming R&B. 4/10
“Forever Came Today”. The Jackson 5 did it much better. 3/10
“Simon’s Theme”. Yawn. 1/10
ALBUM SCORE: F
Every last one of us can skip this album without any regrets. I’m a hardcore 70s disco/soul fan and even EYE don’t really pine for any songs here.
The only good news is that the public was dumb enough to buy the “Uptown Festival” single (#10 R&B, #25 pop) thus giving the record label an excuse to put another, much better Shalamar album the next year instead of abandoning the group altogether.