I Don’t Want Art I Wanna Dance!

Charlie Gillett has a great column in the English magazine Let It Rock in which he regularly lists his top ten records of the moment, whether they�re new or old. I�ve always liked the idea of a diary, especially when it�s kept by someone you care about, and Gillett�s form was so handy for keeping track of immediate, passing tastes I decided to steal it one time. What follows, then, is a list of ten records — singles, album tracks and albums — that are taking up nearly all of my /listening time right this moment. Tomorrow it will be different and certainly by the time you read this it will have changed completely, but this is merely documentation, like a series of polaroids, for today, June 24, 1973. The greatest influence on my listening recently has been my getting back into dancing. Much of the music I listen to now, especially instrumentals which I was never into before,-is best appreciated when dancing hard and many things that I would have passed on last year sound very hot to me all of a sudden. Like I would always skip the. longest cut on an album, figuring it was bound to be the most wastefully excessive. Now I check out the longest cut first,, cause it�s usually the major dance production number — it may still be excessive but when it�s hot it�s hot and it�s nice to keep going long as you can. All this tends to be appallingly uncritical or at least unintellectual but if I�m dancing I don�t care. This hasn�t become the only criterion but it�s become pretty high on the list so its influence should be kept in mind when looking over the list below. For anyone really interested in the music being played at discotheques, Glenn O�Brien keeps very upto-the-minute in his �disco pix� listing in Inter/view monthly.

�Angel.� Aretha Franklin. (Atlantic) Aretha�s album with Quincy Jones is so uneven I find it difficult to listen through one whole side but then all her recent work takes some growing into and I�ve had Hey Now Hey less than a week now. Too many of Jones� elaborate backings seem to drag Aretha down, like a strong undertow, but Franklin is an accomplished swimmer* as she proves with a fine version of Bobby Womack�s �That�s the Way I Feel About Cha,� the West Side Story �Somewhere� which almost sounds like an outtake from her gospel album, and �Angel,� the single release. (Oddly, �Master of Eyes,� the last single and the first Franklin/Jones co-prodiiction break, is not included on the lp.) �Angel� begins with Aretha talking the sort of introduction I find irresistible: �I got a call the other day. It was my sister Carolyn...� Carolyn�s message is the song, �Too long have I loved so unattatched within/So much that I know that I need somebody so,� which Aretha sings with such aching hope and desperation you have to scream along. �Gotta find me an angel in my life� — who doesn�t? It�s Aretha�s most emotionally tearing work in some time (outside the high emotion of Amazing Grace) and the song of the moment for me.