Track Listing

1. Spacer
2. Mayday
3. Charge Plates & Credit Cards
4. Misery
5. King of the World
6. Cover Girls
7. Your Love Is Good
8. Don't Go

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #724890 in Music
• Released on: 1996-04-11
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Import

Album Details
Anny Chancel (Later Known as Sheila) was Born on August 16, 1946 in Paris, France. She Became a Pop/Rock Star in France in the 1960s, but her Early Songs have Been Denounced as Childish, Vapid, Fluffy Bubblegum Music. Although She Sang with B. Devotion (Three African-american Singers) in Some Earlier Disco Songs in the Late 1970s, her Crowning Achievement is Regarded as her Song "Spacer". This Late-1979 Song, as Well as the Other Seven Songs on her 1980 Album "King of the World", were Produced by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of the Chic Organization. "Spacer" was Popular in Europe (Including in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the Netherlands) and South Africa, Selling Over Five Million Copies Worldwide.

Customer Reviews

Get the French version...
An "ok" album. Still a surprise to me even after all these years how Sheila & the Chic organisation ever got together considering it's such an odd combination. Still, "Spacer" is the main reason to get this. "Don't go" & " Your love is good" are the other very Chic sounding tracks. This album is an interesting option for Chic fans, however, takes a bit of getting used to. "Spacer" was such a bit hit in the UK and I bought the vinyl album back then on the strength of that single and being a huge Chic fan (I still am). The French CD release has extra tracks & uses the original master tapes so sounds better than the re-mastered version (lots of hiss & tracks speeded up etc - the usual suspects on that one). This version is still available from Amazon.Fr. I cringe just a little bit nowadays at the somewhat questionable singing but Nile Rodgers & Bernard Edwards must have realised this as Sheila's voice is kept to the verses only - the rest so obviously being left to the normal Chic singers.

Add this to your Chic collection, with the Diana Ross & Sister Sledge albums and be grateful that you have the full version of "Spacer", but don't expect much else from it.

GJ-Baby
This album is a testament and a good example of the CHIC influence (tubular bells, strings, violins, harps) on music in the post disco era. The title cut "Spacer" and "Don't Go" a song with a phrase that is repeated over and over again is actually not bad to me because I love the CHIC beats/sounds. The rest of the music in this compilation I can do without.

Out at last!!!!
Wow, is this finally out again on CD? Thank god for that, that means no more scouring eBay for over-priced rare original releases. So what's it like, you're asking? Well, don't get your hopes up.

If there are any other CHIC-produced disco anthems as good as "Spacer", chances are you already have them. "Spacer" is in a league of it's own, though, an ultra-smooth disco work-out, made unforgettable by it's being unusually gentler than other disco songs of the period. But what a rhythm...it grabs you right after the twinkling intro finishes and never lets up for it's full 6 minutes. The song had drifted in and out of being "cool" over the decades since it first came out, but now I think it can safely be logged as one of disco's finest. Some people don't like the vocal performance be Sheila herself, in fact I've seen reviews on CHIC-related topics that refer to her rather meanly as the "disco robot". Well, I think she has a lot of charm and don't forget she is singing in a second language. Her pronunciation of "I'm so lucky!" gets me every time - plus she was simply stunning as well, one of France's most beguiling singing stars of the 1970's.

Well, that's enough about "Spacer", what about the rest of it? Well I'm afraid that's the problem because the rest of this CD is bland, bland, bland! There are really only two other good tracks: "Mayday", is the funniest, a chugging dance workout that seems to be about impotence, and is full of the funniest puns I have ever heard in music lyrics "You can't raise your landing gear"...arf arf! It also has a great guitar solo, but what's this..."Mayday" only just scrapes over 3 minutes in length? What a waste. The same problem comes with the other good track, "King of the World". This track makes good use of its racing driver theme, with some very clever rhyming and a good catchy tune, but as the second biggest draw on the album (it was the follow-up single to "Spacer"), it is a let down at just over four minutes.
The rest of the 5 songs are extremely formulaic CHIC disco-by-numbers with really weak tunes and hackneyed lyrics. I like Sheila's voice, but it would take a skilled vocalist indeed to turn the repeating of "Don't go, I love you so.." thirty times over into something exciting.

It's also extremely short, and without bonus tracks you are looking at barely half an hours worth of music. If I had paid big-bucks for this on eBay I would be kicking myself, but at a proper price like this, it's worth buying for the perfection of "Spacer", and the other two good songs. The rest are sadly instantly disposable.