I had never heard of the British band Re-Flex before this song and I never heard from them again. But this one song by them, "The Politics of Dancing", has gone down as one of my favourite dance-pop tunes of any decade. I mean, this one could actually induce me to hit the dance floor and make an unrepentant fool out of myself once I heard those familiar opening notes.
Released in February 1983, I first discovered Re-Flex's debut single when their music video appeared on one of the local shows here, and its theme of the little guy going up against the evil authorities is a well-worn one but one that fits the lyrics here. And why not let it all go and just have a grand ol' time flailing away in the disco once in a while? That's especially true with the extended version.
Burbling bass synthesizer, simmering jangly electric guitar and relentless percussion...what's not to love? In Canada, "The Politics of Dancing" reached No. 13 on RPM and then No. 24 on Billboard in the US. I had actually been thinking of posting this as a second ROY article last week on New Year's Day to signify all of that dancing that must have been done the night before, but I figure that today is as good a day as any.
So, which singles were coming out in Japan in that month? Here are three of them.
Hiromi Iwasaki -- Suteki na Kimochi （素敵な気持ち）
Takashi Hosokawa -- Yagiri no Watashi (矢切の渡し)
Akina Nakamori -- Ni-bun no Ichi no Shinwa （1/2の神話）
Early Akina used a slight deeper voice and wasn't skin and bone like later Akina. All of her songs are great, but there is some interesting quality her earlier songs that is nice as maybe she did not know which direction or genre she wanted to stick with most, yet.
ReplyDeleteI think that at the time, Akina and the people around her were still experimenting with a certain image and type of music based on what she was potentially capable of. She had both those higher (pop ballads) and deeper voices (rock-oriented tunes). The powers-that-be had tried to create that image of her being the misunderstood high school punk which Akina tried to shed as soon as she gained more control of her career.
Delete"high school punk" ? Okay, that might explain why Akina sometimes came off as femme fragile and other times she seemed to be some kind of femme fatale.
DeleteI remember the early images of her in the high school uniform with the huge hair. Then as we all approached the mid-1980s, that disappeared fairly quickly.
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