When I rolled my next random album, I landed on a greatest hits record by this next artist. I quickly realized, “I don’t need a greatest hits by this guy”, removed it from the collection (because if I don’t review it, it means it must immediately go) and moved to the next album which was…this one.
Disc 1863 is…Street Songs
Artist: Rick James
Year of Release: 1981
What’s up with the Cover? Rick James looks resplendent in his thigh-high faux leather boots. Rick looks like he is going to proposition passers-by, and I see him sauntering over, lascivious hip-sway impacted in all the right ways by those two-inch heels and whispering his sultry offer.
“Hey there. Like my guitar? Well I know how to use it, and for twenty bucks and I will funk your world.”
I paid that twenty bucks at my local record store and reader, let me tell you, I got funked.
How I Came To Know It: Sheila and I recently watched a documentary on Rick James’ life and it reminded me that he is a lot more than just “Super Freak.” This sent me on an exploration of his discography, and I found five I liked. This is one of them.
How It Stacks Up: I have four Rick James albums. I know I just mentioned liking five, but 1979’s “Fire It Up” is one of the hardest albums to find on CD, and I continue to come up empty.” Of the four I do have, “Street Songs” comes in at a very respectable #2.
Ratings: 3 stars
Rick James is a sexy creep, and on “Street Songs” he embraces that persona in a way warrants a healthy disapproval, mitigated (musically only) by how goddamned groovy these tunes are. This tension between funky good time music and lyrics that often cross the line makes listening to this record…complicated.
I’m not going to delve into James’ biographical background here but holy it is tempting. James practically begs us to get into it by his unapologetic recounting of his own excesses.
The record begins with “Give It To Me Baby” a song that is all entendre, hold the double. When Rick wants to tell you what he’s getting up to, he’s gonna tell you. Sometimes I wanted to say aloud, “Rick, don’t go there” but Rick was always going to go there, and no one would hear me over the horns anyway.
“Give It To Me Baby” starts off with one of the greatest bass lines in musical history (the record features two of them), before Rick James sets the scene. He’s home, he’s drunk and he’s horny. But let’s have Rick tell us in his own entirely unfiltered words:
“When I came home last night
You wouldn't make love to me
You went fast asleep
You wouldn't even talk to me
You say I'm so crazy
Coming home intoxicated
I said I just wanna love you”
Yes, Rick, you are crazy. Go to sleep. This song is such a creep-fest it should make your skin crawl, but the tune is so good, and those horns so well deployed that you almost forget that this is the narrative of a drunk asshole.
The album’s other famous track, “Super Freak” is the thing we remember Rick James for. Like Warren Zevon with “Werewolves of London”, James’ ghost can take solace that even if most people will only ever know “Super Freak” and nothing else, at least it is a great song. MC Hammer almost wrecked it with an aggressive sample, but nothing can hold back “Super Freak”
"Ghetto Life” (released as a single to only minor fanfare) has an infectious old school Motown sway, updated with Rick’s own particular rhythm. It is also one of the few songs I though might be about something other than sex, starting with James setting the scene of climbing out of the ghetto. But then before you know it, there’s a girl with pigtails and well it goes downhill from there… Rick, must you filthify everything? He must…
Where this record fails is when Rick James tries to get his sensitive groove going. Slow jams like “Make Love to Me” and “Fire and Desire” are sung with every ounce of earnest that James can muster. Despite his best efforts, sitting alongside the freaky stuff they just don’t feel believable. Also, they meander around, mistaking overwrought for romantic. Rick just makes better music when he’s amped up and feeling funky.
Overall, this record has faults, but they’re not fatal, and I declare it a keeper.
Best tracks: Give It To Me Baby, Ghetto Life, Super Freak, Below the Funk (Pass the J)
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