(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please CLICK HERE)
The Sylvers - "Boogie Fever"
Hit Number 1: May 15, 1976
Stay at Number 1: 1 Week
Earlier on in the '70s, we were introduced to the Jackson 5. Obviously, the Jackson 5 would become one of the best musical acts of all time, fronted by none other than Michael Jackson, who really needs no explanation. But whenever you have groups like the Jackson 5, you're gonna have people that try to be just like them. Copycats, I suppose you could call them. For me, the Sylvers were total copycats of the Jackson 5. Jermaine Jackson would always sing the "lower" parts, with Michael singing the high parts, just like you'd have any kid do. Michael stole the show and he became the star, but either way you'd have this sort of trade off with a 10-year-old kid and an older teenager, taking turns singing in songs. The Sylvers were something of the opposite, as the main singer was Edmund Sylvers, who in this case was the teenager, and in "Boogie Fever," you can hear a very young Foster Sylvers, who sounds just like Michael Jackson. They might not have intended to sound just like the Jackson 5, but that's what they ended up sounded like. It doesn't help that Edmund and Jermaine sound a lot alike too.
I'll admit, this is a pretty stupid thing to complain about. After all, the Sylvers still had to go through the grind of forming a band, everyone being satisfied with their roles, getting discovered, signing a record deal etc. Before "Boogie Fever," the Sylvers hadn't been signed to a deal for very long, just inking a deal with Capitol Records in 1975. Capitol Records' vice president, Larkin Arnold, was able to hire away a Motown staple named Freddie Perren, to produce the group. "Boogie Fever" was written by Perren and Kenneth St. Lewis, a long-time partner with Arnold in writing/producing songs for other artists. It was St. Lewis' idea that he and Perren write a song for the Sylvers that involved the word "boogie," a word that I think no one since about 1980 has regularly used, yet we all know what it means. The word "boogie" would be everywhere in the later half of the '70s, and of course, it was just a slang word for dancing. But no one, at least for the most part, used the word "dance" or "dancing," in their songs. It was all about "boogieing" of course.
So with that, we are presented with "Boogie Fever," which proves to be a very ridiculous song. First the narrator takes his girlfriend to a drive-in movie, where she turns the speaker down before turning the radio on in order to hear disco music instead. If somebody actually did that, it would be a massive "WTF" moment, but in this song, the narrator goes ahead with it, and listens to the music while watching the movie with no sound. (It's funny to imagine watching a horror movie while hearing something like "That's the Way (I Like It" playing) Then the two go to a pizza parlor, and this girl can't even eat her freaking pizza without dancing to disco music, as the narrator puts money in a jukebox in order for her to listen to the songs. Then of course, the narrator inevitably gets the same problem, as he can't resist the urge to start dancing to disco music. He calls a doctor to see what's wrong, and the doctor tells him he's got "boogie fever," and he just needs to "boogie down." After all, I think it's going around.
Obviously there's no such thing as boogie fever, but it might as well have been a thing. Disco was reaching crazy levels of popularity, and everyone wanted to go out and dance to this music. I can't blame them, some of these songs are still bangers today, and they are hard to resist the urge to dance to. "Boogie Fever" is just like a lot of these other disco hits: dumb as all living hell lyrics, but sick grooves and a chorus that is slam dunk sing-along material. I can make fun of the content all day, as well as the fact that I still think these guys/gals are Jackson 5 rip-offs, but "Boogie Fever" still has some pretty awesome stuff going on. The guitar intro was based off of the Beatles' "Day Tripper" and all nine of the Sylvers jump in together to bring us that chorus. Their harmonizing is actually pretty good too. The song truly is a big gleaming pile of joy and energy, just like a lot of other disco songs. So unfortunately, it doesn't stand out among its disco comrades, but you know what, I can dig "Boogie Fever." It's a fun song. That's all there is to it.
As for the Sylvers, they couldn't ride that Jackson 5 formula forever, and their popularity dwindled pretty quickly after "Boogie Fever." Before they totally vanished, however, they were able to get as high as #5 on the Hot 100 with "Hot Line." (I might actually like that one more than "Boogie Fever." It's an 8) Chart presence can't last forever though, and though the Sylvers went fast, they'll always have "Boogie Fever." They'll always have a song that was the most popular song in the nation for a time. It was going around.
GRADE: 7/10
IN POP CULTURE:
"Boogie Fever" appears very briefly in the movie Despicable Me when Gru orders a dozen "cookie robots" and gets "boogie robots" instead. They dance to "Boogie Fever." Here's that scene:
Comments