The political implications of disco music are explored in a new book. Graeme Whitfield subjects its findings to the glare of the glitter ball. ********* As book titles go, Everybody Dance: Chic and the Politics of Disco takes some beating. Music biographies are, as a rule, fairly uninspiring fare, but the title of Daryl Easlea's book - on a band who could quite easily be said to be the most influential band in pop music since The Beatles - promises a lot more. Known for their song Le Freak - which if you can't dance to, you should check your pulse because you may be clinically dead - Chic were the disco band who outgrew their narrow roots to dominate the music scene of the 80s. The group was based on the creative partnership of Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, who produced and wrote for artists as diverse as Diana Ross, David Bowie and Madonna. And even after Chic stopped recording, their music was passed on to a new generation when they were extensively sampled and effectively gave birth to what we now know as hip hop. That they are not as well known as other - whiter - bands is something of a travesty, reflecting how bands like Chic are somehow judged inferior because their music is, basically, fun. Easlea's biography of the band attempts to redress that situation, and its very presence is, as such, welcome. Unfortunately, that is where the trouble starts, because Everybody Dance does nothing so much as bear out the old saying that writing about pop music is like dancing about architecture. Where listening to Chic is a thrilling and exhilarating experience, reading about them is occasionally dreary. They meet and start writing together, they record lots of great music, they split and start to do other things. In the process they probably changed the face of popular culture, but with no televisions being thrown from hotel windows, it's not much of a yarn. Easlea's attempts to place Chic in a political context - as the title of his book suggests - is equally commendable, but ultimately unsatisfying. Disco has historically suffered from being undervalued. Music that makes you dance and have a good time suffers by comparison with music that makes you stroke your chin and throws in tedious guitar solos. Not only is that judgment wrong - it's pop music, stupid; it's supposed to be fun - it also clocks the cultural significance of a musical movement that offered a powerful new voice to black people, women and the gay community. Unfortunately, Easlea's attempts to capture Chic's cultural significance barely stretch beyond crowbarring news events of the time ("On 4th November 1979, the US Embassy in Tehran was taken over by militant Iranian students ...") into his narrative. If Everybody Dance makes you go back to the records and listen again to Dance Dance Dance (Yowsah Yowsah Yowsah), Le Freak or Good Times, it is no bad thing. It is also hard to hate an author who is donating part of his royalties to funds set up in memory of the late Bernard Edwards and Chic drummer Tony Thompson. But if you want a biography that matches Chic's heavenly tunes, this ain't it. * Everybody Dance: Chic and the Politics of Disco by Daryl Easlea (Helter Skelter Publishing, £14). | 
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