Customer Reviews

We Are Family

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I owned this title on vinyl format over 20 some years ago and the music I never forgot ! Very much designed in the Chic style by Bernard Edwards and Nile Rogers. Yet, the Sledge Sisters shined on their own on this one. You see, the sisters had been on the music scene since the early 70's but it took timing and the golden ears and touch of the Chic family to catapult these lovely diamonds in the rough to more than just American Bandstand stardom status. The only song I grew tired of hearing was the title track which was beaten, overplayed, re-used, re-hashed, re-mixed to death over the years by everyone and their grandma (and it still gets a lickin' and keeps tickin').The song We Are Family became the abused and adopted poster child or national anthem for so many national organizations (non-musical). Pretty much the song had become like a bad commercial jingle that gets stuck in your head and cannot get rid of it !

Despite the overplayed notoriety of the one track the rest of the album is still something to marvel at. The dream-like sweetness of the ballad Somebody Loves Me is still powerful to this day in my music book. The song contained a subliminal Rose Royce underlining feel in the vein of that group's ballads Love Don't Live Here and Wishing On A Star ! Listen to the catchy riffs and melodic hooks of Lost In Music and Thinking Of You with their Marvin Gaye/Diana Ross inspired early 70's Motown traits ! In my mind this album was more smoldering R&B, sweet soul and sassy funk than the Disco tag that was stuck to it due to the popular music fad/craze of the time ! The creme de la creme dance song was He's The Greatest Dancer (the strongest Chic sounding track on this set) which was one better than A Taste Of Honey's Boogie Oogie Oogie the previous year. The real competition in 1979 for the We Are Family album was Donna Summer's double smash l.p. Bad Girls. This was due to the fact that Donna was a pioneer in making the transition from the fading disco era to pop rock by fusing the two styles together.

You can try to collect all of Sister Sledge's titles before and after this one and I guarantee that you will keep coming back to We Are Family for a memorable and musical reunion of days gone by but not forgotten !

This classic album from the late disco era contains four great hits: the title track, Everybody Dance, He's The Greatest Dancer, Lost In Music and (my personal favorite), Frankie, making it an instant Greatest Hits collection. The other tracks too have stood the test of time very well. The right producers at the right time, Rodgers/Edwards propelled Sister Sledge to the top of the disco and the sales charts in 1979 by their brilliant writing, arranging and producing skills. They created an elegant minimalistic style with tight riffs, clipped phrasing and catchy tunes. The songs were mostly simple but stylish and addictive. The sound of their own band Chic is very similar to We Are Family, so if you like this album, you'll also love The Very Best Of Chic and Norma Jean by Norma Jean Wright. This was a time when dance music was brimming with personality. Bring back the seventies!