Norman Jay - Mister Good Times (2017)

It's now been 6 years since this, the most recent album from Norman Jay was released. Since he kicked off the "Good Times" series in 2000 he had never had a gap this long between albums until now.

Although not technically part of the "Good Times" series, it has the name in the title and the same idea i.e. a compilation spanning a variety of genres across the years.

I would say this has a slightly more mainstream feel to it that previous effort "Skank & Boogie" but not too much. There's 2 Top 40 hits on there in "I Only Want To Be With You" by Barry White and "Vehicle" by Ides Of March.

We also have lesser known covers of well known records such as Aretha Franklin doing a cover of "I'm Every Woman". The majority of artists featured on the compilation have at least one Top 40 hit to their name but in true Norman Jay style he's gone for the less obvious ones which is what makes his compilations appeal to me.

One thing that also struck me about this compilation is the majority of featured artists never lived to see this compilation released. It's very much a history lesson in music rather than music that was current and in 2017 that's very much a good thing.

Looking at the tracklisting prior to listening there was a tune I didn't have much hope for which was "Right Here" by Shalamar. They're one of those groups who I've always found irritating and this particular tune does nothing to change my opinion there.

Still, you can't expect to like every track on the album. Overall I found this album very enjoyable and shows that a bunch of well known artists have some great tunes outside of the big hits.

 

Norman Jay - Skank & Boogie (2015)

 

The Norman Jay album I picked in my Top 25 albums originally was "Good Times". It was the first of a series of compilations in which the most recent came out in 2011. What I liked about it was the variety of genres it spanned from past to present which made me want to go and see Norman Jay play, which I did.

This was his first compilation release since the "Good Times" series and I've got a feeling I went to see him play around the release of this album, though have no recollection of it being released.

What gave me confidence that I'd enjoy this album is a couple of things. Firstly, if Norman Jay was going to go down the mass appeal route he would have done many years ago given how long he's been around. Secondly was the knowledge that this wouldn't exactly be a modern album as such, it would be a selection of tunes from years gone by when music generally was much better.

It does what it says on the tin really, it's a mixture of ska/reggae and funk/disco music. This is where it differs from "Good Times" which incorporates a greater breadth of genres but that's not to say this album lacks variety.

It begins with the St German version of "The Pink Panther Theme", a bit of familiarity to settle you in even if you're not familiar with that version. Similarly we have "Living For the City" early on but it's the Michael McDonald version rather than the Stevie Wonder one.

Household names such as The Chi-Lites, The Real Thing and Rick James appear on the album but not any of their better known ones. 

To me this is what appeals about these compilations. There's nothing really too obvious on there unlike the majority of compilations out there. I also like the way it showcases the fact there was some decent disco out there and it wasn't all about the cheesy rubbish it's best remembered for.

A positive start then, would be great if I can say the same for the other albums I'm going to listen to.

Last 10 Years

Yesterdays post about Fenech-Soler brought back memories of other music I was listening to when I first discovered them. Basically I didn't think I was old enough to reach the 'better in the old days' stage of my life and made an effort to keep my music tastes current.

One thing I did was pick my 25 favourite albums. It was a very biased list favouring the more recent albums though, 17 of them were from the 21st century and the other 8 were from the 90s. It also included an album which had only just come out at the time.

Nowadays I'm at a point where I'm not even up to date with a lot of artists I've liked in years gone by. Some went to to make some truly dreadful music and others I just forgot about. I do sometimes seek out new music from an artist if I'm going to see them in concert, but many don't really bother making new music anymore and stick to the classics.

It got me thinking, what albums have the 25 artists of those albums I picked released in the last 10 years. Well here's the answer:

2 Many DJs - No albums

Norman Jay - 2 albums: Skank & Boogie (2015), Mister Good Times (2017)

Portishead - No albums

Massive Attack - No albums

High Contrast - 2 albums: Night Gallery (2017), Notes from the Underground (2020)

Plump DJs - No albums

Jacques Lu Cont - No albums

Erol Alkan - 1 album: Fabriclive 77 (2014)

Spiritcatcher - No albums

Various Artists - N/A

DJ Shadow - 2 albums: The Mountain Will Fall (2016), Our Pathetic Age (2019)

Tiga - 1 album: No Fantasy Required  (2016)

Air - No albums

Fatboy Slim - No albums

Sander Kleinenberg - No albums

Snoop Dogg - 6 albums: Bush (2015), Coolaid (2016), Neva Left (2017), Bible of Love (2018), I Wanna Thank Me (2019), From tha Streets 2 tha Suites (2021), BODR (2022)

Jurassic 5 - No albums

Kruder & Dorfmeister - 1 album: Johnson (2022)

Zero 7 - No albums

Mylo - No albums

Digitalism - 2 albums: Mirage (2016), JPEG (2019)

Underworld - 2 albums: Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future (2016), Drift Series 1 (2019)

LCD Soundsystem - 1 album: American Dream (2017)

London Elektricity - 2 albums: Are We There Yet? (2015), Building Better Worlds (2019)

Propellerheads - No albums

Just 11 of the artists have released an album in the last 10 years and only 3 of them have released one in the decade so far. Only Snoop Dogg has been prolific with none of the others managing more than 2 albums in a decade.

This leads to another question, are these albums any good?

Just one way to find out. I'm going to give each of those albums a listen and post what I think of them here.

My 25 Favourite Albums: Joey & Norman Jay - Good Times

In the 90s Norman Jay was one of many House DJs who's name you would hear quite often. I didn't know an awful lot about him at the time other than knowing he was one of the DJs who was there at the beginning of the Rave scene in the 80s.

Then I learnt that him and his brother Joey had a sound system at Notting Hill Carnival called "Good Times" which he'd been doing since the start of the 80s. Obviously House Music didn't exist back then but it's probably fair to say he was playing the sort of music that would influence House Music later on.

In 2000 Joey and Norman Jay released "Good Times", the first of several compilations of the sort of music you would hear from the sound system. It was a variety of styles of music including House, Soul, Funk, Reggae and Hip Hop. When I bought this album you could probably say it covered all the styles of music I was into at the time which is likely the reason it made this list.

The "Good Times" sound system was named after the Chic record of the same name, but it does not feature on this compilation. Instead it opens with "Open Up" by Chic, perhaps not their best known tune but not exactly obscure either, many would at least recognise it if they heard it. That pretty much sets the scene for the rest of the compilation, there's no anthem bashing but there is at least some degree of familiarity in several of the tracks.

The highlight of CD1 comes later on when the excellent "Runaway" by The Salsoul Orchestra appears. Ok I admittedly I only knew the Nuyorican Soul version prior to owning this album but I love that tune and the original isn't that much different. Then comes "Too Blind to See It" by Kym Sims, again an excellent tune.

CD2 begins with the Masters at Work remix of "Thank You" by Bebe Winans which is one of those tunes you can just listen to all day, despite being over 10 minutes long I always feel I could listen to it for longer when it ends. Overall I'd say I prefer CD1 but CD2 does have other great tunes on it such as "Hanging on a String (Contemplating)" by Loose Ends.

Despite the fact I've lived in London some time now, I've never actually been to Notting Hill Carnival. I have however seen Norman Jay DJ elsewhere and he was good.

I think what makes this album worthy of a place in my Top 25 is variety. It came in an era where genres of music were getting more segregated, and if you find yourself only having time to listen to one album do you really want to restrict yourself to one genre?

Another reason is that it works very well as an album, you can listen to all the tracks individually elsewhere or on other albums but the best way to appreciate this album is to listen from beginning to end, or at least one of the CDs all the way through.

Like I've already said this is the first of several "Good Times" compilations and the other ones are also great, but I've picked this one simply because generally speaking the first one you hear is always the best.