ryan burns wrote: > i was reading through the Smallfish web site and they had a quick interwiew > with dan bell, he gave a top 10 and the first track was Lil Louis " Journey > with the Lonely'...can anyone tell me more info on this...i cant find any > info on it...
In a nutshell: one of the best dance music albums ever released. In a bigger nutshell: released in 1992 on FFRR, this album was way ahead of its time. When most dance music 'albums' that were released around that time were simply a collection of tracks (sometimes a very good collection, but just a collection nonetheless), Lil Louis released an *ALBUM*. It's hard to call it a house album as there's so much variety on the album, yet it all makes perfect sense when you listen to it. There's the irresistable groove of the opening track 'Club Lonely' with the hilarious sketch at the start: "...Miss Thing...there is no guestlist toniiiiiiiiiight!". Next is 'New Dance Beat' with the eerily prophetic pessimistic vocals "...record company recession, dancefloor boredom, and copymachines spit out song after song..." only to bounce back with a positive note on '(Music) Saved my life', followed by 'Aaahhhhh!', a deep, dark grooving track with a similar sexual tension that made 'French Kiss' so great. The album then transforms itself gradually with tracks like 'Do U luv me' and 'You're my reason', eventually going straight into jazz/soul/r&b territory with 'Dancing in my sleep', 'Funny how u luv' and two beautiful ballads (!) 'Thief' and 'Share' that make you wonder where today's r&b ballads took a wrong turn... And then you get to the last track. 'Jazzmen'. Talk about a glorious finish to an album! Think 'Jaguar' and you've got the idea... In seven minutes, Lil Louis manages to set a standard for house music that Masters at Work and Joe Claussell are still trying to match. And those of you that know how much I love my NY house know I don't say this lightly. It's a shame that this album didn't get the recognition it so rightly deserved when it was released, probably because the second half of the album had a lot of people scratching their heads in surprise. I think it's a brilliant album though (as if you hadn't guessed already), not just because of the variety of styles, but especially because -even with all the different styles- it still works as a coherent album. The fact that 8 years later none of the tracks have lost any of their groove and feeling is testimony to that. File under 'timeless classic'. Otto
