With a tagline that proclaimed it as the Danceable Side Of Todays' Rock (whatever the heck that means), K-Tel's Dancer was state of the chart R&B, disco and funk circa late 1980/early 1981. I'd be surprised if the fourteen songs on Dancer (which I cannot read without singing the Queen song bearing that title in my head) were not all Top 40 hits on the Pop chart and Top 10 on the R&B chart. Heck, they might have even made a strong showing on the Disco chart as well. Let's watch some videos before the K-Tel Scale weighs in.
DANCER [1981]
| K-tel Scale: |
22.11
| |||||
| Billboard Top 40s | |||||||
| Pop | R&B | DISCO | AC | CB | WLS | ||
| Celebration | Kool & the Gang | 1 | 1 | 1 | 34 | 1 | 2 |
| It's A Love Thing | The Whispers | 28 | 2 | 4 | 25 | ||
| All American Girls | Sister Sledge | (79) | 3 | 6 | |||
| Burn Rubber On Me | The GAP Band | (84) | 1 | 19 | (90) | ||
| Too Tight | Con Funk Shun | 40 | 8 | 25 | 37 | ||
| Stomp! | Brothers Johnson | 7 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 20 | |
| I'm Coming Out | Diana Ross | 5 | 6 | 1 | 6 | ||
| Funkytown | Lipps Inc. | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | |
| Don't Stop The Music | Yarbrough & Peoples | 19 | 1 | 26 | 17 | 19 | |
| Ai No Corrida | Quincy Jones | 28 | 10 | 3 | 30 | ||
| Double Dutch Bus | Frankie Smith | 30 | 1 | (51) | 29 | 26 | |
| Fantastic Voyage | Lakeside | (55) | 1 | 12 | (56) | ||
| Take Your Time (Do It Right) | The S.O.S. Band | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 8 | |
| He's So Shy | Pointer Sisters | 3 | 10 | 26 | 13 | 3 | 5 |
Check that out! Three tracks missed the Top 40 completely, cratering any hopes for a high score on the K-Tel Scale. With all but one track crossing over to Disco Top 40 and a who woulda thunk it two tracks crossing over to the AC chart, Dancer did not disappoint on the R&B chart with all fourteen songs making the Top 10 and half of them topping the chart at Number One. If I were to shift the primary focus and scoring from Pop Top 40 to R&B, Dancer would have scored an astonishing 39.04 on the K-Tel Scale.
My research yielded no eight track tapes or Canadian versions of Dancer. There is a cassette version with a straight from vinyl playlist. Blog buddy Adrian Qitana gave Dancer a spin from the "top of the A side to the bottom of the B side" back in January 2014 - listen via the player below:
- Brothers Johnson ~ Stomp! 1980 Disco Purrfection Version
- Diana Ross ~ I'm Coming Out Upside Down 1980 Disco Purrfection Mashup
- Lipps Inc ft Patrick Cowley ~ Funkytown 1979 Disco Purrfection Version
- Yarbrough & Peoples ~ Don't Stop The Music 1980 Disco Purrfection Version
Finally, as I included the radio or single edit version of songs whenever possible on the Dancer playlist, there exists an alternate playlist of full-length album versions that runs twenty-three minutes longer than the Spotify playlist above. Listen to Dancer - The Full-Length Versions:
Next time out, I'll be featuring K-Tel's double-wide Certified Gold album, featuring 24 Superstar Hits Stamped In GOLD! As of yet, I haven't come across an image of my U.S. copy. It seems all of the posted images are either of the Canadian version (with only 20 tracks) or the single disc Volume One or Volume Two.
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