Right Said Fred return with what is shaping up to be a release worth celebrating for their own sake and the sake of another icon himself, Fred Astaire. The single “Let’s Face The Music And Dance” brings them back with a vengeance after last year’s release, only this time they are paying their respects to the work of Fred Astaire through the tunes he made famous by singing and dancing to alike. In many cases this would seem like something of a stretch to do, but Right Said Fred came alive in the early 90s to mainly do one thing, and that is get people dancing, even if it’s to some rock ‘n roll which often doesn’t call for it.
The Fairbrass brothers Fred and Richard, are no musical slouches, they’re exactly the opposite as veteran musicians who can sing and play anything they so much as desire, and they brought producers Rainer C. Regatschnig, Justin Fidèle and Wolfgang Lohr along for what is a precision job well-done by them. It stands up next to their best work of the past, which included the song ‘I’m Too Sexy” which also went to number one in 32 countries including the United States where it topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart. This can all be researched for more details, it’s just a good thing to know where they took off and where they’ve landed, so to speak.
“Let’s Face The Music And Dance” is a great place to find the latter, as well as pay a fine tribute to a fine actor/singer/dancer of iconic proportion. They just didn’t produce flaw one on this, so it holds much promise for the album to adorn some well-deserved airplay in today’s very fickle landscape. But, when you have such a well-oiled act as they do, it can only intrigue with every release that way. It shows their momentum from early 2017 when they last surfaced with a new release, to culmination of a high-quality tribute product that defies its own odds. It’s a single from an album which both deserve exposure.
Right Said Fred Still Wants You To Dance
When they’ve come this far it’s a goal already knocked out of the park, and that’s just more to back their current relevance, even with a tribute album. As this is no ordinary way to pay tribute, with so vastly re-arranged tracks, but it steps up the energy which lacks any old productions. They don’t change what should not be changed, but they add a speed to it and it provides plenty of the right polish to an old musical dance movie song that also worked as well performing live as it did in the movie, Follow The Fleet, from which this 1936 track by Irving Berlin, originally comes. And that alone says a lot about the song.
What comes hard to describe, comes easy to listen to, because Right Said Fred make it sound perfectly layered with the right bells and whistles, and that’s something they are always guaranteed to drop on the listening world. It’s a jubilant sounding club track, which conveys to the spirit of radio as well, it’s just a harder thing to do than it was in 1991, yet this era doesn’t come without its quirks and perks either. Consider them lucky, but don’t dismiss their skills, because they’re in-tact all the way from that first time you heard them and took or left them for all they’re worth. With this release, they live up to their name.
– review by Alan Foster
