Musical Monday - Take Your Time (Do It Right) by the S.O.S. Band

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: The week of August 23, 1980.
#1 on the U.K. Chart: Never.

It is an oft repeated mantra that disco died in the late 1970s. I've repeated it here a couple of times. The trouble is that this is not entirely accurate. Disco didn't so much die as it evolved enough that people could still enjoy the music without the negative association with the disco era. Take Your Time (Do It Right) by the S.O.S. Band is part of that evolution. Some of it sounds like a track that could have been released in 1977, but it is not quite a disco song. The fingerprints are there - you can hear the influence of disco-era hits like Le Freak by Chic and Car Wash by Rose Royce. Going the other direction, one can hear elements from this song that inspired later 1980s dance hits such as Shannon's Let the Music Play and even Madonna's Get Into the Groove.

One moderately interesting thing about this song is its length - at nearly seven and a half minutes, it is clear that this track was intended for use in dance clubs and not for airplay. There was a shorter version that was released as a single that is only about three and a half minutes long and was intended to be used on the radio, but it seems to have all but vanished without a trace.

Previous Musical Monday: The Winner Takes It All by ABBA

Subsequent Musical Monday: Ashes to Ashes by David Bowie

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Magic by Olivia Newton-John

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Sailing by Christopher Cross

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

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