(Atlantic)

Amid disco, a musical style noted for its faceless, assembly-line production ethos, Chic was a real band. Nile Rogers' rhythm guitar work was a slinky marvel; Bernard Edwards' bedrock bass and Tony Thompson's hard-charging drums provided a rhythmic backdrop with more tensile strength than most disco. C'est Chic includes a couple of bona fide disco hits — "Le Freak" and "I Want Your Love," two of the best songs the genre had to offer — but much of the rest is smoother R&B, and some of it is even kind of funky. In a musical style known for its vapidity, Chic approached something akin to substance — and the music sure was fun.

This article appears in May 23-29, 2007.

Eric Snider is the dean of Bay area music critics. He started in the early 1980s as one of the founding members of Music magazine, a free bi-monthly. He was the pop music critic for the then-St. Petersburg...