Producer and songwriter
Clarence Reid was one of the architects of the Miami disco sound, having worked with
Betty Wright (he co-wrote her massive hit "Clean Up Woman") and
Gwen McCrae, and having given Harry Wayne Casey his big break with TK Records. So when
Blowfly,
Reid's freaky-minded alter ego introduced several years before on a handful of twisted "party records," decided to cut a disco album, at the very least funk's leading dirty old man knew how to come correct with a Liberty City groove. While most of
Blowfly's early albums sounded like they were cut fast and loose at a wild party,
Disco is a polished-sounding affair, complete with string charts, horns, and backing choruses, and the results sound more like a "real" album than anything
Reid had released under the
Blowfly moniker up to that time. Of course, the material is as rude as ever, with
Blowfly singing the praises of sodomy, complaining about bad sex, and demanding that everybody get buck wild on rewritten covers of hot disco tunes of the day, but the slick surfaces don't quite seem to match the message -- instead of sounding like a funky party gone out of bounds,
Disco seems just a bit too clean and neat for the hardcore sleaze lyrics captured on the set. Of course, that's a bit how disco in general sounded compared to the great gutbucket R&B of the '60s and '70s; those who dig raw old-school grooves will prefer
Blowfly's earlier work, but those fascinated with the grimy underbelly of disco culture will get all the sleazy kicks they want on this set. ~ Mark Deming