It has been a week when all that is new to my ears has been of the folk persuasion and pretty serious folk at that so my appetite for something different, and quite possibly simply entertaining, was likely to be whetted by the rather fluffier “Dirty Disco” by Nikka Costa.
Solid funk style beats underpin all that on this album with the ghost of Paisley Park making a guest appearance on many of the songs. So, I hear you say, if this isn’t hardcore funk then what is Nikka Costa up to? She isn’t out to change the world or make me question my fashion choices. That’s for sure. She is, however, all about glitter and strobe lights and, with her polished and confident line in lead vocals, she moves about the uptown dancefloor like a woman who knows that having original Sly Stone pressings in her record collection is going to be make her the new darling of the post-midnight crowd.
“Dirty Disco” is a fun album that might actually make you want to dance. The cynical amongst you might well describe these ten songs as derivative, and perhaps they are, yet there is also no doubt that Nikka Costa has the love for this sort of thing and that is always obvious and, indeed, positively endearing. So, when all is said and sparkly, this album works for me even when I don’t have my dancing shoes on.