Adult Contemporary by Chromeo
As Kylie Minogue has again proven with 2023’s Tension, dancefloor denizens can grow up without losing their groove. The two gentlemen of Chromeo, who did an especially chill remix of Minogue’s title track, show that they, too, can act closer to their age on their sixth album, Adult Contemporary.
The increased maturity of Montreal bons vivants Dave 1 (a.k.a. Dave Macklovitch) and P-Thugg (Patrick Gemayel) isn’t as immediately evident as the duo’s familiar fondness for treating the elements of funk, disco, and classically plastic 1970s and 1980s pop as if they’re old-school Legos in a jumbled toybox.
The way Chromeo plays with those elements, maybe they are: “Got It Good” flaunts a nerdy strut with a little help from keyboard figures that could have been drawn from a Doobie Brothers hit during the Michael McDonald era, while “Words with You” steers toward Toto circa “Rosanna,” and then, thankfully, steers closer to Daryl Hall & John Oates.
Dave 1 remains a singer who aspires to Hall’s soulfulness and Prince’s sexual potency, and his non-technical charms and phrasing get him closer to his aspirations than his relatively thin and narrow vocal range would or should normally allow.
The phrasing also reveals the “adult” side of Adult Contemporary. Inside the frenetic Stock Aitken Waterman-style production of “(I Don’t Need a) New Girl,” Chromeo admits to the seduction of monogamy; the hump-and-bump Chic beat of “BTS” serves a lyric about how workday fatigue blunts desire; and pop songstress La Roux’s richly felt contribution to “Replacements” highlights the persistence of heartache.
Adult Contemporary almost closes with “Friendsnlovers,” a deceptively airy confection about how lovers can’t be friends, or vice versa, and then truly closes with “Two of Us (Friendsnlovers Pt. 2),” in which P-Thugg’s talkbox refrain somehow deepens the sorrowful reality of Pt. 1. The groove isn’t lost, but some of the illusions are.
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Get Adult Contemporary at Amazon here.
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