Independent music’s narrative generally skews toward venerating renegade visionaries interested in expanding listeners’ sonic tastes. True as that may be, plenty of musicians have flown under major labels’ radar with inspirations and aspirations commercial as anything in heavy rotation on corporate radio. Those singers’ and players’ hopes may even be set on charting in that haven in middle-of-the-road adult contemporary stations.
W2NG 89.9 FM. the second of Chicago archival label Numero Group’s compilations spanning 1970s-’80s mostly indie easy-listening, covers a realm of sound heretofore little anthologized. Recordings draw from ABBA’s piquantly fetching romanticism, Steely Dan’s accessible melodic angularity, Michael McDonald’s burnished soul baritone, America’s smooth pop folk and Donna Summer’s feigned orgasm, among other manifestations of mellowness some would argue as to why punk had to happen. One contribution comes from Milwaukee’s late erstwhile psychedelic folk singer-songwriter, Jim Spencer (himself the subject of a forthcoming Numero retrospective). Spencer’s collaboration with local funkateers Son Rize finds him in a groove that imagines Pablo Cruise inventing Hi-NRG club music. W2NG parallels and exploits current indie rock’s reconciliation with styles once shunned by hipsters for a highly listenable collection. Easy listening of yore may be topped with a layer of cheese, but it need not be the taste of guilty pleasure.
