Chic - Good Times

A brilliant end-of-the-disco-era record, and the most influential record that Nile, Bernard and Tony ever recorded. The instrumentation directly spawned "Rapper's Delight" (and, arguably, all of rap music), and made Chic impersonations the soul music trend-of-choice for the first few years of the '80s.

LP version (runs between 8:06 and 8:13)

The first appearance on CD of the LP version is on Atlantic's Dance Dance Dance (1991), where it runs 8:13. Unfortunately, the sound here is pretty bad. There's a significant tape azimuth alignment problem between the left and right channels, which screws up the soundstage pretty badly and makes it sounds warbly when summed to mono. It looks like the left channel is delayed by about five samples, compared to the left channel. I guess one could adjust the left/right channels to fix the five-sample delay, but it doesn't sound like these are very good source tapes to begin with. There are three digital clones on the promo CD Atlantic And Atco Sampler 2 (1991), Rhino's Everybody Dance (1995) and Flashback's cheapie Dance Dance Dance And Other Hits (1997). Avoid all of these.

Much, MUCH better is Rhino's Street Jams Back 2 The Old Skool Part 3 (1996), which runs 8:06. The difference in timing is from a slightly shorter tail on the fade, but really not much is happening in the song at this point. The sound on Street Jams is great, with none of the left/right problems of the earlier discs. There's a tiny amount of clipping, but it still sounds great.

45 edit (runs 3:43)

The first appearance of the 45 edit was Atlantic's Golden Age Of Black Music 1977-1988 (1988). Sound is pretty nice, with a reasonable EQ, plenty of dynamic range, and no evidence of noise reduction on the fade.

There was a different analog transfer used for Silver Eagle/Warner Special Products' 2-CD Dancin' The Night Away (1988). The EQ is a little bass-heavy, but otherwise it has plenty of dynamic range and no NR. There are plenty of discs that use the same analog transfer as Dancin', most of which have very different EQs than Dancin':

• Time-Life's Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 9 1979 (1990; differently EQ'd digital clone)
• Warner Special Products' 2-CD Good Times (1991; differently EQ'd digital clone)
• Warner Special Products' 2-CD 40 Summer Fun Hits (1993)
• JCI's Only Dance 1975-1979 (1995)
• Warner Special Products' Eighteen Disco Superhits (1996)
• PolyGram's Pure Funk Vol. 1 (1996; differently EQ'd digital clone of Only Dance 1975-1979)
• Time-Life's Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 48 '70s Dance Party 1979 (1990; digitally identical to the other Sounds Of The Seventies disc)

Bill Inglot did a new analog transfer for Rhino's Disco Years Vol. 4 (1992). Fabulous sound, but with the usual Rhino high-end EQ boost. The same analog transfer is used for:

• Rhino's cheapie Disco Hits Vol. 3 (1992; digitally exactly 0.239 dB quieter)
• Warner Special Products' 2-CD Disco Collection (1993)
• Time-Life's AM Gold Vol. 26 1979 (1997; digitally identical)
• Time-Life's Solid Gold Soul Vol. 15 1979 (1997; differently EQ'd digital clone)
• Time-Life's Body And Soul Ladies Got Soul (2002; differently EQ'd digital clone)
• TM Century's GoldDisc 7504 (sounds like it has added compression/limiting or noise reduction?)

Ace UK's 2-CD Sampled Vol. 1 (2000) clips severely and fades a few seconds early. Avoid.

If, for some reason, you want to duplicate the 45 edit, here are the edit points using Street Jams Back 2 The Old Skool Part 3 as the source:

Segment 1
351 beats long (start counting on the downbeat following the whoosh intro), begins on downbeat, ends on snare
Extends from 0:00.0 to 3:12.1 of the 45 edit (on Disco Years)
Extends from 0:00.0 to 3:12.0 of the LP version (on Street Jams)

Remove the 224 beats of instrumental greatness from 3:12.0 to 5:13.7 of the LP version (on Street Jams).

Segment 2
57 beats long, begins on snare, ends on downbeat
Extends from 3:12.1 to 3:42.9 of the 45 edit (on Disco Years)
Extends from 5:13.7 to 5:44.6 of the LP version (on Street Jams)

Fade
24 beats long
Extends from 3:29.9 to 3:42.9 of the 45 edit (on Disco Years)
Extends from 5:31.6 to 5:44.6 of the LP version (on Street Jams)

I noticed that the reprised verse near the end of the LP version ("A rumor has it that it's getting late") is repeated, cut-and-paste, from the first portion of the song. For what it's worth.

Other

The version on Rebound's Disco Nights Vol. 4 Greatest Disco Groups (1994) is sped up by about 2%. I found an edit and 3:18, then gave up. The last half of this version is the chorus, looped. It's not a version that was released in 1979, and it runs way too fast. Avoid.

Best Bets

I prefer the LP version on Rhino's Street Jams Back 2 The Old Skool Part 3 (1996).

I prefer the 45 edit on Rhino's Disco Years Vol. 4 (1992).

Edited by crapfromthepast

Don't pitch up, just fade early. All run at the proper speed, just with slightly differently-shaped fades.