The Number Fortys: Kool & the Gang - "Tonight"

In The Number Fortys, we review every song that was sitting at #40 on the Billboard chats, starting in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either).

As someone who's catered his (un)fair share of Florida weddings, I've got some bad trigger stuff when it comes to certain Kool & the Gang songs. How are you gonna do it when you really don't wanna dance, by standing on the wall? Yes, Kool, that is absolutely how I am going to do it.

Anyway, this one's more rocking than your usual K&tG fare, especially during this decade, which they dominated with a smooth, non-threatening R&B that was so light it practically threatened to evaporate. "Tonight," on the other hand, is absolutely saturated in guitars that, in 1984 anyway, signified rock (I'm not sure what the howling tiger sound signified, maybe a love of Survivor).

Because K&tG had been, in the previous decade, a pretty hot-shit funk band, they lay down a solid groove that's more convincing than, um, Billy Joel's "Matter of Trust," which my YouTube algorithm, now broken and perverted by two weeks of doing this column, coerced me into watching the other day; it's a 3. The backup vocals feel choppy and plodding--tonight....oooh....this is the night...you'll see the light--and kind of ruin the song for me. But the backup vocals on that bridge, when it goes to the major! Tonight you'll finally see the light. That's the good shit right there. Somebody needs to pull that out and put it over...well anything, It's just pure saturated bliss, and in the context of the song's subject matter, does a nice co-mingling of the sacred and profane. Too bad it only lasts about 20 seconds.

Oh yeah, that subject matter. The song seems to be about a 16 year old on the night they lose their virginity (unless you think the song is about learning to dance, which is also a valid, if over-literal interpretation). As a song, it's nothing special, other than illuminating a musical corner of the K&tG universe that most people don't know exists.

3/10

THE NUMBER ONE

You bet your ass Van Halen is still number one. Four weeks and counting.