Rose Royce: Strikes Again, Expanded Edition CD

• Having spent the 1960s redefining R&B through writing/producing most of The Temptations’ hits, Rose Royce would prove to be Norman Whitfield’s most enduring project of the 1970s. With 1976’s multi-racial quasi-musical CAR WASH acting as the band’s launch, the Grammy-winning soundtrack was a playful guide to the funk/disco the band would expand on through the remainder of the disco era. Signing to Whitfield’s self-titled label, Rose Royce would close out the 1970s with internationally successful hits.

• 1978’s ROSE ROYCE III: STRIKES AGAIN! (US #28/SOUL #4/UK #7) would extend the band’s run of chart hits, with ‘Love Don’t Live Here Anymore’ (US #32/R&B #5/UK #2) giving the album its most impressionable track. Gwen Dickey’s vocal is one of exasperation and in conjunction with the synth machine utilised throughout the song, the reality proposed in the fun-loving times of CAR WASH is turned inside out to beautiful effect.

• Conversely, first US single ‘I’m In Love (And I Love the Feeling)’ (R&B #5/UK #51) is quietly assured mid-tempo funk whilst the underrated final single ‘First Come, First Serve’ (R&B #65) pre-empts the anguish of ‘Love Don’t Live Here Anymore’ with a funk/disco strut that plays like a call-to-arms for anyone at the risk of heartbreak.

• Whilst the album’s deviation from light-hearted funk/disco offers some of the band’s most resonant moments to date, album closer ‘That’s What’s Wrong With Me’ creates another diversion. It’s a return to jolting disco but following a run of ballads on the record’s second half, there is more urgency to it; determination even. At over six minutes, the track manages to perfectly encapsulate the journey the band have taken in the preceding tracks and soar with more confidence subsequently.

• BBR are thrilled to present a newly remastered and repackaged edition of STRIKES AGAIN! with three added bonus tracks and comprehensive liner notes.

N.B: This title is released 27th November 2015 and will not be dispatched before this date.

Track Listing:

1. GET UP OFF YOUR FAT
2. DO IT, DO IT
3. I'M IN LOVE (AND I LOVE THE FEELING)
4. FIRST COME, FIRST SERVE
5. LOVE DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE
6. ANGEL IN THE SKY
7. HELP
8. LET ME BE THE FIRST TO KNOW
9. THAT'S WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME
BONUS TRACKS
10. FIRST COME, FIRST SERVE (SINGLE VERSION)
11. LOVE DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE (SINGLE VERSION)
12. THAT'S WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME (SINGLE VERSION)