Let me take you take to a place I know you wanna go...

Back in the late 80s and early 90s, house music grew from an underground niche at a few cool dance clubs to a phenomenon influencing most of the dance music through the next decade. Even today, most dance songs have at least one remix with that strong backbeat and thumping bass. I was lucky enough to be living in Chicago at that time, and looking old enough (with my beard and all) to get into these clubs. I was in another world dancing to these pulsing tunes with either the cool rapping styles like Doug Lazy or the anthemic gospel-like wailing like Colonel Abrams. Eventually house music spread to other areas, the most prominent outside Chicago being Detroit. Kevin Saunderson formed Inner City with his wife Ann and lead singer Paris Grey. With their first album, Paradise, Inner City defined Detroit house, hitting #1 on the dance chart with all four of their singles - "Big Fun", "Good Life", "Ain't Nobody Better" and "Do You Love What You Feel". The first three songs also hit top 10 on the British Pop Chart, with the last hitting #12. That's simply amazing. However by the end of that string of smashes, house music had been diminished in fadness by Soul II Soul and the slow shuffling dance music of 1990-91. The followup single, a cover of Stephanie Mills' "Watcha Gonna Do With My Lovin'", hit #8, but following songs didn't capture their former glory.

Good Life: The Best Of Inner City compiles most of the group's singles in England and America with a couple of extra album cuts for good measure. Five of the songs are from Paradise, the singles mentioned above and the title cut which is tacked on near the end, which is a fantastic song in it's own right. Then comes "Watcha Gonna Do With My Lovin'" which is a pretty good Soul II Soul clone that wasn't available on an album till now (I had the cassette single way long ago). After that, however, things get really spotty with only one really good song, the uplifting "Pennies From Heaven" (their only other #1 dance song) and "Follow Your Heart" (which made #2). Everything else is really forgettable, sorry to say.

Good Life does a good job with collecting most of their singles. All in all though, if you had the choice of either, by all means pick up Paradise for a much more enjoyable listen than this, though since it's pretty much hard to find, this collection will give you most of it and a couple goodies as well.

Grade: B
Best Cuts: Good Life, Big Fun, Ain't Nobody Better, Do You Love What You Feel, Pennies From Heaven, Paradise