CoronaVinyl Day 355 (R): Strikes Again! by Rose Royce

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "R," and among my most recent acquisitions from my neighbor were two Rose Royce albums.  Today's selection is their third studio album, 1978's Strikes Again!, which is also sometimes referred to as Rose Royce III: Strikes Again! or Rose Royce Strikes Again!  No matter what, there's a fucking exclamation mark at the end!

In case you were not aware, Rose Royce is not a person (though singer Gwen Dickey's nickname was "Rose"), but was an LA-based soul/funk/disco band in the mid '70s to mid '80s.  They are best known for their 1976 #1 hit "Car Wash," which was the theme to the hit film of the same name, but they had a string of other hits in the late '70s, particularly on the Billboard R&B chart.  The band had actually changed its name from Magic Wand to Rose Royce to fit in with the theme of Car Wash, and they hadn't released any albums up to that point, so why not?

The band was discovered by Edwin Starr, who introduced them to legendary longtime Motown writer and producer Norman Whitfield, who left Motown in 1975 to form his own label.  Whitfield produced Strikes Again! and wrote or co-wrote five of the nine songs on the album.  Strikes Again! is a great late '70s funk album, with a few dalliances into soul or disco, as was the style at the time.  You know I love the funk, so I was pleasantly surprised with this album, as I really didn't know much about the band outside of "Car Wash" before today.

The album went to #28 on the Billboard album chart and #7 on the Billboard R&B album chart.  The soulful "Love Don't Live Here Anymore" was the only song from the album that charted on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching #32 and becoming the band's fourth and final Top 40 hit on that chart.  The song also went to #5 on the Billboard R&B singles chart, making it the band's seventh and final Top 10 song on that chart.  It also went to #2 on the UK and New Zealand pop charts.  Other than that, "I'm in Love (And I Love the Feeling)" also reached #5 on the Billboard R&B singles chart.

The band continued making music into the '80s, albeit with some lineup changes, but they never matched their late '70s success.

Favorite Song on Side 1:  "Get Up Off Your Fat"
The album kicks off with straight funk.  This song could very well be on a Gap Band or Earth, Wind & Fire album from the same time.

Favorite Song on Side 2:  "That's What's Wrong With Me"
Co-written by the band and Whitfield, this is the final track on the album, and it's a banger.  "That's What's Wrong With Me" is a six-and-a-half-minute funk jam with spacey guitars and drum fills aplenty.