After a long time away, Chaka Khan is back with Hello Happiness. Read on to find out if the Queen of Funk has still got it…
It’s been twelve years since Chaka Khan’s last studio release and at 65, the Queen of Funk is back with her ever-powerful and soulful voice for new album Hello Happiness. According to the singer herself, she hadn’t stopped making music after 2007’s Funk This but rather had simply not released anything. With this in mind it’s a little surprising to see only seven tracks on the album but as it’s quality that counts rather than quantity, benefit of doubt should be given before hearing any of the music.
Hello Happiness follows on from a period of personal strife for Khan, as after the death of Prince in 2016 she admitted herself into rehab for an addiction to prescription drugs. In these circumstances, artists either come back full of joy or write an album that’s an outpouring of grief and thankfully this is a case of the former. The album opens up in true classic Chaka Khan fashion with title track “Hello Happiness”, a confident and strutting disco number underpinned by a quality bass line. “Like A Lady” is up next and keeps the energy up with its heavy synths and “Ain’t Nobody”-esque rhythm and percussion which, combined with the opening track, really does transport you back to the 80s but with a more modern production.
“Don’t Cha Know” comes next which, in all honesty just sounds like the producers took a couple of vocal samples and got the studio band to jam around them. In and of itself it’s a perfectly listenable track but we really shouldn’t be getting any filler on a seven track album. Things take a more contemporary feel next with “Too Hot” as Khan channels her Amy Winehouse (the irony not being lost that she would surely have been an influence on the late singer) with a soulful almost doo-wop like arrangement.
“Like Sugar”, a track released in 2018 as a taster for the forthcoming album, is all manner of traditional disco and has very strong vibes of “Car Wash” by Rolls Royce from the late 70s – so much so that for the first minute or so I assumed it was a reworking of the classic track with new lyrics. A welcome change in pace comes with dub-heavy reggae tune “Isn’t That Enough”, which settles on providing a floaty and chilled flow that allows Khan to do her thing. Annoyingly, although there’s another track left on the album it comes in the form of a reworking of “Like A Lady” (the second track of the album). Opening with the sound of waves on the beach and an acoustic guitar it’s actually a very nice tune and would unsurprisingly fit perfectly well on anyone’s summer playlist. If it were the eleventh of twelfth track it would be a really nice way to end the album but instead it smacks of pretty poor value for money when one considers the total of tracks on offer here.
I saw another review for Hello Happiness that suggested that the sparse vocal arrangements of many of the tracks felt like Chaka Khan was enjoying the music so much that she sometimes forgot to step up to the microphone. I’d agree with this but add that it’s very much to the detriment of the performance as a whole and takes away from her main skillset, that of taking pop songs and making them soar through her vocal abilities. This, coupled with the previous paragraph means that the general feeling that you come away with is disappointment and of not really wanting to bother listening past the opening two tracks. If you’re using a streaming service then you won’t feel so hard done by but overall this is a rather underwhelming and unexciting return.
Author: Steve, Bristol store
