Boney M. - Night Flight to Venus

Boney M. was a very confusing band for me. Disco sucked. By extension Boney M. sucked too. "Rasputin" was cool and didn't count, or at least it was exempt from the obligatory suckage disco was supposed to encapsulate. Then again, looking back I had a special compartment for quite a few disco songs I sort of liked, but publicly shit on.

Boney M. was the brainchild of German producer Frank Farian who wrote many of the songs, produced the records, and also sang. For years, many years, I had no idea that the folks on the cover weren't the ones on the grooves. The official line up of the band was Liz Mitchell and Marcia Barrett who shared lead vocals. Although it's Liz who is often associated as being the "lead" singer. They were both from Jamaica. Vocalist and dancer Maizie Williams was from Montserrat, and dancer and vocalist Bobby Farrell hailed from Aruba. Incidentally, neither Maizie or Bobby appeared on the records. If people knew, no one really cared. It was all about the image, and the image was cool.

Night Flight to Venus was their third album, and opens with the largely instrumental title track that features a robotic voice that was pretty groundbreaking for the time with the distinctive drum beat seguing into "Rasputin" a song that still makes me happy when I hear it. I can still see my wife's grandmother dancing up a storm at our family Christmas parties, while my brother in law did his version of a Russian folk dance. The rest of us clapped and sang "hey hey hey" in unison. The song is pure unadulterated cheese.

The other big song was "The Rivers of Babylon" a song I'd always liked. I always appreciated how it was played straight and treated the source material with respect. It really is a pretty awesome song. It's interesting to sort of compare and contrast Boney M. and ABBA - while they're really nothing alike, there are some similarities. Where Anna and Frida had the power and range and harmonies, Liz and Marcia often approached the songs in unison and didn't have the same impact. Not to say they weren't good - when they stayed in their lane they were pretty great. I'm starting to think this whole ABBA angle is a non starter, it was really only the song "Painter Man" that made me think it sounded a little like a weak ABBA song. Best to move on. If nothing else, both bands were considered safe - maybe that's the takeaway.

The album is pretty good, and at the times the songs sort of devolve into a generic disco funk beat that just sort of plays without going anywhere. What caught my attention were the cover songs. Side one closes out with a mind boggling disco interpretation of Roger Miller's classic "King of the Road" and then they wind up the record with Neil Young's "Heart of Gold" that was really quite good. Different, but good. I was expecting it to be another disco fiasco but have to admit they pulled it off.

Night Flight to Venus was better than I expected, and while there were some odd moments it was catchy, and the big songs have held up remarkably well. It's not an exceptional album, but when it was good it was very good.

There's a lot out there about Boney M. and it's an interesting and rather melancholy tale. All of the members of Boney M. have laid claim to the name, with each re-recording songs and releasing material, even those who didn't have anything to do with the records in the first place. It must have felt weird to be a member but not be on the recordings, but be on cover.

Meanwhile Frank Farian would continue doing his thing, and created Milli Vanilli much like he did Boney M. They were a studio creation, and he fronted it with the image he wanted the band to have. Except this time people weren't in on it, and when they found out felt betrayed ... funny the music was the same, except now it wasn't.

Go figure.

I guess Frank said summed it up best in his lyrics to "Rasputin"

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey

I didn't count them but I think you get it. It was a shame how he carried on.

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