1976 Tina Charles: I Love To Love

Ah, now this one has always confused me - "I love to love, but my baby just loves to dance, he wants to dance, he loves to dance, he’s got to dance"; poor old Tina, she's stuck in a relationship with a bloke who's always too busy strutting his stuff on the dancefloor to give her the seeing to she wants. Seems to me that she can't take a hint, but nevertheless Tina sounds strangely pleased with herself about it all. In fact, she gets stuck into the song as if her life (or career) depended on it, but her enthusiasm isn't particularly infectious and it's not enough to raise the interest bar too high. And that's because 'I Love To Love' is not that interesting a song.

Produced by Biddu (who'd previously penned the earlier chart topping 'Kung Fu Fighting')*, the main melody is catchy enough at first blush but its one dimensional nature means it chases its own tail for virtually the song's whole running time. 'I Love To Love' has no story to it, no beginning or an end; Charles makes that curious opening observation then continues to make it again and again and again and again with no elaboration until that "I love to love, but my baby just loves to dance" line is repeated around twenty times in three minutes.

It would have helped if it was carried a seriously funky backing, but 'I Love To Love' has the lightest of anonymous disco grooves burbling away behind it, too timid to do anything other than let Charles' vocal steamroller over the top of it without putting up any resistance at all. It's not that the Brits couldn't do disco properly (think of the Bee Gees for proof of this), but 'I Love To Love' is an identikit attempt at the genre with the component parts pulled out of a cheap Christmas cracker with Charles herself sounding like your tipsy mum singing karaoke at her birthday party. Like a doorstopping Jehovah's Witness on a Sunday morning, 'I Love To Love' is too smiley and friendly to get angry at, but it's not something you'd encourage to hang around for too long.

* On a point of trivia - Charles too had already been at number one when she sang backing on Steve Harley's 'Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)'.