Search - Rose Royce :: Very Best of

Rose Royce was the most anonymous of disco hit-makers. They scored 11 R&B top 30 singles, but the fact that they had four lead vocalists couldn't have helped cement their image, and neither can their range of material, from funk-pop stomps ("Car Wash," "Do Your Dance") to smoldering slow ones. Originally assembled by psychedelic soul controller Norman Whitfield as a post-Motown project, the group gradually drifted from disco downpours to Quiet Storm drizzle. After their full-throttle debut with the Car Wash soundtrack, diminishing returns set in, though this compilation cherry picks the good album tracks from later records as well as the hits. But Whitfield's presence insured that there was usually something unconventional happening in the mix--check the Space Invaders bass on the ballad "Love Don't Live Here Anymore"--and the songs Whitfield and his stable handed them were powerful and resonant, including the original versions of Mary J. Blige's "I'm Going Down" and the much-covered "Wishing on a Star." --Douglas Wolk