Friday Flashback :: Odyssey's Inside Out

The year 1982 was a great one for R&B and music in general. Funkateers like Slave were hot, along with smooth R&B groups like DeBarge, new wavers' like Duran Duran and rockers-cum-pop-stars like David Bowie all seeing great success.

So quite naturally hit-hungry record execs came a-calling to every group under the sun looking for similar sounds and success. In that vane, one of the hottest joints of the year came from the New York trio of Odyssey. They were coming off of a massive win with their top-ten dance classic "Native New Yorker" a year or so before. Their label, RCA, was hoping to duplicate that success, but for the most part, the repeat was elusive as the follow up LP, Happy Together didn't quite hit the mark.

Odyssey did win with one track, "Inside Out," teaming with Slave and producer Jimmy Douglass. The Slave influence is readily apparent, the song sounding more than a little bit like Slave's big hit "Watching You," almost to the point that many thought that "Inside Out" was the same backing track without the Slave vocals.
 
"Inside Out" was a huge club hit, going to number 12 on the Billboard R&B charts in the summer of 1982. While their U.S. hits soon dried up, Odyssey had a few more hits in the U.K. before the group fell apart. But surely, "Inside Out" is memorable as one of the classic cuts of the '80s.

Today's Friday Flashback is a true classic, if not an original: Inside Out, by Odyssey.


Odyssey:: Inside Out
Album: Happy Together
Released: 1982
Billboard peak: #12 R&B, #25 U.S. Black Singles in 1982

Play the Track: Inside Out (to download, Mac users, Control-click, and choose 'Save Link As...' Windows users right-click the link and choose 'Save Target As...').