Love & Kisses

With the possible exception of the theme song from the 1978 movie Thank God It's Friday, Love and Kisses never enjoyed the sort of pop/Top 40 acceptance that Donna Summer, the Village People, the Silver Convention, and Chic did. Love and Kisses was, for the most part, the disco era's quintessential club act — most of its orchestral Eurodisco recordings didn't appeal to programmers at American pop/Top 40 stations, but club DJs were strong supporters of its music. Produced by Alec R. Costandinos in London in March 1977, Love and Kisses' self-titled debut LP contains only two songs: the 17-minute "Accidental Lover" on side one and the 16-minute "I've Found Love (Now That I Have Found You)" on side two. While "Accidental Lover" has a funky, sassy quality, "I've Found Love" is as dreamy and starry-eyed as it is campy and overblown. Disco's detractors, of course, hated the type of campiness that Love and Kisses often favored and saw this LP as a glaring example of disco's bloated excesses. But despite all those excesses, Love and Kisses could be fun — and this LP, although not a masterpiece, is an enjoyable artifact of its time.