Love is the message for us all

Following my usual rule of thumb, viz. that where disco is concerned longer is usually better, I recently found myself in possession of all 11 and a half minutes of "Love Is The Message" by MFSB. Well, what a strange record this is. What you get is in large part perfectly acceptable string-and-sax-driven "classic" disco, with minimal(ist) lyrics (in the style of Silver Convention's "Fly Robin Fly"). There is some nice Hammond bubbling under at various places, and the whole thing really does take off around the eight-minute mark with some rippin' electric piano. But something is not right: for the first three or so minutes, every time the track threatens to go into The Zone we are instead subjected to a totally lame middle-of-the-road saxophone ballad thing a la, say, Kenny G perhaps, or David Sanborn, very "no static at all", anyway, that belongs in a completely other song. And the mood is lost. It's a bit like cruising along the Great Ocean Road with the top down on a blissfully sunny day only to be stopped by traffic lights every thirty seconds.