Odyssey was at the crossroads by 1982. Disco’s late ’70s fever had burnt itself out, and the industry was transforming. Survival for most groups at this time meant making the transition—how to be relevant without losing the things that made them relevant in the first place. Their solution was Inside Out. It was more than another record. It was a message, the last stand, even an elegy.
Written by the enigmatic Scottish songwriter Jesse Rae, Inside Out had an unusual and irrepressible weight. It thumped with the skeleton of disco but with the atmosphere of something else—a funk undertone, a knowing melancholy draped around its rhythm. The bassline didn’t so much move; it crept. Synths shone like neon on wet pavement. Lillian Lopez’s vocals, yearning and assured, transformed the track into something more than dance music. It was about devotion, about sacrifice—not the way pop songs do, but the way life does. Love isn’t always pure. Sometimes it stretches you, warps you, turns you inside out.
The record was a success. It hit No. 3 on the UK chart, a sweet and sour triumph in an otherwise cruel decade for the acts who emerged from the disco era. It hit No. 12 on the R&B chart in America, proof that Odyssey remained capable, even if the mainstream was no longer listening so intently. But this music does not die. It lingers, waiting to be remembered. Over the years, Inside Out lived beyond its moment. It was revived by DJs. It was embraced by house music. It was reinterpreted by the likes of Electribe 101. It even got reworked into the surreal, cinematic world of Jesse Rae. It never disappeared. It simply evolved to new methods to breathe.
That’s the magic about Inside Out. It was never simply a hit for its time. It was a song about what time does to you—how it shapes you, transforms you, makes you cling or let go. And two, three decades later, when that bassline hits, when that vocalist sings about taking love “inside and out,” you know: it’s still resonating. It’s still stirring. It’s still around.
Sam Shelley is quite the musicologist. Well-founded in his musical roots, Shelley is known for digging a notch deeper with his funk and disco extensions.
His edit of Inside Out is no exception. The string laden evergreen gets a new life with Shelley’s magnificent flair for detail, and razor sharp scalpel.
My approach to the track was I wanted to keep this edit simple as the original is already a great track and didn’t need much to give it an extra lift and make in mix friendly for a modern DJ. Just a few tweaks in the right area made it fit perfect for a modern DJ set.
This is a song I have loved for a very long time, this is actually a favourite song and group of my Mums and so I would hear Odyssey music a lot when I was young. When listening to Soul, Funk & Disco radio stations this is one that is played a lot, a feel good mid tempo groover that’s very popular with the Soul crowds. So this has been a part of my life and I’ve heard it many times but I never get board of it. I just had to put my stamp on it. – Sam Shelley
Link:
Odyssey – Inside Out (Sam Shelley Extended Edit)
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