Boney M., Ranked: A History Lesson You Can Dance To

Disco's greatest syllabus: Russian mystics, Babylonian exiles, a Depression-era gangster and one holiday.

Entries
12
Category
Music
Updated
  1. A kalimba resting on a moonlit beach bar with the stools stacked for closing.

    12. Kalimba de Luna

    Boney M. · 1984

    Tony Esposito's Italo hit, covered late in the run and stalled at German No. 16. A sign the party was winding down. Still pleasant, like a beach bar at last call.

  2. A paint-splattered easel in an empty studio with a billboard ad visible through the window.

    11. Painter Man

    Boney M. · 1979

    A cover of the Creation's 1966 mod single about an art student who ends up in advertising. Boney M. took it to UK No. 10, so now art students can feel bad about their career prospects in disco, too.

  3. A sun-bleached beach with a deck chair, an inflatable ring and a postcard rack.

    10. Hooray! Hooray! It's a Holi-Holiday

    Boney M. · 1979

    UK No. 3 and the purest distillation of Boney M.'s holiday-brochure mode. Silly? Thoroughly. Also impossible to evict from your head for the rest of the week, which is its own kind of craft.

  4. A rain-slicked brick street at night under a single streetlamp with a dance-floor light pattern on the cobbles.

    09. Belfast

    Boney M. · 1977

    A disco hit about the Troubles, written by Drafi Deutscher in 1971 as 'Derry.' Their fourth straight German No. 1. Boney M. would put a four-on-the-floor beat under anything, and somehow it mostly worked.

  5. A packed suitcase by an open front door with a disco ball rolling down the hallway.

    08. Gotta Go Home

    Boney M. · 1979

    German No. 1 and the rare Boney M. track with a second career: Duck Sauce's 2010 'Barbra Streisand' is built almost entirely on it. The riff was always the real star; it just needed a new agent.

  6. A circle of chalk on a sunny schoolyard with a spinning 7-inch record at its center.

    07. Brown Girl in the Ring

    Boney M. · 1978

    Technically a B-side. When 'Rivers of Babylon' started sliding, DJs flipped the record and the Caribbean playground song climbed to UK No. 2 on its own. The rare B-side that walked to the front of the bus.

  7. A snowy nativity scene lit by a spinning mirror ball instead of a star.

    06. Mary's Boy Child – Oh My Lord

    Boney M. · 1978

    The UK Christmas No. 1 of 1978, more than 1.8 million sold: Harry Belafonte's carol with a brand-new disco coda bolted on. Two of the UK's best-selling singles ever in a single year, from the same band, is absurd. They did it.

  8. A sunbeam falling across a 1970s living room onto a record player and a bowl of oranges.

    05. Sunny

    Boney M. · 1976

    Bobby Hebb's 1966 song, lacquered in strings and Liz Mitchell's warmth. German No. 1, UK No. 3. A cover so confident that a lot of Europe assumed Sunny was a Boney M. original.

  9. A 1930s getaway car parked outside a bank with a tommy-gun case and a pie on the dashboard.

    04. Ma Baker

    Boney M. · 1977

    A Tunisian folk tune, 'Sidi Mansour,' grafted onto a 1930s American outlaw, renamed from Barker to Baker because it sounded better. German No. 1, UK No. 2. Boney M. history: technically accurate if you squint and dance.

  10. A calm river at dusk lined with willow trees, a harp hanging from a branch beside a glowing disco light.

    03. Rivers of Babylon

    Boney M. · 1978

    Psalm 137 by way of the Melodians' 1970 reggae original, turned into a disco singalong. Five weeks at UK No. 1 and more than two million UK copies, one of the biggest singles the country has ever bought. Scripture has never had a better chorus.

  11. A 1976 German TV studio stage with platform boots and a bassline drawn in neon across the backdrop.

    02. Daddy Cool

    Boney M. · 1976

    The one that started it. A Musikladen TV spot in September 1976 sent it to No. 1 in West Germany, and that deep-voice-plus-falsetto bounce became the band's trademark. Knowing the deep voice is producer Frank Farian only makes it funnier.

  12. A candlelit Russian palace ballroom with a mirror ball hanging from the chandelier and a fur hat on a throne.

    01. Rasputin

    Boney M. · 1978

    Eurodisco as a history lecture: balalaika hook, a tsar's court and an assassination, all in under six minutes. German No. 1, UK No. 2 behind 'Summer Nights,' pulled from a 1979 Polish TV broadcast, then a TikTok dance craze in 2021. The mad monk never stays dead.

Honorable mentions

  • An object that evokes Nightflight to Venus.

    Nightflight to Venus

    Boney M. · 1978

    The album's title track segues straight into 'Rasputin,' and the album was their biggest seller. Disco's 'Abbey Road' medley, if Abbey Road had a mad monk.

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