Love Is the Answer

AMG Review of Love Is the Answer

Jason Ankeny
All Music Guide

Love Is the Answer captures Van McCoy in transition from the lush soul that defines the majority of his career to the sophisticated dance music on which his mainstream recognition rests. While not a seismic shift in conceptual approach, the album nevertheless captures a producer and arranger still grappling with the emerging disco formula, relying on the comfort and safety of classic Motown hits as he updates his sound for the evolving demands of the dancefloor. McCoy expands the basic template of familiar material like "You Are the Sunshine of My Life," "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "Touch Me in the Morning" with heaving swells of strings and horns, proving more sure-footed with the arrangement requirements of disco than its rhythmic concerns. Indeed, tepid percussion dooms Love Is the Answer, a failure that sheds new light on the formal elegance of his breakthrough hit "The Hustle," arguably the most old-school disco blockbuster of its time.