D major · Camelot 10B · 112 BPM
Good Times
by Chic
- 112
- BPM
- D major
- Key
- 10B
- Camelot
- 87
- Danceability
- 9
- Acousticness
Released in June 1979 by Atlantic Records, "Good Times" by Chic reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 on August 18 that year, only to be knocked from the top spot a week later by The Knack's "My Sharona". The single went on to sell more than five million copies, which made it the best-selling 45 rpm single in Atlantic's history at that point. Billboard named it the number one soul single of 1979, and in Europe it reached number five in the UK while placing in the top twenty in Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden.
Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards wrote and produced the track for the band's third album, Risqué. Its lyrics nod to Milton Ager's "Happy Days Are Here Again" and borrow lines from "About a Quarter to Nine", made famous by Al Jolson. Rodgers later explained that these Great Depression-era references were a hidden way of commenting on the economic conditions of the late 1970s. The song also urged listeners to put on their roller skates and "participate", a nod to the roller disco craze then at its peak, and Rodgers said in 2015 that Kool & The Gang's 1974 song "Hollywood Swinging" partly inspired it.
The original single carried "A Warm Summer Night" on the B-side, with a 12-inch version extending the track past eight minutes. A 2004 reissue paired it with "I Want Your Love" and earned a Silver certification in the UK.
Good Times runs at 112 BPM, the tempo of pop, funk and disco-leaning dance. In classical terms it sits in moderato territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.14 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 536 ms. It is in D major, Camelot 10B, which shares its notes with B minor and mixes cleanly with G major and A major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.