Diana Ross and Chic team up for 1980's most infectious single

Diana Ross : Upside Down

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In July of 1980 Diana Ross returned to both the UK and US charts by joining forces with Chic to produce "Upside Down". The song, written by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edward and performed by their band,  hit #1 in the US and #2 in the UK. Though  "Love Hangover" ushered in the disco age in 1976, Ross had gone four years without a #1 hit. Then she caught a Chic concert in Santa Monica, California.

"Diana couldn't believe the crowd reaction," Rodgers told Billboard magazine. "She said, 'I haven't seen this since the Jackson 5.' She was backstage, dancing and into it. 'My kids made me come and see this show, all they were talking about was Chic, Chic, Chic. That's what I want my record to sound like.'"

But Ross only wanted to sound like Chic up to a point. When she heard the final mix, she went into the lab with Motown producer Russ Terrana and remixed the whole thing, pushing her vocals further to the front. This pissed off Rodgers and Edwards to the point where they almost had their names taken off of the project. 

"The basic problem was that we had two different concepts of what her voice should sound like," Rodgers told Billboard. "She hears her voice in one way and we hear it in another way. When it got a point where she wanted her voice to sound a certain way, we couldn't take the responsibility for it because that's just not how we make records."

The single helped sell ten million copies of propel Diana worldwide and introduce a new 80's vibe to the dance club scene.