Diana Ross and Chic: How Days of Interviews Became Upside Down in 1980

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By 1980 Diana Ross was an Oscar nominated actress and former lead of the Supremes, known for Lady Sings the Blues and Mahogany, but her highest UK singles peak dated back to 1971. For her 11th studio album, simply titled Diana, she turned to Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic. The risk ran both ways: the pair had mostly produced their own band and acts in their orbit, and a flop would brand them the disco producers who derailed a legend. Rodgers admitted they had worked like an assembly line with groups such as Sister Sledge, handing singers finished songs. With Ross they spent days interviewing her about her life, frustrations and relationships before writing anything.

Those talks produced Upside Down, a song about an unfaithful partner set to tight R&B, funk and disco. Released in June 1980, it held No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks, topped the soul and disco charts, reached No. 1 in eight other countries and No. 2 in the UK, and earned a 1981 Grammy nomination. The song then took on strange afterlives: a Salt-N-Pepa cover for Space Jam and an MC Lyte remix with Missy Elliott and Puff Daddy in 1996, a 2004 Alcazar interpolation, a 1994 Disney circus video, and a 2013 Mercedes-Benz ad with head-stabilized chickens that drew a Jaguar reply in which a Jaguar eats the chicken.

• Rodgers later said the interviews may have been the first time anyone in a studio cared about Ross as a person.
• Upside Down went to No. 1 in Australia, Denmark, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Sweden and Switzerland.
• The Mercedes-Benz spot used the song to sell its Magic Body Control suspension.
• The track was slated for the fifth season of Stranger Things and reworked by Thundercat for a mobile game in 2025.
• King Charles III named it on an Apple Music program as a favorite that made him get up and dance.