The opening lines 'Freeze, I'm Ma Baker, put your hands in the air and gimme all your money', takes off with the story of gangster Ma Barker, whose name has had the 'R' erased for phonetic reasons. There’s also the simply spellbinding title song Love for Sale with its pounding, military disco beat, and hard - edged vocals by Marcia Barrett and Liz Mitchell.

These are some of the highlights of Boney M’s second album. The production work and arrangements are unbelievable. This 1977 album is an album for keeps released in India by then record label Polydor; it was lapped up by music lovers. Boney M are still today the world’s best-selling black band, even over thirty years after their break up since their first release in 1976 with “Take the Heat off Me”.

Frank Farian takes the lead on the closing track of side 1, the disco stomping Gloria Can You Waddle.

Side 2 opens with a lovely mid-tempo-with-a-reggae-feel track Plantation Boy then leading on to another surprising cover version, this time the gospel standard Motherless Child. Another highlight of the album with its complex musical arrangement is the unique sound of Liz Mitchell's lead vocal, and the chanting chorus of Silent Lover with excellent, sexy and jazzy vocals by Marcia Barrett who sighs and pleads for her silent, secret lover to be there when she wants him.

Frank Farian takes the lead on the closing track of side 1, the disco stomping Gloria Can You Waddle. The final cut is the eerie, melancholic Still I'm Sad featuring one of the most mesmerizing vocal performances by Liz Mitchell that closes the album.

The original cover art features the male member Bobby Farrell naked with a futuristic golden thong chaining female members, resembling African sexual slaves. American label, Atlantic Records found the cover "raunchy, so they used the standard back cover of a vinyl sleeve featuring the band wearing clothes, as the alternative front cover of American and Canadian editions. Though many might find the album cover a bit offensive, in India the American edition was sold.

All said and done, this surely is Frank Farian's masterpiece the brainchild and manufactured group he had started to set the world’s charts alight.

Reviewed by Verus Ferreira