Customer Reviews

Collage - Greatest Hits

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Once the backup band for the Whispers, Collage went on to enjoy success with such hits as "Romeo, Where's Juliet?," and the classic "Get in Touch With Me," being the group's most successful single. This CD is a great collection of the group's work during their days at Solar.

WOW! I did'nt know much about the group until earlier this year (forgive me, I was born in the early 80's), but being a fan of SOLAR records artists, I had to find out. Like Heatwave, this band was one of the few multi-racial R&B/Funk bands in the business at the time. There's Cheri, The System, Skyy, and Champaigne, but those bands were only bi-racial. The Los Angeles funk outfit were great and their sound is like a combination of Shalamar, Slave, The Deele, and The Whispers. The Whispers discovered Collage and had produced their first two albums (1981's Do You Like Our Music and 1983's Get In Touch With Me) that contains the songs "Money In Your Pocket," "Groovin," "Love Is For Everyone" and the hit single "Get In Touch With Me." All their slow jams and mid-tempo grooves from their first two albums sound very much like The Whispers, yet a younger version. The Whispers' member, Nicholas Cladwell headlined their funky grooves like "Young Girls," and "Move In Time," but I find "Alien ZZZ" and "Punk Me Off" to be very Sci-Fi sounding and obscure, probally too obscure for Nicholas Cladwell to produce because The Whispers were known for creating and singing laid back grooves and softer songs. "Alien ZZZ" and "Punk Me Off" should have been replaced with "Simple" (found on Get In Touch With Me) and "In The Mix" (found on Shine The Light) because they were not too impressive. 1985's "Romeo Wheres Juliet" was a big hit in the UK (it should have been a hit in my country) and it was produced by Dana Meyers who is part of Leon Sylvers III's production team, Sylverspoon productions. That jam can work up quite a sweat and it is my favorite song by the band. Dana also produced "Winners And Loosers" which was a fantastic jam, very much like "Get In Touch With Me." After 1985's Shine The Light lp, the band faded away. Not sure if they released any music videos and there are no known TV performances of the band. SOLAR records failed with them to concentrate more on Midnight Star and Klymaxx (linked with Constellation Records) because Colalge did'nt make that many hits. I guess they were to simular to other black male bands, and bands that played their own instruments were starting to grow out of style by the mid-to late 1980's. Their songs are still selling otherwise Unidisc would'nt have bothered to place their greatest hit on intunes library (of which I brought entirely).

This is an collection of songs that brings back the times when you wanted to sing and dance when you played an album. The best song is "Shine the Light" that featured a little known sax player by the name of Kenny G. It's a song that should be a nightly request on the Delilah radio show.