Customer Reviews

Firecrackers: Best of

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Mass Production style of music stood out. This collection capture your interest but does not keep your attention. The attention grabbers are not included on this CD. Examples: (Groove Me, Just wanna make dreams come true,and Love You) just to name a few. When I associate hits with Mass Production, Those are the songs that cross my mind. This is not a bad selection of songs but I don't think it represents the best of Mass Production.

I discovered Mass Production in the summer of 1977. While the compilation has a few choice cuts from the band, there is a big black hole where their best stuff should have been on this CD. "Believe" and "Three Miles High" contain the best of Mass Production and no tracks from those two albums, their second and third album, are on Firecrackers. There is hope; look for a CD store, Aris out of Grand Rapids, MI. I am using their service to get those two albums burned to disc.

Mass Production is one of the most underrated Funk bands of that late 70's/early 80's period, this cd only does them 3 star justice. Atlantic/Rhino put some of there best on this cd (Firecracker,Wine-Flow Disco, Welcome To Our World, Can't You See I'm Fired Up), But left off some of there best cuts(Slow Bump, Groove Me, Free And Happy, Sky High, Eyeballin, People Get Up, Watch Me Do It) which would of made this a five star funk BLAZER!

The track selection on this CD is a joke. Lots of great tunes are omitted (including everything from their best album "Three Miles High") and yet a few second-rate tracks are included. It should have been easy for anyone familiar with Mass Production to put together a 5-star compilation. Rhino Records doesn't deserve any of your money for this shoddy CD, which is an insult to a talented band.

Yes there are a few good tracks on this compilation but glaringly absent are 'Cosmic Lust' and 'Shante' - their 2 massive jazz-funk tracks. Overall the CD concentrates on their mediocre disco material.

This Band is Funky&Smokin' The Grooves hold up really well and they have a tight Horn Section.FireCracker is still one of the baddest Jams ever.they have other jams on here Equally as tight.

I agree with alot of what has been written about this CD. Way to shallow for a Band of this magnitude. For the guy that wrote "one hit wonder" he obviously knows nothing about Mass Produciton. As this is the only Mass Production CD that I have ever been able to find and it does have my jam "Angel" on it, it's really the only reason to buy it. This CD is not a true representation of what Mass Production was all about...hardcore, slammin' in your face Funk

The first time I discovered mass production was through hearing their 1979 hit "Firecracker" on the the classic r&b station on digital cable. I love the song for its progressive bassline and it made wanna grab this best of compliamation. With the exception of Firecracker, Turn up the Music, Wine Flow Disco, Can't You See I'm fired up, and Welcome to our World of Merry Music, the music on this complimation is tasteless and outdated.

One of the biggest flaws with this complimation is the lack of quantity involved. The complimation only have 12 tracks which doesn't satisfy die hard fans nor serve this underrated group any justice. The 12 tracks doesn't satify their die hard fans because it doesn't dig deep enough for their best songs and leaving them with their hits that's very familiar to them. The 12 tracks doesn't do the group any justice because the material is not consistently compelling. 12 tracks is not a lot of material for a complimation or any other cd in 2005. So for any record company putting together a compliamation that's weak in quantity, the quality of the music has to be
strong throughout the duration of the complimation. The record company failed to do acheive that task with the number of tracks they chose to work with.

Another major problem with the compliamation is some of the material chosen for this package. As I stated earlier, the material outside of a few standouts are tasteless and outdated. That's mainly because the remaining 50% of the music sound like artifacts of their time and nothing much more. In other words, the other songs may've sounded good at the time it was released but has lost it's freshness over the years and now sound stale by today standards.

For casual fans this will be a solid compliamation. but for die hard fans, it's best to pass on this complimaition and pray for a deeper, more thorough, and more importanly better complimation in the future.

I grew up in the 70s and certain songs are a part of that. If you're groovin' in a club on the east coast at that time you had to hear "Just Wanna Make a Dream Come True"! When you talk about Mass Production, you're talking about "People Get Up", "I Like to Dance" - songs that emphasize the groups all-embracing horn sections as well the rhythm section. Songs like "Groove Me" and "Sky High". You would be better off finding the vinyl and burning you own compilation than to buy this cd.

I'm extremely disappointed that "Nature Lover" is missing. I'm searching the internet for a download of that song & was praying to find it here.